{"id":38020,"date":"2018-02-07T19:00:40","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=38020"},"modified":"2018-02-07T11:57:36","modified_gmt":"2018-02-07T16:57:36","slug":"before-tour-of-the-courtyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/?p=38020","title":{"rendered":"Before Tour of the Courtyard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, I am back today with the final before tour of our new place, and it’s the courtyard.\u00a0 Go to these links to see the first floor<\/a>, second floor<\/a>, and third floor<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s also a huge basement, but you all know what a basement looks like.\u00a0 We plan to use it for storage and then make a theater in the large room down there.\u00a0 Today we are going to the courtyard.\u00a0 You know that I love me a courtyard.\u00a0 I have always been crazy about a walled-in area.\u00a0 It reminds me so much of Europe because homes there will often have a plain non-descript front, but the back is a hidden secret gem where all of the living takes place.<\/p>\n

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The courtyard has a sunken portion which I love. As\u00a0 you can tell, it was a rainy day when I took these photos.\u00a0 The brick wall will be cleaned.\u00a0 That will happen as soon as it warms up, and I can’t wait to see it all pristine.<\/p>\n

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We are tearing out this wall and extending the kitchen to the edge of the sunken area.\u00a0 Our architect wanted us to raise the courtyard and put in a fireplace on the exterior wall of the new addition.\u00a0 We thought it was a great idea at first but then nixed it.\u00a0 I would actually like to put a gas fireplace on the now breezeway\/future porch, but I haven’t planted that seed with the mister yet. Mr. Right and the architect surprised me with this addition.\u00a0 They put their heads together and planned it the week I was staying with Baby Girl<\/a>. What a surprise that was to me!!!\u00a0 Now our kitchen will have plenty of room for both a cooking, sitting, and eating area.<\/p>\n

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You can see that this spot has potential.\u00a0 We don’t know if there is anything living under that dirt or not.\u00a0 We have to wait till spring to find out.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the existing plants need to either be revived or removed.\u00a0 I think they all need a good dose of food and a good haircut.\u00a0 After that happens, we will have a better idea of what stays and what goes.\u00a0 We want to concentrate our energy and money on the landscaping of the front yard first.\u00a0 So, the courtyard will happen slowly.<\/p>\n

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Just like in our current house<\/a>, we will enclose this breezeway.\u00a0 It gets a new beadboard ceiling painted light blue, new fans, hopefully a fireplace (???), and doors.\u00a0 We will use sliders rather than French doors because we can open them, and they won’t get in the way.\u00a0 I plan to keep them open all summer so it will feel like a screened in porch.\u00a0 Those round arches will be squared off so it will be easier to fit the doors in there.\u00a0 This ceiling was rotten so after we had the roof replaced, the rotten wood was removed and replaced.\u00a0 The door at the end goes into the garage.<\/p>\n

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The door there will be removed and moved out because a portion of this breezeway\/porch will become a mudroom with a Dutch door.\u00a0 You can see where the rotten boards were replaced.<\/p>\n

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Here’s another view.\u00a0 It was taken beside the garage door looking out onto the courtyard.\u00a0 It’s funny to me that the faucet in this courtyard is a Murdock water hydrant.\u00a0 You can see it in the bottom left.\u00a0 It’s what they use around here on horse farms to water the horses, but we have one in our small courtyard<\/a>, too. They’re quite expensive, and it’s truly more than is needed, but it’s a fun little gadget to have.\u00a0 Plus, they don’t freeze in the winter.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouse<\/p>\n

Now, we have had a few people ask about our house actually being a townhouse because the full frontal looks like a free-standing house.<\/p>\n

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This photo shows where we are attached to our neighbor.\u00a0 And by the way, we are surrounded on both sides by absolutely beautiful townhouses.\u00a0 This whole area, as well as the rest of the front yard, will be getting low maintenance landscaping so that it will look wonderful but there won’t be any mowing involved.\u00a0 No time for that!<\/p>\n

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Okay, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please contact us.\u00a0 Thank you all so much for stopping in.<\/p>\n

Take care.<\/p>\n

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Well, I am back today with the final before tour of our new place, and it’s the courtyard.\u00a0 Go to these links to see the first floor, second floor, and third floor.\u00a0\u00a0 There’s also a huge basement, but you all know what a basement looks like.\u00a0 We plan to use it for storage and then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":38021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[3,13,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38020"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38020"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38031,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38020\/revisions\/38031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the2seasons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}