Make Space for your kiddos!

Its hard to make a space that everyone can live in! I know! You want your living room and play-space to work- but you don't want it to be cluttered with kids toys and "stuff".

My decorator helped me with this simple idea. Go to the container store- and buy these simple fold out/collapsible containers (by Scout). They come in all shapes and sizes. (He cautioned me to keep them simple though and the same color for continuity!)

Voila! We had a place for "favorite" blankies to be rolled up and stowed, one basket for each kids (girl, and boy) toys- and one basket for family board games and puzzles. We took the above shelves to display some on the kiddos favorite books (EYE LEVEL TO THEM) and higher shelves to display art, glassware, and items that could be easily broken if left at kiddos level, etc.

Simple, clean, clutter-free solution, and makes sense for our family.

Pumpkin House in Print

Paint Colors

We were recently contacted by a couple in Nashville, Tn. who restore houses there. They were interested in the color palette that was used on the Pumpkin House. I've included it here for your information.

This was a good exercise for us to document these, so thanks! Unless noted, they are all Sherwin Williams SuperPaint, Satin Latex

Siding: 6367 Viva Gold
Green Trim: 2238 Black Forest
Steps: 6048 Terra Brun (Enamel Gloss)
Yellow Highlights: Sunflower
Red Highlights: 6335 Fired Brick

These are custom, I'm writing down the weird grid thing that SW does with 02,32,64,128 values in a table

Skirting: Custom (marked "Manual Chivalry Copper")
Wt 18,59,-,-
N1 Raw Umber - .30,-,-
R2 Maroon -,30,-,-
R3 Magenta 6,3,-,-
Y3 Deep Gold 22,1,-,-

Main Trim ("Pumpkin")
G2 New Green -,32,-,-
R2 Maroon 2,62,1,-
Y3 Deep Gold 8,37,1,-

Houston Lifestyles Article about the Pumpkin House

Thought you all might enjoy reading an article that was recently written about the Pumpkin House! Cathy Gordon is a very gifted freelance writer that I enjoyed meeting this past year. She took a lot of time getting to know us and getting some great details that I always forget to mention when I'm showing people around. ENJOY!

Almost Tour Time!

http://www.houstonheights.org/holidayhometour.htm Read here for an update on all of the homes on the home tour.

Pics from the past

So things have been quite busy at the pumpkin house as of late! We've been preparing for it to be on tour for the Christmas holidays. We're super excited about that and cant wait to share all of the updates with our neighborhood and friends. Looks like we'll be featured in www.prime-living.com for their holiday edition.

here are some random shots that have been taken in the past year.

Look what we've been up to in Brookes room!

There are few things more cute than a pretty little girls room. I wanted hers to be "fancy" and smart, trendy and girly! (Plus, I'm Scotch Irish- so its patterned after the tartan of a clan in western Scotland!) We've just purchased the triple crown molding, which we'll be installing this week in the evenings. I'll post more pics as soon as we get it done.

And the fence is DONE!

Its SPRING!

We've been enjoying the spring here in Houston- although- its been a cold one.  We've spent lots of time working on projects around the Pumpkin House the past few months.  Here are some shots of us around the house as we prepare to have it on tour in the next few months.

Various pics from the hubster-

I love to take different pics around the house at different times of the day. The view of the Truxillo home next door is awesome from our bathroom & library windows. A girl couldnt really ask for more! ;) Check out our little project here .

Heres another just for giggles:

Halloween in the Heights!

Halloween is probably my favorite "no-fuss" holiday of the year. It signifies for me several things- the coming of fall, the holidays are not far behind, and of course- we get the break out the fun pumpkin collection that the previous owners left for us in the sale of the estate. (there are 34, 30 came from his collection)

Inevitably, there are also TONS of people that show up to partake in the fun festivities for the evening. We hand out candy, get to hang out on the fun wrap around porch, light all of the luminarias and place them around the fence and drink lots of wine with our friends. Its never really planned- but it always seems to turn out as a party! So in light of Friday- I've posted a few pics of last years Halloween night- and I'll let you judge for yourselves.

The Great Pumpkin House Vs. Hurricane Ike

http://picasaweb.google.com/beardshall/HurricaneIke?authkey=KkeNYReCF8Y#

here are some pics of the house after the storm.

How We Stumbled, How We Fell- in Love, with Pumpkins

I thought I might begin these posts by telling the story about how we came to acquire The Pumpkin House- and what a great story of love and tenacity went behind keeping it in the face of adversity.

I'll back up a few years to 2005. I was hosting a baby shower at our home just about a mile away from the Pumpkin House. I had just given birth to our new little arrivals (twins) about 8 or 9 months before. The house we were living in was perfectly comfortable, but was next to a busy street and didn't exactly fit for a growing family.

Pan to next scene: I had taken some table linens to the dry cleaners in preperation for a friends baby shower and ended up taking a "wrong" turn upon my retrieval of said items. In walks "adversity" ;) I drove past one of the most overgrown, chipped, rusted and rotten houses on Harvard Street. It sat on a corner and typically would not be a house that I would have noticed, had the "estate sale" sign not been out front! ;) There was a line of 60 some odd people in front of the house- waiting on the estate sale to begin for the day- and being the bargain huntress I am- my curiosity outweighed my ability to stay put in my car and on task! I went into the house- which was fronted by rotten siding and an overgrown landscape (which had been greatly reduced by the family members who went through the estate belongings to ready it for the sale.) The house contained various odds and ends, antiques and glassware- I purchased a punch bowl (for the shower the next day) and promptly walked towards the door. (Mahogany) with an inlaid sun. At the front entryway I looked down, and marveled at the varying contrast of pine, and mahogany, cherry and various other woods which made up the "compass" floor mark. It was beautiful. I left the house and started for the street. When walking away from the house- I turned and looked at it- and what I previously saw, became clear- this house needed some love and a family to live in it! I dropped the punch bowl in my car and ran up the front steps again to ask if the home was a part of the "estate".

Scene II- Years and years of infertility- ended in our eventual pregnancy with twins! (ours is a lucky story!)- when we got pregnant with the twins- it was October- and Bill and I had been calling the babies "A & B" for months (a test cant be done to determine the sex of the babies until 21 weeks) so in October- Bill and I decided that we would no longer call the babies A&B and set out to come up with a nick-name for them- so we started calling them "The Pumpkins"-

Starting to see the eerie side of the story? :)

Scene III- I walked back up the front steps of the house and went inside- I took one more walk around the house- (sans punch bowl) and really took a look at the work that would need to be done to get the house in shape to live in. Seeing how we had just done an extensive remodel on our current home- I was feeling quite confident (haha! stupid girl!) with our abilities to redo another one! I walked back into the entry hall and asked the auctioneer if the home was for sale- and she said "yes- and from what I understand, its already got a few interested parties"- Then she said what made the hair stand up on my arms- "You know, this home is known in the neighborhood as "The Pumpkin House"... I almost started crying! It was one of those glorious, CLEAR moments in your life where you know that you must do what you must do to make something happen. And it happened- in March- (the 25th to be exact)- which was my husbands 39th birthday- we closed on The Pumpkin House. And life will never be the same! I'll also add- the house that we had lived in stayed on the market for 18 months! We lived in it for about 9 months before we moved to the Pumpkin House.