It's February 2007. What Does Your House Look Like?

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I just went to look at a house that is SO CUTE! Eighteenth century (?) and probably very unsuitable for a small baby but I think I want to move in anyway...

http://www.homesonview.co.uk/hov/PHILNEWH/lPNP0146401.jpg

Come on, what do you mean not suitable? They had babies in the 18th Century and not all of them perished on gin.

Inside our living room. Me mum in the front. heh.

Swanky no? I'm posh, I am.

hahahahahah

Plus, I wanna make a shirt out of your sofa and wear it.

Archel, I actually thought there were just two houses in that picture until I had a closer look.

Part of front house.

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Staircase.

(Stolen from Ned's Flickr page. I hope he doesn't mind!)

I love our house so much. It's actually my parents house, but I hope to buy it from them one day. Maybe sooner than later: they live (permanently) in Japan anyway. It's actually a bit too big but I prefer that over a small house.

Oh, Argos £70 CD racks, you are a thing of beauty!

http://www1.myhome.ie/pictures/properties/9/7/2/289279/14343_9_pm.jpg

Boring, stupid, housing estate box.

haha! indeed nice house Nath. I'm jealous that Ned has visited you there. :(

The front of our house followed by way too many other pictures of various states of disrepair and renovation. Last night I was thinking I should actually take pictures of our nice living room furniture and decorations but it will have to wait until the contents of the kitchen cabinets have homes again.

Well, I do have a lovely print of this on my wall:

http://www.artmarine.co.uk/catalogueimg/430631083040302181329.jpg

i love your slate. ive had thoughts of slating the entire house before. i like a cold, hard floor.

The slate is fantastic. We put it in every room but the bathrooms. We're a bit worried that it's too dark/modern and might be a problem when we resale, but we like it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/Paronomasiac/viewfromkitchen.jpg

The house, from the front:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/Paronomasiac/home.jpg

xposts blimey cj! now i'm *really* jealous...

What I'd like to do with my house is get a kind of 50s atomic feel going. I have a couple of pieces already that fit with the theme--a g-plan coffee table and a 50s sewing stool/foot stool. I'm hoping to get more as time goes by.

Here is my living room (I hope this photo shows up), complete with dogs going "excuse me, wtf r u doin?"

http://lh5.google.com/image/trishyb/RdR0uqti3-I/AAAAAAAAAO8/sK56sm2msD8/DSC00007.JPG?imgmax=512

I'm jealous that Ned has visited you there. :(

If ever you come to Belgium, you know where we can have our little knitty talk. :-)

The back of mine from the garden. It was a wreck when I bought it 7 years ago and the garden totally overgrown.

i had a boyfriend who had a blue cattle dog named Riskum. That dog could catch and australian 5 cent piece (a little larger in diameter but the same thickness as a US dime) in his front teeth when thrown from a distance. Deaf as a post, though.

a friend's mom slated her entire house in a dark charchol, almost black, slate except for the living room where she used white shag carpeting. it sounds like a 70s nightmare but it actually worked beautifully. ive been in love with slate and shag ever since.

And the garden from the house last summer...with daughter.

xpost - I would love to have a big shaggy rug in my sewing room but I fear it would just be a magnet for cat vom and dog poo.

My garden is plagued with mole hills, mostly. We've tried everything to get rid of them (including sitting up all night with a shotgun, a la Jasper Carrot sketch) but they just keep coming back.

couldn't resist, sorry. If you have cute cats flaunt 'em.

That's such a perfect picture - cute daughter, cute cat, pretty garden, sunny day.

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I don't take any credit for the garden - it's a mrs dr.c thing really. I am regularly contracted in to did things up, cut things down and build things etc, but it's brawn not brains work that I do.

my "kitchen"
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y170/ilikemyvespa/RenosOct102006_005.jpg

my "living room"
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y170/ilikemyvespa/RenosOct102006_004.jpg

This is mine.

Thanks Kate and CJ!! (Don't encourage me further lest I unleash more catty cuteness). Lavender - yes, there's about 3 or 4 bushes at various points in the garden. It always gets cut and dried and then we don't really know what to do with it! Smells good though.

http://picasaweb.google.com/trishyb/RandomShots/photo#5031789026066227202

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This is from Christmas, obv, not Feb...but I cannae get home for pictures just now:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e66/LimitedLiabilityGirl/DSC00016.jpg

Above: the dining area & where I sit to read Pants.

Below: staghorn sumac in front garden (autumn), back garden (obviously) -

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We actually use those cabinets for CDs (about 350 in each); they're separate units from Ikea (Leksvik, I think)(. We've bolted them to the wall to avoid toddler crushing incidents.

Frightening beams of WANT shooting out of my eyes.

i think it's a feature, two pics per post.)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/DSC02344.jpg

The house needs work, which I'm hoping we can get done this year, though it'll require a loan. Siding, roofing (possibly solar panels), kitchen.

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/1472/stafs1.jpg

yup, i inherited a full wild garden in the front and in the back! i bought the house from was an elderly lady who was an avid gardener. although everything is gone now... buried under tons of snow and ice...

like the song

Upper left unit.

managed to find a FULL view of the front house. on the right there's an extra window which is ours. it looks like it belongs to the neighbours, but strangely it's part of our house. dunno how that happened. so below you have THREE windows.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/178/396427531_6ca49d6429_m.jpg

My mural is painted directly on the wall. The thing to the right of it is a free-standing screen.

Your house is gorgeous, Nath, it's like you live in a fairy tale.

I was really disappointed to find out that Emsk's endless wall is merely a block of posh flats. :-(

(i'm jealous of your house btw, so nicely decorated!)

Your house is gorgeous, Nath, it's like you live in a fairy tale.

then why do i have a headache. roffle. it IS a nice house. looks quite big and it is, but it doesn't really feel that way. i reallu want to get a proper staircase to the attic, that place is AWESOME with really big windows.

Me and Mrs Coastaltown have just had an offer accepted, so fingers crossed I'll have something to pop up here soon.

C.J. - I somehow suspected your gaff would be along those lines, think I may have to wait for a couple of houses down the line for something like that.

(Now our logistical nightmare begins - the stairs are so narrow that only flat pack furniture is really feasible for the upper storeys...)

Such great homes! And gardens!

CJ, as a landscaper, moles are one of my most intractable foes. If you try to reduce the number of grubs in the lawn it might help. Milky Spore applications take a while to kick in, about a year, but my mother's home was free of Japanese beetles for about 20 years due to it. It's a lot less toxic than the pesticide grub-killer. Here it's the Japanese beetle grubs that the moles and skunks feed on, and they don't do a very good job of eating them up, because armies of adults hatch out and decimate the garden. In one garden I took care of they even went after the Powis Castle artemisia, which has such a pungent smell—I would think it would have insecticidal properties. I put down lots of Milky Spore, so the little bastards should taper off.

As for slugs, they don't like pelletized lime, either. And they LOVE regular showers from an in-ground irrigation system. First thing I do at a landscaping job is cycle those suckers down. Most people set them to once a day, which is slug/mildew heaven, and washes off all your deer-deterrent spray, despite manufacturers' claims to the contrary.

Trish, do you own or rent? There are all sorts of ways you could break up the geometry of your house. A turret poking up from the roof, a bay window bellying out at the front. Not to mention wacky jungle plantings!
You better get busy with a sledgehammer right now, because someday it'll be against Historical Preservation restrictions to do any alterations!

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e391/marthasminions/housefrontthrucherry2.jpg

My humble abode, with winterkilled garden. Bottom pic taken thru one of the scraggly black cherries that we have all over the place.

Yay nematodes!

the back garden and pond in its youth. It's much more jungly now, with lots of volunteer miscanthus clumps and tons of malva. Only the front edge is tended to at all. Pick your battles.

This is why we drink beer out of bottles! ;)

Beth, do you know much about succulents or citrus trees? My agave plant and lime tree are looking the worse for wear here at winter's end.

Sam, I don't know anything about outdoor growing in your zone. Are they house plants? I had terrible trouble with scale on my indoor grapefruit, despite all my soapy-water ministrations—hand-sponging each affected leaf. When I put it outside in the spring the problem went away, natural predators, I guess. But then the scale would come back when the plant was moved back inside, and by the end of winter things were dire, with sticky scale honeydew dripping all over. I finally euthanized the plant by putting it on the compost heap mid-winter, which was hard—I had grown it from a seed! But it was infecting other plants. The scale spread to my bay laurel and ficus, but not to such an insane degree.
As to agave—the only problem I can think of would be excess moisture?

http://www.cactus-art.biz/note-book/Dictionary/Dictionary_M/mealybug_agave.jpg

http://www.cactus-art.biz/note-book/Dictionary/Dictionary_M/dictionary_mealy_bugs.htm

Iron deficiency?
Iron (Fe)

The plant needs iron to produce chlorophyll. Iron deficiency causes a distinct pattern in the leaf caused by a loss of chlorophyll; only the main veins stay green. Iron does not move easily within the plant, so young leaves are the worst affected, showing the symptoms, while older leaves may remain green.

Leaves showing the effects of iron deficiency

Iron deficiency is sometimes called ‘lime-induced chlorosis’, as it is worse in calcareous (calcium rich) soils with a high pH. This makes iron unavailable. The problem is accentuated where free lime concretions are found near the surface of the soil. A high water table (which causes a low soil-oxygen supply to the roots) or a low soil temperature can further aggravate the problem.

Effective control measures include careful irrigation (avoid overwatering) and the selection of tolerant rootstocks. Do not plant Poncirus trifoliata rootstocks in problem soils, as this variety is more sensitive to iron deficiency than sweet orange, rough lemon or Troyer citrange. Cleopatra mandarin is one of the most tolerant rootstocks if there are no drainage problems. Lemons are more prone to chlorosis than oranges and grapefruit.

Foliar sprays of iron sulphate or iron chelate are ineffective. If a few trees are affected, try iron chelate applied to the soil under the trees; however, this treatment is uneconomic for a large block—management is the only option here.

the lime tree might have been overwatered. I was worried more that it froze. we only ever got one lime off it but it is still young.

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if you can see past the beautiful vespa, that is my house. the 3 houses to the left of us are shotgun houses. we are renters.

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Well, I don't do anything, rent nor own, We just live in my parents' house. But I'm trying to find a way to buy the house from them. As they live in Japan, and intend to stay there even when they retire, I think the bestest plan would be for me to buy the house. I mean, it doesnt really serve them any purpose. I also love the house so much. I'd cry me a river if I had to move. It's a perfect location and, even though it doesn't feel that way, it's quite big. I could easily live in a smaller house, but, hey, if you get the chance to live in a big house, why not? It'll be great with two kids.

Congratz?

Not as much as she used to (or wants to) - I don't need to explain why...

(i'm jealous of your house btw, so nicely decorated!)

Thanks! Truth is, there are five times as many things still to be hung on the walls and, a year after moving in, 30-40 boxes (of the 200 we moved with) are still to be unpacked. I was careful to only show the outside and the living/dining area because upstairs is in abject chaos. We're slowly getting the nursery together, so Ava continues to sleep in what should be the office, walled in by boxes. There is no time...

How do you all afford mortgages :( I cant even get it together to get a deposit for a homeloan and I have a decent job and am in my 30s. Not fair.

Deposit on old flat came from savings (lucky enough to ride the IT boom in the mid-'90s and earn more than I could spend), deposit on this house came from equity in old flat. But now, having had to start from scratch at 34 when my old career went down the pan and with Pam having not had a proper income since starting her first spell of maternity leave in late '04, we're actually not affording our mortgage any more. Hard times...

Summer
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