A Look Inside Capstick Cottage

Yesterday was the birthday of a man who lives in one of Florida's magical places.

You can read about the exciting life and times of James Winter (affectionately known as Daddy Jim to his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren) in his autobiography, A Lifetime Remembered.  He's requested some pictures of Capstick Cottage, so this post is for you, Daddy Jim!

I haven't taken pictures of the entirety of Capstick yet, however, so this is just the living room.

By way of a little virtual tour, when you step in Capstick's front door, you have a doorway to your right, leading to the dining room, and a doorway to the left leading to the living room.

When we arrived there was only a bare bulb hanging in this room, so among many other purchases at IKEA, we purchased a shade.

This picture was taken from a second doorway that leads into the kitchen.  I like having the opening to the kitchen, though it does make furniture placement difficult because directly to my right there is a radiator on the wall, and KJ does quite enjoy standing in front of it to keep warm. You'll see here our Alabama pillow we brought from home.  We bought several stools to use as extra seating, and they also make great side tables.  I haven't quite made the time to paint the second stool yet.  When I look at these pictures I see all kinds of projects that need to be done.  Look at those blank walls!  The curtains came with the house, and I love the built-in bookshelves.  If only I had all of my books!

I stay on the lookout for books anytime I'm in a charity shop.  I love my lovely artwork by the talented Hillary Sikes.  It gets lots of compliments and came in the first package we received in England, a mere two weeks after arriving.  Since we moved in during the darkest part of the year, a single bulb in the middle of the room wasn't really cutting it in the lighting department.  IKEA to the rescue again with a lamp and some clip-on lights.

The Lord has abundantly provided for all of our needs here as we came furniture-less.  In this room we've only purchased the chair; the two loveseats were given to us. 

Any of you who are in the know about such things, should I paint the other stool/table the same color or be eclectic and go for a different color altogether?

I first took these pictures back in February, and I realized today I'd made a little more progress, so I snapped these updates with my phone this morning. I found this school room map of the British Isles when we visited Yarm last month. With the exception of the gallery wall on the stairs, we haven't really put any holes in the walls but have tried to use the nails left here by the previous occupants, mainly because this old house is extremely well built of stone and brick, and nails just don't go very easily into these walls.  The glare on that picture really makes the map look 3D, doesn't it?

I found quite a nice stack of old books from Oxfam a couple of weeks ago.  Boroughbridge has a dearth of secondhand shops.

I found this great little table at the YMCA shop.

I just noticed my sideways pillow.  Whoops.

And because I thought a detail shot might be interesting, here's a look at one of the doorknobs.

So there's a little peak into this old house, with hopefully more to come.