The house is adorable, Susie! I envy you having that nice, big kitchen!

Linda

I agree, that's a great big kitchen! Congratulations on the new digs.

You know, my girls always wanted a pool table, LOL, but our house was so small I told them I'd have to put a piece of plywood on it and we'd use it like the Clampetts, with fancy "pot pushers". (grin)

Annie

Susie - your house is wonderful, thanks for sharing the pictures, I'm sure you'll all be very happy in the Garden State! I think you should go the library and look through all of the decorating magazines you can stand until you find the window treatment that jumps out at you. Then try to duplicate it.

With the bay window whatever you do I think the window treatment should be up against the window instead of in front of the seat/shelf area. Perhaps blinds but as I said, inside the alcove against the window.
With the lanai I wuld make sheers gathered at the top and bottom on that stretchy wire one uses to hang curtains from, and attach near the top and bottom of the glass areas. Would obscure but not cut off the light.

As a former row house girl you must be going crazy with all that LIGHT in the house, lol!
Hope you're basking in enjoyment after that year of home-sale hell. A new place can be so much fun!!
I had a good chuckle looking at the pictures of your daughter's room. Can you say "deja vu?" Hey, if it aint broke, don't fix it! How cute!

I agree Susie, I hope you are enjoying your wonderful new home - I've heard a lot of real estate horror stories, but yours definitely takes the cake! And I also love the roomy kitchen!

Awe, Thanks guys!!

The kitchen was the selling point for me.
In fact the kitchen is larger than my living room LOL!!
Keep in mind its an eat in kitchen but as you can see I have a large dining table and even when I open it up to seat 12 there is plenty of room so no I do not miss having a seperate dining room.
I am fascinated with whats inside those cabinet boxes in the garage...we just havent had the time to get into that right now.
On the wood floors I have been using a swiffer type dust mop for daily dirt and once a week I use orange glow.
The floors look so much better now!!
As for the backsplash we were thinking about going with something along the lines of either glass tile of faux tin.
I would much rather see the faux tin used in a more casual setting such as the man cave so I am leaning towards glass tile. I saw an episode of color splash the other day and he used this beautiful glass tile made using broken glass, it was pretty!!

Annie...we love the pool table! Growing up my family had one and as young adults my brother had one and we would go over every weekend for "tournaments". That brother moved and gave it to another brother who ended up selling it to make room for a bedroom ect...so needless to say when we were given the option of keeping it we said YES!!
It needs to be felted which we will do when Frank gets around to the man cave!!

Woodie...LOL!! LOve the garden state!! BTW...I am exit 23 of 295....love to have you over for lunch sometime!!

Cooleen...I agree about the bay window....There are many types of micro blinds out there. Right now as you can see they put up builders grade blinds many of which are cracked and we are missing one slat on each end.
Also with your idea I could use the floor of the window to display some art peices.

For the lanai I want to put up some heavy panels now and perhaps come springtime go for the sheers. I guess my biggest question is "do I cover the whole wall with drapes-even the doors??" or "do I cover the doors with a door type panel and the windows seperately?"
WE use the lanai door as our everyday entrance so if I make it like a wall of curtains we'll have to open the door many time during the day as we come and go and let the pooch out ect....is a dilemma.

Lpink...I wish I had a before pic of Amys room....there may be pics on the photo page-look for a post around Jan or Feb. Anyways the trim was done in blazing orange/red. Its was up against off white walls....it was poorly done so I was very proud of Amy for doing all the work herself!
Its like a whole new room. She has the room for a full or queen size bed so over the holiday break we will explore new beds for her room!

As for the ordeal we had to deal with...its really a distant memory now, We were "meant" to be here and thats all that we think about.
You know a lot of people in work still make comments like "oh the drive back and forth must be a drag"...to which I reply "as soon as I cross that bridge out of the city my stress just melts away LOL"
Oh and my favorite-you jersey folks will appreciate this one..."oh the taxes in Jersey must be killing you" To which I respond "my taxes are higher but...oh yeah...I have a single house on a double lot only 3 blocks to the beautiful park on the river and my gas is WAY cheaper, my insurance is way beyond cheaper and my sons school was ranked in the Philadelphia Magazine as one of the top 50 schools in the tri-state region....and I don't live in a rowhome where I hear my nieghbor flush their toilets thru the paper thin walls...and the crime rate-what crime rate-my town doesn't even have a police force LOL!!!
Usually shuts them right up LOL!!!

Thanks for all the comments. I love all the ideas so keep em coming!!

Cheers!
Susie

Yeah -- and someone pumps your gas for you because YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED! I love that about NJ. It feels so weird to sit in the car and have someone else pump the gas. Weird in a good way.

I, too, love your nice big kitchen. I love the glimpse of your yard and the view of the river. You done good.

For the lanai, could you get those wooden sort of venetian type blinds that are fixed in a frame with a rod connecting them all up the centre, and you open/close them by moving the rod up and down? You could screw them to the back of the door as well so you'd get the insulating effect without having to shift the curtain six hundred times a day (which would drve me batty VERY rapidly).

And it feels so weird to me to have to pump my own gas when I'm out of state - what's up with that, its smelly and icky and is it even safe? - and what's up with a survey I once was asked to fill out about the station's service - ummmmmm, what service was that? I pumped my own! (Sorry Susie :)

I really laughed out loud!!

All my life I have only pumped my own gas once!! REALLY!!
Its just one of the many quirks that make me, well me.

Its not that I can't pump my own gas, I just always perfer not to and I have a very sweet hubby and children who graciously did it for me...yes they enabled me to be a snoot but aslas I am in NJ now and I paid $2.25 a gallon yesterday and a nice man pumped it for me in the sleeting rain. I crossed the bridge to go to work and the gas was $2.70...go figure LOL!!

I have a question about our office.
The room used to be the old owners master bedroom. Why I don't know since its on the lower level and there is no bathroom down here yet.
We have chosen to use it as an office/craftroom/guestroom.
Our plumber is going to put a 1/2 bath in the laundry room but prob not till springtime.

My questions are, given the room size (23ft by 13ft) and the fact there are no windows, I am not sure about what color to paint the walls. The carpet is a true cranberry red and its in really good shape so I plan to keep it. The desk and furniture are light birch-the desks have brushed nickel legs.
I would like to stay away from cool colors on this lower level but the beige/tan paint swatches I have I'm just not happy with any.
One combo I am moderately happy with is a golden mustard color-much like brown mustard and olive green.
That color combo is so very trendy now I fear I may get tired of it and regret my choice.
Also I was thinking about perhaps getting a large mirror to go on the short wall behind the desk to give the look of a window??

The only other item in the room now is a stick lamp from target in silver with a black shade and some craft cubes from Michaels in white with silver pulls

I am not a beige person so I hope I don't have to paint this room beige LOL!!

Cheers!
SQ-riverhopper

I have heard a rumor that there are such colors as "warm" greys. Kind of stone-like colors, like "taupe." I am a fan of neutral colored walls though. I'm one of those weird people who would look at 101 swatches of light greys to find just the right one between grey and brown.

I'm jealous! I couldn't get the pictures to load :-(

I will try it again early in the AM - maybe the site will be slower then.

Alexa