Houses from my past

I don't know about you, but when I look through old pictures I tend to get lost in them. That's what happened when I was looking through them for the last post. Time really does fly by fast.

For instance the picture below is of me (and my brother) at about the same age as Annie now and although it seems like and is a lifetime ago it also feels like yesterday.....Lord almighty... where did that body go? Oh yeah, I had two cesareans ;)

Anyway, as I was looking, I came across some pictures of houses that I had lived in and I thought I'd share some of them with you. Warning though, this is before blogging and a long long time ago, so they are not the best quality. Oh and you may also notice that there's no mention of men except Rich in this post, but I like to live in a land of make believe where there never was anyone but him, so I hope you'll understand ;)

First up is my old bedroom when I was between the ages of 10 and 15. It's the last house we lived in were I grew up in Arcadia, CA. It was also the first room where my mom let me have a say in decorating it.

This is my desk and I used to show horses, so those are my awards on that lamp.
This is my dresser and you can see I was already making vignettes and collecting ;)

This is a picture my little brother took of me (and a friend) with my hair wrapped in a towel. At the time I wanted to kill him, but now I'm glad he took it, because it shows part of my bed and the window treatment. Look how big that corded phone is! LOL

I cut my friend out (lol) to show you a closeup of the wallpaper my mom let me have in there. It was a big deal because Olivia Newton John had it in her house and it was all about her in those days. Grease was the word, even a few years later ;)

You may recognize this... it's my great grandmother's hutch that's in my house now, but back then it was in my mom's breakfast room that.....

you can see here. I loved this room.Sadly, my mom has all the pictures of the front of this house, but I have a couple of the backyard. That's our dog Maggie jumping out of the pool.

Here we are posing for a family portrait out there. You can tell it's the 80s by my lopsided hairdo... yikes!

After that house we moved to Santa Ynez, CA (by Santa Barbara) when I was 15 and I can't seem to find any pictures of the ranch my mom bought (she has those too), but I do have a few of my very first house that I bought a few years later..... It's also the house I lived in when Alex was born.

This is one of the only pictures I have of the inside. It was all about primitive country back in late 80s and early 90s ;)

This was my second house (still in the same area, but in Solvang, CA) and again the only picture I have of it without a bunch of people in it. This is the flier from when I sold it.

This was my third house and I bought it when I followed my mom up north. This is in Pacific Grove and it was new construction in a town filled with Victorian beauties that I couldn't afford (sigh). It was really cute though and Annie was born while we lived here.

Here we are in my bedroom. Can you say dramatic? (lol) It's where the devastating accident happened to Brownie (my stuffed dog). We only lived there for about a year. This was my fourth and one of my favorite houses in Pebble Beach, CA.

It was only about 1600 square feet, but it was so charming. I loved everything about it except the size back then. Now I wouldn't care. I don't have a picture of the front after we bought it, but I tore out all the vegetation you see out front and put in a beautiful green lawn by myself. I was very proud :)

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Pay no mind to the little monkey on the chair (lol) This is the inside and it was so small that in this picture I am standing in the kitchen and you can see the whole house (dining room and living room) except the bedrooms. Oh... but it had a beautiful bay window that you can see to the right. Loved that!

Most of Annie's baby pictures from the last post are taken in this house, so if you go back you can probably see a little more. Here's the living room at Christmas. Do you think I had enough furniture squeezed in there?

Finally here's the last house I lived in before moving into this one. We moved from California to Virginia and I had hopes of buying a horse one day. Little did I know that I would meet Rich and it wouldn't happen. Although getting Rich instead is a pretty good deal ;)

Here's the house from the road.

You'll also see the kitchen from this house in the last post with my mom and Annie in it and the living room with Rich and Annie, but this one is of the dining room (Those are the curtains Nikki).

Oh and I cannot believe it, but my mom has all the pictures of her old farmhouse in Virginia and I'm stuck showing you this one. That's me in a rental car that I was making fun of because it looked like a peanut M&M (lol).

Anyway, that's the house that made me realize that I could do most of the work on an old house by myself, because my mom and I did all of it ourselves, except adding on the family room and the really heavy construction. Among other things, she pealed and scraped paint and I painted and painted for about 2 years. We were really proud of it too.

When I moved to Ohio with Rich she moved out to Arizona to live closer to my brother and she sold it about 2 years ago. She loved that house too, so I still feel guilty, except that I know that she's much happier in the Arizona sun and living near her newest grandson :)

So that ends the tour of places I've lived, except the house we're in now and yes, I know... we moved a lot. I hope you had fun taking a glimpse of my houses past :)

Thank you so much for all the sweet birthday wishes for Annie. She was thrilled! Oh and if you think you cried... I could barely see the computer as I was putting it together! Thank you again....

hugs and love,

rue