Sunday, September 17, 2006

The Good ~ The Bad & The Ugly ~ PART ONE

The Good ~ The Bad ~ The Ugly! Part 1

I wanted to start with the GOOD of our moving adventure, which is our new home and being near our daughter and her family, as the rest of our moving experience pretty much falls under The Bad and The Ugly.

We live way out in the country, with the closest city being 20 miles away. We will not be going to the city often! The home sits on 1.3 acres of beautiful property. Thank goodness we have a riding lawn mower. The property is nestled among pine trees and the prior owners also had planted many different types of trees and flowers on the property. One of my biggest ambitions now is to learn about gardens of all types and to do some planting and growing myself. Mid, if you are reading this, I noticed that your interest falls into gardening and I might need some tips from you.

See below pictures for more details.






The above picture is of our 2 car carport. It has a light sensor that comes on should anyone drive up. It also has a sign on the gate from the previous owners that has a picture of a dog and reads "I can get here in 3 seconds. Can you?" Pretty neat since we have a dog that can do just that. LOL





The above is a picture of our rock garden and pond. Water comes out of the frogs mouth. Not sure if I am going to put gold fish in there or not, as our dog loves to jump in the pond.





The above picture is a front view of the home. It is a modular home designed by the prior owners. (I am sure Shawn Desrochers is probably saying "See, I told you that they would live in a trailer!" LOL.) I did want to give some information on a modular home. They are built by design and then moved to the property. They are permanent structures and increase in value. They do not have wheels under them and cannot be moved. Still I go back to the same thing that Shawn said about living in trailers. Does he think that people who lives in trailers are beneath him, or that he is superior to them? Give me a break!





The above picture is a back side view of the home. It did not come out real well in the picture, but beside our back screened in porch are several rose bushes. Yesterday a beautiful orange rose bloomed. The rose bushes have many colors. Red, white, pink, and as we discovered yesterday, orange.





The above picture just shows a view from our back porch. We really are enjoying the back porch. We have our swing on one side of the back porch and a sitting area on the other side.





The picture above shows the banana plants that surround the deck of the pool. They actually produce bananas.





The above picture shows some other plants around the pool. Not sure what they are, but I intend to find out.





The above picture shows a chicken in our yard. Behind our house on a dirt road and a little way down is a chicken farm. The roosters are very loud in the morning. Our dogs love to chase the chickens out of the yard.





The above picture shows flowers I picked from the yard. I do this about every other day now. It is so nice to have real flowers in the house, and the roses smell just wonderful.





The above picture shows the family room where we spend our time eating popcorn and watching movies, or just chatting. Very spacious and comfortable room.





The above picture shows the dinning area and part of the kitchen. The floor design is hardwood, which I really like. Behind the kitchen is the laundry room, which is also where our upright freezer is and this room leads out onto the back porch. I am wanting to put swing doors (or door) or something between the kitchen and laundry room, as I do not like it not closed off. Tacky to me. Any suggestions?





The above room is our living room. As you can see, it is pretty empty. We sold or tossed away all our living room furniture as it was not the right color for the room. The only thing we brought from our old living room are our paintings. Jim and I both love art, and many art pieces are also done by my family.





The above picture shows some of our bedroom. I am glad it is a large room, as our bedroom before was large and we collect oriental items, and they all went great into this bedroom. The bedroom also has a very large walk in closet.





The above picture is of our bathroom, which is off our bedroom. We really have enjoyed it. Behind the door is where the shower is. There is a HUGE walk in closet behind the bathroom. More like a little room actually. (We are using it for stuff we have not put out yet, right now.)





The above picture shows the skylight above the garden tub. Jim hung my stained glass butterfly in the skylight window, and it just glows with colors in the room when the sunlight first hits it. This skylight brings in a great deal of light into the room. We are always trying to turn the light out in the bathroom, only to realize it is not even on. We have to close the bathroom door at night as the light is so bright in the morning, it wakes us.





This little entry hall coming off the family room, leads to the guest bath and the other two bedrooms, which one we use as an office.





This is our office. We still have a great deal we need to do in organizing it. Our desk sits between the window, and right outside our window is the rock pond. It really is nice to have something to look at.

Well, that's it. We finally made it and had to give up and sacrifice a great deal to move here, but I must say, in the long run it was worth it. I hope you enjoyed the tour.

Hugs,
Katie

6 comments:

  1. I have found that I like the modular homes as much as the 'normal' homes on the market. Hemself and I are currently looking at houses (the Mini Manor is getting a little cramped), and I found a couple of modular homes that I liked.

    I love the plants and flowers around your property! Orange roses are some of my favorite.

    Moving sucks, but it's worth it in the long run.

    M

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  2. Hey Morrigan,

    We really enjoy the home. I was amazed at how large the home was, and they can be much larger. Modular homes are build to be energy efficient. All windows for example, are double paned. The utilities for this home runs about $125.00 in summer and around $100.00 in winter. I think it runs more in the summer due to the filter to the pool that runs continuious.

    Good thing about where we live is the water is free as we have our own well system. And it cost very little to maintain it. Bleach and salt has to be added to the system.

    The other day we went for a walk on a dirt road we found behind the house, and it was like a little neighborhood. There were chicken and cattle farms, and many people had horses on their property. All the homes were modular, and one was huge.

    The only thing I really am concerned with is tornadoes hitting the home. The two homes we lived in while in Huntsville, both had a basement.

    BTW Morrigan, there are some excellent sites on Modular homes and how they are built, etc. if you want to look it up.

    Thanks for commenting.

    Hugs,
    Katie

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  3. thanks for the tour, Kats...kinda makes us all feel like we've just visited. My son and his new bride moved into a modular... sooooo cute and open and spacious and adorable...but I too, worry about tornadoes... will just have to keep y'all in my prayers for that situation!!! lvya, mid

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  4. What a lovely home you have! Thanks for the tour. We used to live on a large lot (not as large as yours, but it was still nice). Now we have a smaller lot and a larger house.

    Modular homes are NOT trailers, even mobile homes are NOT trailers. Trailers are what you take camping. No one I know living in a mobile home has ever taking their house camping.

    The Manor is brick and it makes me nervous in earthquakes.

    Glad you're back.

    K-

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  5. Hi ms. karen,

    Thank you for your compliments and comment. LOL about the trailer. We have a trailer, and it is not a camper, just a trailer that hauls our riding lawn mower or anything else we want to haul.

    We are loving the place. The days have been just beautiful and starting to cool down.

    BTW, tell Morrigan that 2 more orange roses have bloomed.

    Anyway, take care and look for new posts coming soon.

    Hugs,
    Katie

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  6. Katie, you have a beautiful home. I really love that pond. It certainly makes the place. What difference does it make if it's a modular home? A home is a home and you own it.

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