My ex-husband Les and I
used to reside in South Carolina....in a well-known older home ....and
it was my dream
home. It was called The Old Cantrell House for many years.... and it even
has a secret room tucked away out of sight. If I didn't show you where that room
was, and how to get there, you might not find it. These photos were taken
during a rare snowfall on January 3, 2002.
This
is a picture of our home several months after we purchased it. February 2002
makes eight years since we bought this wonderful place. You can see all of the
lush woods behind our home. It was so peaceful and quiet here. Then, almost five
years ago, the woods were destroyed and a housing project was built behind our
home. It was devastating to us.
The homes that were built are 'pre-fab' trailer
homes. So, instead of the beautiful woods that surrounded our home, we are left
with only the trees on our property, and a disgusting view of the tops of those
ugly pre-fab homes. You can see what our home looks like today, in viewing the
pictures above. We've painted our home in the past several years.
I love my home and the fact
that it is so unique. I have to have an 'interesting'
home....not a home that looks like everyone else's. The people who built it,
nearly 54 years ago, built it with 'quality'....not just for show.
They were among the wealthiest people in the county, at that time, and they
spent good money for the good quality. Every floor in my house, with the
exception of one bathroom and the sun porch, is hard wood....no carpets in my
home. I have never liked carpeting.
And, this is another page
that has the sentence 'sad to say'. But I lost this home in my divorce with Les.
He abandoned me for another woman and walked out on our marriage. We divorced in
September 2006, but I lost our camper, the house, my excellent credit of 31
years, etc.
I'm going to raise a
section devoted to where I live now, which is in a duplex that my girlfriend
owns. I'm happy here, at least I don't have to worry about losing it after
having it for 15 years.
I'm going to keep these
pages up for a while longer. I enjoy looking at the pictures and it doesn't
upset me. I've gone on with my life, found a new love, and I am looking ahead to
my future.
I did enjoy every minute of
living in my own home. I hope to own a home again one day.
This page and the following
page of more of my house was written back when my ex-husband and I were
together. I just left it as it was. I didn't feel like going back and re-writing
everything because there was no point...I'm no longer living there.
Pictures of part of my
kitchen!
My
regular email buddies have been hearing of the new 'old' stove I purchased. On Monday, July 24th, 2000, I finally found the stove I've
been wanting for a long time. It dates back to the 1950's....and is quite large.
The third photo is the top of the one I used to have. We are still doing the
last of the remodeling of the kitchen, and I really hate showing the unfinished
project, but I am so proud of my stove. We still have to finish the brick work
on one wall, and have recently installed a natural slate countertop.
When
we first began the project, one of the first things we did was to build a huge
cupboard / shelving unit. (pictured
below)
Another
shelving section that we built was over the pantry and the basement. These
photos were taken while the building was still going on. I would spend my days
sanding and staining the boards, including the ones we put on the walls, and
then Les would spend the evenings putting them in place. We are a wonderful team
when working on our house. And I even have my own power tools!
(pictures below)
Here
are a few sections of my kitchen. We've done a lot of remodeling in the past
three years and only have a few more things left to do. These were taken before
we remodeled the countertops.
Recently, my husband and I took an old
work table and made it into a nice kitchen island. We cashed in all of our
rolled-up pennies and bought all the materials needed in order to re-build the
base of the island. We had a total of $131.00 in pennies. It probably took about
another $20.00 on top of that to complete the project. We sanded the butcher
block section of the table, stained it 'natural' and put mineral oil on it after
it was finished. Here are the 'before and
after' pictures of this project.
Before
After
Another recent project has been to replace
the countertop. We used a natural slate with black grout. The third picture is
rather dark, but shows the unfinished countertop from when we built that one
section a few years ago. (pictures below)
Before
After
Everything back in place!
My
Bedroom...
My bedroom is one of my
favorite rooms in the entire house. It has a wooden ceiling, walls, and floor
and it's huge!
The
Deck Area and Sun Porch...
This is my very first
deck-garden, so, the view is constantly changing out there...I've got a long way
to go and I'm learning so much about this, thanks to my friend Whisper. She's
going to make a gardener out of me yet!
Well, as I keep gaining new
plants, I keep changing the deck around. Here is how it looked on June 19,
2001.....we rearranged the deck once the plants began to grow real well..
We have moved our
computers onto the sun porch...and we love it ....it's so much brighter and bigger.
We're still not finished with what we plan on doing, but these pictures will
give you an idea of what we are working on...
The next set of pictures are of the sun
porch...starting with the entrance of the sun porch from the kitchen
area.
We did take some more pictures....of the
living room and of the deck. They are on the next page.
