Saying "Goodbye" to ToD, and moving into the new house...

 As the first part of this got to be pretty long and intensive, I decided to break it into a few parts. Sadly speaking though, it seems that this part is going to be also a bit on the photo intensive side.  So once again, sit back with a nice cup of coffee, tea, or whatever you like to drink as you scroll through this...

GOODBYE ToD:

As referenced before in the previous article, the move from the "old house" to the "new house" was filled with a lot of memories, (good and bad), as well as "stuff".  On the last day I was there, I decided to spend a few moments with an old friend of mine to say "Goodbye".

That old friend was "ToD" (aka: "Tree of Death").

ToD was a huge, elderly, soft maple tree that dominated our backyard, and had gotten semi-legendary status on TMP, as well as some friends of mine, and even the lawn care team. It had done wonders in dealing with someone that needed "dealing with" and was known to kill squirrels, as well, and warn lawn crews when they got "too close".

I loved that tree...

Tree of Death, (aka: ToD): The tree that kept squirrels, useless boyfriends and nosy, pesky, lawn care personnel in line.

Saying farewell to ToD....

A few quiet words were spoken and the wonderful tree showed it's sadness of our leaving by shedding leaves quietly as if they were tears...

And then we pulled away....

At the house...

So we moved...

My first drive down there was not alone. I decided to take "Mr. Bear", (we rescued him from a liquor store where he was going to be thrown out as "they had no room for him, and the advertisement for what he was used for was long over"), and with his own winter scarf, and a spare Desert Storm Veteran Cap, I buckled him in for safety and away we went.

I also went through the drive through at Wendy's with him and the girl on shift loved it.

One of my better passengers...

The sellers had left us a lot of the house history and had even included photos of "The Old Girl" in her snowy winter glory.

Truly this house is like something out of a Normal Rockwell painting.

But it was just beginning to be the Fall Season and the trees were starting to turn their beautiful colors of red and gold...

As said before, the house is essentially four stories, (basement, main floor, upstairs, and attic), and not including the attic, is approx. 3600+ sq ft. Add the attic in, (which we are as my wife has claimed it as her "domain" for her dresses and stuff), and it's approx 4500-5000 sq ft.

The Old Girl has four bedrooms, (three on the main floor and one in the basement), three full baths, and one half bath, kitchen, pantry room, small eating room, dining room, entryway, living room, sunroom, and a master full size walk in closet room, as well as the stuff down in the basement. She also has three fireplaces, (two gas and one wood).

Heat is by boiler and electric baseboard, while cooling is by AC/Air Handler, and ceiling fans.

The house is wonderfully dry, and we won't have to worry about the issues with "Indiana humidity and mold".

This is a "first day photo" of the entryway, looking towards the front door. The living room is on the right, while the dining room, (aka "The Romanov Room"- Courtesy of TMP's Wyatt The Odd), is on the left. 

Looking into the living room, you can see the two ceiling fans, the fireplace (FP#1), and beyond that is the sun room. The brick wood burning fireplace, (FP#2), is on the direct opposite wall of FP#1.

A close up view of FP#1, along with some of the many antique oil lamps that my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), has reconditioned. Many of these lamps are mid-late 19th Century and can fetch a pretty penny with collectors, reenactors, and historical decorators. The Bible is open to Psalm 91, which I read on each floor of the house.

Going through the French doors, led to the sunroom...

And the brick fireplace, aka "FP#2)...

It's a nice fireplace, but obviously needs some "decoration", (ie: "That Murphy Touch"...)

So since it was getting near Halloween, I decided to "spruce the mantle up a little"...

Hmmm...kind of a "Martha Stewart meets Boris Karloff" type of decor feel, don't you think???...

Naturally my wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!), said "No!"...

So she "suggested" that we could redecorate it in a "period style"....

I agreed (happy wife, happy life, and all that stuff ya know), and so we did...

Add musket to the wall, and some of our period primitives, and it looks like it's right out of Colonial Williamsburg. Any moment I expect someone in a powdered wig to come wandering through griping about King George III...

The Dining Room, (aka "The Romanov Room")...

The dining room chandelier is not original to the house. 

The chandelier was originally in a local bank during the 1890's to early 1900's, and was set up for gas lighting. When the bank was torn down, the chandelier was taken to a salvage/junk dealer, and from there to an antique/junk shop, where the previous owners found it, had it repaired, cleaned, and set up with electric wiring and installed. It is absolutely gorgeous.

Sooooo....with all of that we are moving onto "The Basement..." (AKA: "THE MAN CAVE!)....

THE MAN CAVE!!!!!

So, as part of the deal, my wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!), claimed the attic as her own, and I then claimed the basement.

And what a basement it is.

Forget the days of stinky, dank, dark, musty, holes in the ground...

While the basement of The Old Girl does in fact, contain the full size Laundry and Mechanical room, (with a laundry chute which makes moving the dirty clothes even more fun and easy), she also has a nice large closet (for food storage, and for our wines, as well as a full bathroom, a 12 X 12 bedroom (which becomes my painting/work room), AND a full size basement game room!

My wife was pleased that I would have all of my gaming crap...errr...."stuff" in my own personal "Man Cave", and to top it off, she discovered that there was a nice little key that could lock the basement door...hmmm...

When there is too much "Manliness in the Man Cave", my wife can quietly lock the door...

Going down the stairs to the "Man Cave". You can see the closet door cracked open. The painting/work room is to the right and to the left is the gaming room and the bathroom.

One of the ideas we had with the storage closet downstairs, (besides using it to store some long term shelf life food, and sundries), was to have a place to keep our wines, etc.  True we had the wine jail but the way it sat on the floor didn't make it very useful at all and took up an absurd amount of space.

"Why don't we mount it on the shelf and make it a shelf rack?" My wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), said to me.

"Hmmm..." sez I.

And so we did.

So we took the closet....

And the wine jail, just needing to be set up and filled with all of those wonderful bottles of wine...

Raised it up, laid it on it's side, inserted it onto the shelf, and voila!  Instant shelf wine rack!  The door is currently held open with a green bungee cord, which will eventually be replaced with a more visually appealing brass chain. And although this pic shows a couple of empty spaces for bottles on the rack, I can now vouch that this rack is 100% fully stocked. The small wooden rack contains our Christmas German Gluhweing, a couple of bottles of Sangria, and a bottle each of Delirium Tremens and Delirium Noctem.

Next up is the future painting/work room....

The entrance to the future work area. 12 X 12 with a natural light source, adjustable track lighting, numerous electrical outlets, this room is just ready for me to occupy it with my cra...errr...."stuff"....

Another pic of the room showing the natural lighting. Plans are to have my painting station against the wall with numerous shelves, and storage areas for all of the stuff that is needed for this horrible hobby of ours.

Turning the corner, we come onto the bathroom and the gaming room....

First up...the bathroom...

A fully finished out bathroom done in cedar planking, tile, red highlights, and the wall that you cannot see is tastefully left in it's natural brick.  The cabinet holds extra toilet paper, hand soap, air freshner, etc, because well...we all know "That gamer"....

Inside the bathroom door is this brass duck robe hanger. For some reason this duck seems to attract the attention and it seems to fascinate the hell out of everyone that sees it. 

Next to the bathroom is the brick wall and the entrance to the future game room.

Looking into the future game room, you can see natural lighting, electric lighting, heat, and an already wall mounted white board. The square in the ceiling is the laundry chute.

Looking to the right from the entrance, you can see the natural lighting also, the enclave where the TV, etc, will go, a portable baseboard heater, etc. Also visible is a set of Art Audio stereo speakers already wired and ready to be hooked up.  Future plans for this area include a large screen TV, DVD player, Sofa and chairs, as well as a table against the wall holding a mini fridge, (although the wife wants to put a full scale one down here), and a microwave. All of this is her idea, and I do believe she is planning on having me live down there!!!

The next two pics are of the rest of the gaming room, showing the lighting, the walls for "wall hanging stuff", the small passage with the dart board, and of course, "the hidden secret room".

Yes, we have discovered that we have a hidden room, (hence the strange passage.)

Oddly enough no one seems to know what is on the other side of that wall, (the previous owners said that it was walled up like that when they bought the house in the late 80's...), and they never seemed to show interest in seeing what was behind it.

This open area is going to be where the gaming table and display cases along the walls will be. 

That's it for the current tour of the house and the future man cave for me. I am going to be updating this as I set it the place for painting and gaming and decorating. Stay tuned for more!