Thursday, March 19, 2009

Do Lawnmowers Come With HEPA Filters?

When I was young my well-meaning doctors gave me advice like "When you grow up marry a man who is rich enough to buy you a dishwasher," (my dermatologist) and told my parents not to "let" me mow the lawn (allergist).  

Well, I might have translated that into "be sure you get a well-paying career so you can pay someone to mow the lawn for you."  Right? 

Here's the House of the Day:

Don't you just want to come eat breakfast here with me?  Isn't it delightful?

Not perfect though; I think a terrible crime has happened here:
Where did the fireplace go?  There's supposed to be a fireplace between those two windows!  I would surely feel compelled to restore that.  It looks so wrong to me it's like an optical illusion or something.  And you can see the hearth tiles in the floor are still there.

And what the heck am I supposed to do with all this grass?

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, Beth, this is adorable! I'm come eat breakfast with you and would even bring the cinnamon rolls.

I see a brick chimney . . . are you sure someone hasn't drywalled over the fp opening? I've seen it done before.

I can't help you with the grass . . . literally. :-) You've seen what I mow.

Photos are deceptive. How much lawn is that, really? You could call some local mowing services and see what the going rate is. Even if you later find a neighborhood kid to do it, you'll have a ballpark idea of the cost.

Another friend is about to close on a new home and Paul mentioned to him this morning that yesterday's infusion of funds by the gov't had a rapid effect on mortgage rates. Our friend was able to go from 5.1% to 4.87% (with no points) with a quick phone call. It's an *amazing* time for potential home buyers.

Teri said...

Sid injured his knee a couple of summers ago and we found someone to mow it (including edging, etc) for $25

Another adorable house!

Unknown said...

Swimming pool and rock garden?

Knitting Granny said...

That breakfast-room/parlor looks like a great knitting-room to me. Love the sunshine. And yes, the...er..un-fireplace would have to be fixed. Why, oh, why do people do things like that?

Karen said...

1. It's probably just drywall sealing the fireplace, rip.it.out. Immediately. Carefully, though, you don't want to damage any tiles that may be underneath the sheetrock. If you need restoration materials, check local architectural salvage places around you -- much cheaper than antique stores. And as always, eBay has loads of architectural salvage stuff, even tiles.

2. The lawn - two words: Hire somebody. We have a lawn guy that does ours. It is not that it's a huge yard, it just takes big chunks of time that would be better spent on something else. He's reasonable - about $20/week and does the yard, edges, etc. It's worth it!

Also, consider putting a English style garden in there (or herb/kitchen garden) with plenty of hardscaping. Decking at ground level makes a nice patio.

3. Fence part of that yard for Sadie. I feel pretty confident saying that when a squirrel or rabbit passes by, my dogs wouldn't feel the 'tingle' of an invisible fence. It also doesn't keep the undesirable scalawags from visiting your yard. With Sadie being a go-to-ground dog, she'll follow her nose right into trouble.

4. Earth tones for arts and crafts houses! No blue....

Lawnmowers said...

I pay a kid some money to do my lawn. He does a great job!