The Garden Tour


The Brown House circa 1902 (restoration in progress)

I've finally had a minute to post some pictures of my yard from the Santiam Heritage Foundation Garden Tour this past weekend. There were 8 gardens on the tour including my friend Pam's, this event is a fundraiser for the restoration of the Brown House in Stayton OR. I was only able to visit a few gardens myself and they were spectacular! We had over 200 visitors to our gardens and were told this was the best attended tour yet!

Joy helping transform the playhouse into a tea house...
Thank you again Joy, you're fabulous!!


Interior of the Tea House

A very dedicated group of volunteers who have passion for saving this grand old home have spent many, many hours on this labor of love. I was more than happy to help out in any way I could to help save this old beauty.

The house will have ex
terior painting done this fall and proceeds from the garden tour will help purchase roofing materials for out buildings. I plan to help out at the house when they move into the interior work (I'm not sure why I offered to help, I can't even get stuff done on my own old house!).

Nice place for a little nap, notice the chandelier?

Table top fountain, so easy to make.


Clawfoot tub from my childhood home, I took many baths in it!



The Tea House, formerly my girls' playhouse

Back portion of my house

This is an astilbe plant on steroids I have...

Lots of places to sit and relax



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Ahhh....The Season of the Porch!

What better way to spend a hot afternoon than on a porch with an iced tea or nice cold beer reading a good book or maybe a little nap.

Finally we got great warm weather here in the valley after a very cold winter and not so great early spring. It was time to dust off the furniture in storage, find the pillows, accessories and all the stuff required for my little slice of heaven.

I've taken a few pictures of my porch to share with you, this is the favorite part of my house, which was built in the 1890's. The original double decker porch pictured above (sorry I scanned it too small but you can click on it for a larger view hopefully) was destroyed in the 1962 Columbus Day storm. We were fortunate to obtain this picture of the first porch, taken in the 1920's, from the original owner's daughter who was still living and in her 90's. I love how they had the vegetable garden right out in the front yard!

We enjoy a lot of meals at this table!

.I recently bought this cool pull-out sofa bed from Cindy (Tarte), the burlap pillow was
made by Natalie (Sparrow)



We used the picture as a guide to rebuild the porch, it's still a work in progress as anyone who owns an old house knows!

Still needed is the gingerbread fretwork and door to the balc
ony from the master bedroom, all as time and money allows. We added french doors, which were not original to the house and built the deck 10 feet wide rather than the original 4 or 5 feet.

There was a second porch at the back of the house, which was the service porch for doing laundry, etc. That area was converted to a mudroom and bathroom many years ago by a previous owner. Luckily I don't have to use a washtub and scrub board for laundry as the previous ladies of this house did, I'm so glad God invented front-load washers and dryers!

I hope you enjoy the pictures, my next post will be of my garden, which will be one of eight in a garden tour on June 28th. This annual tour is major fundraiser for one of my favorite causes, the restoration of an old historic victorian beauty in my community.




I just had to include a picture of the new man in my life, Nacho, who was rescued from a puppy mill. He's a pomeranian/chihuahua mix and is the sweetest little dog ever!


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