Thursday, December 18, 2008

A Christmas Walk of My Own Home - Day Thirteen

Welcome to Day Thirteen of A Christmas Walk of My Own Home. Be sure to take a peek at Posts One through Twelve if you want to see any of the other rooms of the house. Today's Featured Room is my Sun room, and the last interior room of my home that I will show. There are still three more rooms to my house (exercise room, laundry/craft room, and the basement), but those are boring and are not decorated for Xmas, so I will not picture them.

The first picture shows a view of the sun room as seen from the family room balcony. The second picture shows a view of the room as if you were standing on the staircase. My husband built me the sun room because I am an outdoorsy girl living in a cold climate. I love the warm summer temperatures and being outside with my flowers and 'little critters', so the long winter months are very hard for me. Having the sun room is like a tropical paradise under glass and really helps get me through the winter. All the plants you see are real, and the first question everyone asks when they see this room is 'How do you water all these plants and how long does it take?". The answer is: I use a ladder to get to the plants up high, and it only takes me about an hour a week to water. The sun room is the perfect environment for plants: cold at night, and indirect light; so they survive just fine with little, if any, maintenance. I have four birds: a finch, a parakeet, a cockatiel and a lovebird. They all have their own cages, but are let out daily to fly about the room. If you look carefully at the second picture, you can see Emery, my cockatiel sitting in his favorite spot in the sun room: on top of my Tiffany stained glass artwork looking out the window! LOL! He absolutely loves it up there! My birds are my little friends that keep me company all day while I stamp. They frequently fly over and sit on my shoulder, or they walk all over my stamping table to see what I'm doing. They are always very curious and love to 'peck' at whatever project I'm working on, so I have to be careful with what I leave laying around. And yes, they do poop. On me and mostly on the windowsills since that's where they spend the most time. So once a week when I have the ladder already out to water the plants, I just clean the windowsills down too.

The entire room is built with a post/beam structure. You'd have to talk with my hubby about he did that one! There is not a cement floor. Its simple beams cemented into the ground. The floor is sand with hot water pipes inside to heat the room. The sun warms the stone and the pipes also warm the stone and the heat rises. On a cloudy, bitter cold winter day (single digit temperatures) it will only get to about 55 degrees in the room, on a normal, cloudy winter day its in the 60's, but on a sunny day, no matter what the outside temps, its in the upper 70's. This room is so large, and that my hubby did the heating this way to say money on heating costs. The floor of the sun room is all outside patio bricks purchased at Menards. The woodwork is all pine. There is a shelf that runs across the entire length of the sun room that displays plants and decorations. I have a 'Tuscan' theme going on in this room in case you couldn't already guess that by the wall treatment, colors and decorations. Also notice in the third photograph a close up of the staircase wall. The brick and lower stonework is the original exterior of the home; for the old portion of the original house is built on a sandstone foundation. The railings of the stair case are copper plumbing pipes. The stair treads are the same ceramic style featured in the entryway and family room. My actual craft room is a tiny walk in closet that also holds my washer/dryer and an extra refrigerator. Its located inside the door off to the right in the third photograph. I do larger projects out in the sun room on the large table you see pictured. Behind this table is where I am temporarily keeping my sewing machine until I can move into my new craft room (which is now the exercise room, but my hubby is going to move the exercise equipment into the basement, and then I can have that large room for my crafts). I really don't like my sewing machine and 'stuff' sitting out in this beautiful room, but it will have to do for now.


Here is a picture of a small sitting area in the sun room that is used mostly during large parties. All this furniture is either hand-me-downs, or was purchased at a consignment shop. Someday I hope to replace it with better furniture. A tinsel tree is placed on the coffee table for Xmas.









The dining hutch holds extra dinnerware for entertaining. Whenever we have people over, we usually eat down here because the upstairs dining room table only comfortably seats four. I put garland on the top of the hutch and inside for Xmas. If you look to the far right of the picture, you can see the inside of the exercise room. Its located right under the family room balcony. That will be my new craft room someday.
Here is a close up of a large Xmas wreath. After Xmas it is replaced with a grapevine wreath.




Here is a close up of the stair garland. I don't do too much Xmas decorating in this room because there is already so much natural greenery. I simply add garland to the staircase, a giant wreath on the wall, garland on the dining hutch, the green tinsel tree on the coffee table, a Xmas centerpiece on the dining table, and I put a simple wreath in each lower window of the sun room which is hung with a velvet red bow.





Here is a close up of one of the wreaths in the windows. Each wreath has a red velvet bow, jeweled-tone bulbs, hibiscus flowers and a bird--all to match the room. You can see my 'winter garden' through the window pane. The sun room has a view of my gardens and the river.









My final picture shows four of my other little friends, my pond fish. They actually live outside in an outdoor pond during the summer months, but in the winter the water freezes because the pond is not that deep, so I bring them inside. Its not the most beautiful indoor fountain in the world, but it makes a lovely sound and keeps my dear fish alive.
So if any one's depressed this winter and your in the area, feel free to drop by and spend sometime in my sun room. You'll feel relaxed, refreshed, and renewed in no time!
Tomorrow I will finish my tour with some outside pictures! Have a great day! Amy






4 comments:

  1. Hi Amy and WOW I've just enjoyed the grand tour of your amazing home all so beautifully decorated for Christmas. I can understand now why you have to start decorating it so early, it's huge LOL! I love it all and can appreciate all the hard work that you and your Husband have put into it in the design and building to make it so fabulous. Thanks for sharing it all and I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. Hugs, Chris

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  2. WOW ... WHAT AN AWESOME ROOM!!!! I would have a problem with it though ... I have a fear of heights!! But I'm sure I could get used to it with time!!! LOL!! I'm in awe that you have birds flying around your house ... how cool is that (except for the poop) ... yes, I see Emery in the window!! Gorgeous, gorgeous work my friend!! Looking forward to tomorrow's outside photos!!

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  3. Ok...new favorite. I love this room. I'm very intrigued by the copper pipe railing. How do you keep it so bright and shiny without turning darker or getting the green finish. I think your birds are sooo cool. Thank you for sharing the great pics.

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