Harmony Hills Home and Garden: Our House

Welcome to our home!

I thought it might be nice to share how our home looked on the day we moved in... as we waited for the moving van to arrive, on a cloudy, overcast, very hot and humid day in August 2015, I went around the house and snapped photos of the empty rooms.

Apologies for the darkness of the photos, I didn't have my best equipment with me.

We'll start the tour by taking a look through the first floor. First, a drawing of the layout of the house. It's basically a four-square Colonial style house, with an added sunroom on the far right, and a laundry/half-bath behind the stairwell.

Here's what you see when you walk in the front door (panoramic shot for the win!). The stairwell is unique... it's got three steps up to a landing, then turn right up two more steps, then left again up another 11 steps for a total of 16 steps up. On the opposite side of the first landing, there are three steps down to the back foyer area.

Here's another vantage point of the unique stairwell. That cupboard door under the second landing opens up to the basement stairwell acted as an early climate control for the house. In the old days, the family could open that door, open the basement door to the outside, and open windows throughout the house, and cool air would be drawn up from the basement into the house to help cool the house down in the hot weather. I suppose we could still be doing this, since we still don't have central air conditioning in the house!

The living room is large, with the original fireplace mantel that's been outfitted with a gas insert. The wood floors are original, and feature inlaid border around the perimeter. They need to be refinished - a task for another day. French doors on the left of this picture lead to the music room, and the french doors straight ahead in this picture lead to the first floor sunroom.

The house is heated with steam radiators and an oil-fired boiler. It's a step up from the coal-fired boiler that was originally used!

The dining room is large, almost square, and features French doors that originally opened up onto the north side porch. These doors have been bolted shut, we assume for security purposes, since the doors would be fairly simple to break open. The chandelier is Austrian leaded crystal imported from Germany in the early days of the house.

There is also a swinging door to the kitchen, which we typically leave open for better airflow.

We love the triple windows on the front of the house in both this room and the living room - lots of light!

The Music Room is in the back of the house behind the Living Room, and is connected by these french doors.

There's a smaller-than-normal door to the back foyer...

and a double window...

... and a door to the first floor sunroom.

The first floor Sunroom is my favorite room in the house! Shaded by mature trees, it stays cool in the summer. Warmed by bright sun, it stays warm in the winter. Perfect! This first photo shows entering the Sunroom from the Music Room.

Plenty of light from windows on all sides.

Furniture arrangement is a bit tricky with the radiators but we make it work.

The kitchen was remodeled in 2006, and we think they did a great job with it. There's tons of cabinet space, and the cabinets are modern yet still in keeping with the old feeling of the home.

This shot shows the kitchen when you enter it from the back foyer across from the Music Room.

And turning to the right, the back wall of the house...

and another view of the back wall of the house. There's a back door that leads to a tiny porch with no stairway... so we don't use that door at all. The wood cabinet above the radiator cover is one of the original kitchen cabinets from when the home was built in 1925. We love that it's been put to good use for modern times.

Here's a shot of the refrigerator wall, showing the door to the back foyer.

and here's the view from standing near the sink, looking back toward the dining room and front door. Another original cabinet hangs on this wall. Beside the radiator to the right there is a door leading outside to the north side porch... that's the door we use most often to get in and out of the house.

Rounding out the tour of the first floor, this is the back foyer as viewed from the first stair landing. The door to the left leads to the kitchen (beside the fridge), and the door straight ahead with the stained glass leads to the laundry room and half-bath.

The stained glass is so pretty - unfortunately has some damage to it which a previous owner decided to repair using cardboard and clear silicone glue. What the...???

And this is the view standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking back toward the front door.

Whew! That's a lot of photos for one post! I think I'll stop here and put the rest of the photos into future posts.

Tour our Second Floor

Tour our Third Floor

Tour our Basement

I hope you enjoyed your visit here, please leave a comment to say hello!

Curious about the outside of our new house? Check out this Yard Tour from June 2016. This 1/2 acre has plenty of projects and things to keep us busy every summer for a long time!!!