Please welcome my beautiful and much-loved guest blogger, Rue, of Rue's Peanut Butter & Jelly Life! I am SO happy that she is here today. And today is a VERY SPECIAL DAY indeed because it is our guest of honor's BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday To You!
Happy Birthday To You!
Happy Birthday Dear Rue!
Happy Birthday To You!
Yes, I love Rue. She is as authentic as they come.
She is real.
She is humble.
She is appreciative.
She is giving.
She is loving.
She is kind.
And she is a SWEETHEART.
Love, love, love my Rue.
And I know that you will too.
So without any further adieu, I will let my guest blogger and birthday girl share all about her own home-sweet-home journey and then I'll tell you about the adorable giveaway that she has made just for you.
Welcome Rue!
Hi everyone! To begin with, let me tell you a little bit about me…
All my life, I have been drawn to things of the past, be it an old piece of furniture, an old door at a salvage yard, an old home and even the way of living as they did before 1960. Some say it’s because I have an old soul and I would have to agree, since even as a child I preferred long dragging on the ground dresses to the bell-bottom fashions of my 1970s childhood.
I don’t know why I am this way. Perhaps I can attribute it to watching Gone With The Wind throughout my childhood as well as spending a large part of my youth in a house that was built in 1920 and also the antiques that my mother had inherited from her grandmother that have always surrounded me. It could even be the old farmhouse in Virginia that I helped my mom restore at one point. Anyway, all I really know is that I have wanted to live in an old house as long as I can remember, but it took me years to find it.
Flash forward to when I met and married Rich and moved to Ohio. We ended up buying a new home, instead of some of the old homes we looked at. Why? Well, because my sweet husband had grown up in post WWII homes and apartments all his life and even though he wanted to live in one of the gorgeous old houses he saw everyday downtown growing up, he wanted to live in something practically unlived in at least once in his life. Being his loving wife and wanting him to be happy, I agreed.
It only took about a year before he realized that living in a practically brand new home wasn’t what he had thought it would be and even though we spent all kinds of money trying to give it character and although it was nice, it just wasn’t our dream home.
I have always looked longingly at old rundown homes that no one cared about or loved anymore, but it began to take over my thoughts after buying that new house. How could anyone not see what I saw? To me, old homes carry with them the souls that have lived within their walls and to see one falling to the ground is like those souls dying another death. How could anyone let that happen?
To be honest though, the unrelenting search really began around the time I started blogging almost two years ago, after I read sweet Kim’s letter to Daisy Cottage. Have you read it? Well, you should, because after that I thought to myself “Now that is what I want to feel about my home” and all those dreams of living in an old house started resurfacing.
Then one day I noticed a farmhouse that once used to be the primary house for the farmland that our development sat on.
Long story and oh-so-many tears later we didn’t get the house or a few others, but we realized that someone must have been watching out for us, because a few months later we found out we had to move about two hours away for Rich’s job. It was there that my dream would soon be realized.
We took a drive to the new town and looked at a few houses for sale in a really charming neighborhood. I gushed over several of them, but there was one that Rich was drawn to immediately.
To me it looked like an apartment and had absolutely none of the charm that the others did outside. I have to tell you that I didn’t even want to get out of the car, but Rich did and was able to see something I couldn’t. It ended up being number one on his list and the last one on mine.
Well, the day came that we had one day to look at the seven homes we chose and make a decision. House after house was disappointing and had either been redone or undone so much that to take it back to the way it was when built would have broken the bank. That is until the house I couldn’t stand came up…
I walked up to the door thinking to myself, there is no way that I’m going to want to buy this, but with a huge annoyed sigh I went in and… in one second fell absolutely in love. We did look at a couple more houses and then came back, but none compared. This was the one.
With a little research and a lot of sweat we are taking it back to what it was and hopefully one day it will stand as proudly as it did the day it was built in 1904. Here are a few before and after pictures...
Right now we’re in the process of redoing the floors and exposing the brick on the fireplace that was covered in paint. It’s a process, but hopefully one day we’ll have it looking just like it did.
I have to give a huge thank you to sweet Kim for unknowingly pushing me to find our home and my sweet husband for seeing what I couldn’t see or else, I wouldn’t be living my dream. Much love and many thanks to you both.
rue
Thank you so much Rue!! I cannot tell you how happy I am that YOUR dream came true.
And thank you for making this ADORABLE birdhouse to give away to one of my readers! It is soooooooooooo cute!
I love it!
So my dear friends, if you would like the chance to win this cute-as-can-be Rue birdhouse, please leave a comment below and I will pick the winning name at noon on Sunday.
Thank you everyone and Rue - thank you for being YOU.
xo,
Kim
