We moved into our 150-year-old home in Charleston, Illinois in the fall of 2013.
Right now we are looking forward to Spring (but also wishing for some late February snow).
Here is a shot of the exterior of our house from last Spring with the dogwood tree (aka Harper’s tree) and the groundcover on our hill in bloom. Every year we add more drought-tolerant perennials with the hope that one day the steep hill will be covered in color. I really enjoy mixing different heights, textures, and colors to create a patchwork of lovely for all to see. I grew many of the plants from seed and some came all the way from our last home. We love to garden. We moved from a typical Chicago postage-stamp lot to a huge yard that hadn’t been tended to for decades. There are always so many projects going on at once. It is a lot of work, but is so rewarding each year.
In the fall of 2015, we painted our house in Sherwin Williams Dark Knight, with a slightly darker custom-mixed trim in a glossy finish. The house had been white with (decorative) green shutters for at least 100 years so we get lots of double-takes from passersby. It took courage to go for the dark color, especially since we are a relatively new family to a very small rural community, but I am so glad we took the risk. The house looked disjointed before, starting out as a Carpenter Gothic in 1864 and then being morphed into a more Georgian Colonial Revival style in 1920. I think the dark color solidifies the look.
Since we moved here we have made many changes. Here are the most recent shots of the house interior.
Take a look at our Holiday House Tour for even more photos.
To see what the house looked like before we moved in check out the “before and after” post.
Front Door
This color is Sherwin Williams “Nervy Hue,” isn’t that a perfect name! The doorbell is original and in perfect condition, the door plate and knob were eBay finds (We ordered many and tried them and resold the rejects, it was hard to find the right fit. Who knew antique door hardware was so complicated?!) and the mail slot is a reproduction from Signature Hardware.
In 2010, when Trixie was in Pre-Kindergarten, I wanted to find something easy for her to do that was creative and fun for both of us. I had her paint on watercolor paper and fill the whole page. After the page dried I cut out large heart shapes. Then we attached the hearts to pieces of patterned scrap paper I had lying around, added some drips of Elmer’s glue, and dusted the glue with glitter. The glitter kept flaking off, so I made simple envelopes out of tracing paper and closed them up with a sticker. They were so cute!
