Hi Everyone! I hope you are doing well and enjoying these very last days of Wintertime.
Life is so busy here these days as we move from Winter into Springtime. We have had an amazingly warm Winter with only one freeze and that did not last long.
A while back, a Sweet Southern Days blogpost was completed showing the "Before and After Guest House Remodel" of the outside of the little guest house down the hill from our home.
If you would like to see that blogpost you can click on the link below:
At that time I said I would eventually be completing the inside decorating of the little house. That project has been completed for a while now, except for making some matching couch pillows. I dragged my feet getting the curtains made for first, the downstairs, and later on, the upstairs. We were not in a hurry to complete the inside, and slowly found this-and-that we thought would look nice in the "little house."
As mentioned in the previous before-and-after blogpost, this little house was originally a tractor barn and slowly over time was turned into this little guest house. The below photo shows the original sliding-glass-doors leading to the inside bedrooms downstairs. The living quarters are upstairs with a small little balcony as seen in the below photo.
The below photo shows the beginning of the outside construction.
And the finished outside.
In the below photo we see how the little house is located down the hill from our home.
In the below photo notice the little balcony above the porch roof.
From that upstairs balcony we see the view below. If you look carefully past the big tree on the right you can get a glimpse of the pond. You also see the side yard, plus the gravel roadway that circles the property.
And still looking down from the balcony we see the little circular
drive which is part of the gravel driveway.
drive which is part of the gravel driveway.
Back downstairs we see the end of the circular driveway from the ground.
This is a view below from the little porch. It is a nice inviting spot to rock in the rocking chairs and have a nice cup of hot coffee, hot chocolate or on a warm day some cooling iced tea.
We found these monogrammed door mats at the following site:
http://www.grandinroad.com/monogrammed-coco-border-door-mat/450650
We found these monogrammed door mats at the following site:
http://www.grandinroad.com/monogrammed-coco-border-door-mat/450650
And below is the view as you are sitting in the rocking chairs looking out toward the pasture and pond off in the distance. All of the grandchildren enjoy fishing in the pond and hoping to catch the "big one."
From the porch, to the left in the below photo, we see the walkway around to the main entrance which is actually in the back of the little house. And, we see the walkway on over to the covered patio which is used for grilling and cooking out or having a picnic and a nice place to visit with friends.
The below view is looking out toward the front toward the pond from under the patio.
And in the photo below we are looking toward the other direction, on up the hill toward our house. If you look carefully you can see the Confederate Rose tree our builder shared with us when the little house was completed. It grew really fast because it was only a couple of feet tall when she gave it to us.
This is a close-up of the pretty Confederate Rose flower.
Walking on around from the patio we see the stairway going on up to the second floor of the little house. These stairs go up to the living quarters of the home, which include a small little bathroom, and an all-in-one room including the little kitchen, dining room and a living room/TV area.
Come on let's go on upstairs and go inside.
As we go upstairs and open the door and the screen door ...
We then enter into the main living quarters.
The below photo shows the door we enter as we go upstairs. The screen door is on the other side of the main door so on a nice day the door can be opened and the fresh air can flow in through the screen door. I especially like the window panes on the inside door so we can still look outside.
In this below photo we are at the other end of the room looking back toward the entrance.
After the remodel was complete we wanted to use some of the items we previously used in the little house, plus some other items we used over the years from our home up the hill. We wanted everything to have a simple, comfortable and old traditional feel.
Let's start with the little living room ...
In the below photo we see the main sitting/ TV portion of the upstairs room. It is hard to tell from this photo, but looking to the left we see the TV.
The tan leather matching sofa, chair and ottoman were used for many years in the little house before the remodel. There is a leather company in town who took this furniture and totally repaired any leather problems due to years of use. When they returned the furniture to us it looked totally new.
We like the comfort of this simple little room. The whole room was originally dark wood paneling. We decided to lighten thing up a little and paint the end portions of this room the same color as the ceiling. Then, the painters refreshed the wood-paneling making it look like it too was new.
We have an old Southern style favorite furniture store up in Thomasville, Georgia. If you would like to take a look at their website you can click on the below site:
Thomasville is only a 30 minute drive from us, so away we went hoping to find a small swivel/rocker. As you can see in these photos we did find a small rocker we liked. While there looking for the rocker, we also found the carpet you see under the coffee table. A year or so before we began the remodeling, I found the curtain material I LOVED for the upstairs windows, so I already knew the colors we needed in this little room. I will share the information about the curtains in a later post.
The two wildlife lamps seen on each side of the couch were found at the below website:
And the other lamp is from the same site:
We thought these lamps fit right in, especially because we often see wild turkeys like this and deer walking across the pasture down in front of the little house.
The lamp table came from an antique store in Havana, Florida,
which is about a 25 minute drive from Tallahassee.
I love the old look of this table ... Wish I knew it's history.
While visiting Southern Heritage Fine Furniture in Thomasville we found this picture you see over the sofa in the living room. I especially liked this picture showing old Southern Live Oaks and azaleas. Also, the red azaleas in the picture picked up the colors in the rocker and carpet.
Don't you love a picture you can climb into and walk around ...
I can just imagine an old Southern Plantation at the end of that azalea filled drive.
This old bowl sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch belonged to my husband's mother, Savannah, from Moultrie, Georgia. He told me she use to make bread in this bowl. We picked up some pine cones from the yard and placed them in this special bowl to help bring the outdoors inside.
We have had that old coffee table seen in the below photo for many many years. To make it look new again we had it refinished. Now it really does look new again.
Looking back to the entrance door from the living room we see a small metal fence.
You probably would never guess what this is .... Have you guessed? Well, if you said, "an entrance to a spiral stairway", you are correct! See the little entrance gate with the lock....that is just in case there are any little ones around - a safety gate. And, for adults or pets as well.
The below photo shows how the little stairway loops around and descends to the downstairs bedrooms below. The painters repainted this spiral stairway and as a result it looks totally new, but it is actually about 35 years old.
When you go down these stairs you enter into a small hallway. Off to the left you enter into a small bathroom and on into one of the bedrooms down below. If you go forward you enter into the other bedroom on the right. From the extreme right you enter into the laundry/storage room. We will see this downstairs section in a follow-up post.
Don't want to bore you with too many photos so will end this post here. I do hope you join us next time as we continue upstairs showing the cute little kitchen and small dining room.
It is really cold here this evening in Tallahassee. I do hope that wherever you are that you are all snuggly and keeping warm and cozy ...
Remember, in just four days Spring will be here. 😊 Happy last little bit of Wintertime wherever you may be.
Looks pretty good. I really like the style
ReplyDeleteGKing Construction - General Contractor in Solano County
Mr. King - Thank you for stopping by for a visit. So glad you like the style of the "little house."
DeleteBlessings Pat