Thursday, October 28, 2010

~ Very Bad Wednesday Afternoon and Evening ~

We had a tornado come through here @ 5:17 pm yesterday. The exterior of our house sustained damage to the roof and trim, it took down our front yard tree, and everything is a complete mess :(
me, my youngest son, and of course Katie the kitty were home when it happened and it happened very quickly...we are all ok, just shook up:
lots of trim needs to be replaced:
there's debris everywhere:
my main concern is for the roof...there are some missing shingles but a large portion of the shingles lifted up and then layed back down so they're no longer attached...you probably can't tell from the picture but in person it looks sorta ruffled:
we had a landscape contractor come out today to tell us if our tree could be saved and he said that there's just too much root damage :(

the next few pics are of the tornado damage just across the street...notice the large camper trailer overturned and of course the downed fence...on the house next to them the garage door is wadded up and the shutters askew...then on the house next to that a large section of the siding is missing:
closer look at the camper trailer mess:
closer look at the other 2 houses:
I know it could have been alot worse and I am thankful that no one was injured.

Monday, October 18, 2010

~ Braided Rug & Searching for Fall Foliage ~

Yesterday hubs and I went on a search for the colors of autumn. We do get the colors right here in central Virginia but not until the first part of November and I'm always anxious to see them so every year at this time we take a drive. I read online that the peak colors were occurring in the higher elevations here in Virginia so we decided to follow one of the fall foliage routes layed out by the Department of Forestry. It began way up in the north west area of the state which took us about 3 hours to get to, then we followed the route and while it was an area of our state that we hadn't yet traveled, and the route was indeed picturesque, there wasn't much color at all, pooey!
At least I got to see a bit of the Shenandoah River, I've always wanted to lay eyes on it for some reason, maybe because of the John Denver song, I don't know! but the route took us across the north fork and I had to get a picture so we stopped the car as soon as possible after crossing so I could walk back to snap a couple of pics. This is from one side of the road:
...and this is from the other side of the road:
...it's not like me at all to do anything risky or dangerous so for me to walk along a highway and even cross it on foot, you know I wanted pics of the river pretty bad! LOL There you see my little white SUV in the distance, I took that pic while walking back from the river crossing.
...this picture was taken right by where we stopped the car too, it's someone's driveway, must be nice!...just look at those manicured weeping willow trees that line their property!
So back on the road, we entered the town of Strasburg and shared a Subway sammich (we always say sammich! LOL) While eating our sammich, a really super LOUD siren started going off and it was an air raid siren like you hear in the war movies!! We were like, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT!!!! No one around us was panicking but we couldn't believe what we were hearing and had to ask! Turns out that is the town's fire alarm! GOOD GRIEF! So after that bit of excitement, we started on our journey back in the direction of home. Once we got back to familiar territory, we just couldn't pass the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway without taking a quick jaunt on it and I'm so glad we did because we saw more color there than on our adventure! Every year at this time we usually just drive up and down the Blue Ridge for our fall foliage but wanted to do something different this year...figures!...the Blue Ridge is only an hour and a half away from our house and that's where the color was! It's still not peak just yet so I'm still feeling color deprived, LOL, but I did get a few pretty pictures.



Originally, we were planning a drive to New England to see their fall foliage but several folks who live up there were saying that the color may not be at its best this year due to the long, hot, dry summer we had here on the east coast and I did not want to waste my only opportunity to get up there if the colors were not at their best! It's like pulling teeth to get hubs to go on drives with me because he does so much driving in his contracting work and has trouble sitting for long periods of time. So we are shelving our New England drive until next year and he knows that, even though he's off the hook this year, it's going to happen at some point in time! LOL

One other thing I wanted to share with you today is some pics of my new braided rug that came on Friday! It's made from wool braided yarn and I got it at Capel Rugs here in Richmond, their rugs are made in North Carolina. The colors in this are sage, brown, black, beige, rusty barn red, and creme.
Katie sure misses the carpet and is glad to have the new rug!
I think it adds a much needed softness to the room.

Well that about does it for this time...have a great week!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

~ Floor is Done! ~ Lots-O-Pics! ~

The wooden floor has been down a little over a week now and first let me say that I was totally unprepared for the amount of dust caused by removing 700plus square feet of carpet, good grief!!...hubs and I gave everything a good cleaning as we moved it all to make way for the floor and had to turn right around and clean everything again while putting it back!
I have updated my Picture Trail with all of the pics I've recently taken, but here are a few of them:

dining room:
family room:I purchased a 4x6 oval braided rug for under the coffee table but I'm still waiting for it
you see in this picture where my recently purchased primitive pie safe ended up standing
and the other new addition is this olde oak candlestand made by Don, Pat's husband (Olde Bittersweet Farm)...she is who made the make-do chair and they are having an update this week, be sure to check it out!

foyer:
the jury is still out on the slate...I saw a similar slate entry once in a house we looked at and have always wanted to do it but now that it's here, we are having second thoughts!...also, I want to add that the reason why it doesn't go all the way across is because there's a doorway on both sides of the entry but they are not directly straight across from one another so you can't draw a straight line from side to side if that makes sense

The green stepback got a makeover too!...hubs added doors to the top part, painted the whole thing black for me, painted the inside tan, then grubbied it up nicely with stain and I am thrilled with the results!...here are the before and afters:

BEFORE, green on the outside, yellow on the inside:AFTER, black and tan with added doors:
I've also posted all of my autumn decorating pictures to my Picture Trail so hop on over to have a look...have a great week!