The Cozy Little House

This picture was taken four years ago, the summer I bought my cozy little house. It doesn't look like this now. Look at that intense blue South Dakota sky!

It is the middle of winter so everything is brown, the trees are naked and the sparkling new paint job Lori and I did is weathered and peeling.

This is almost certainly a kit home built about 100 years ago. The plans and components would have cost less than $500. The original building had two windows in the front, back and right side, one on the left side

The front door opens directly into the approximately 12' by 12' living room or parlor which is separated from the 12' x 14' kitchen by a half wall.

The 'wallpaper' in the kitchen (visible in the second picture) is some kind of panel board that came with that vinyl surface on it. Other walls in the house are plaster.

I think the half wall and the indoor bathroom are probably not original. The remaining 200 square foot of house is two bedrooms, one of which is now the size of a walk in closet, and the bathroom. An enclosed porch 8' x 20 has been added down the right side of the house and contains the stairs to the basement.

My last tenant paid his rent on time but turned the house into a dump. The beautiful pink quartz landscaping rocks you can see in the picture are buried in two year's worth of pop bottle caps, bits of broken toys, bindweed, dead leaves and weeds.

My friend Janet came and did some cleaning before I got here, thank goodness. It was a herculean task but I have a sparkling bathroom. I will be spending a lot of time in the next few months de-greasing, pulling out nails, filling holes in the plaster walls and painting the inside.

I have a pretty twin bed borrowed from Lori. Two chests of drawers and my little TV from the apartment. A table I bought at a sale for $2. I had to pay $1.25 each for the chairs.

I also brought over a Singer 99K in a cabinet so I can play. I will post on that later.

Later this week Lori and I will go to Mitchell in the truck so I can buy an 8' x 4' sheet of foam insulating board for a design wall. Two filing cabinets and a half sheet of plywood will make a desk, and some paint will keep me busy for a while. I am thinking raspberry for my desk but will most likely go with a soft sage green. Maybe blue. Hmm, what do you think?

As I look out my front window I see large snowflakes drifting down mixed with rain, very strange for someone who has lived in the tropics most of their life. Boysie is underwhelmed, he thinks this is good snoozing weather.

It is an adventure!

Y'all come back!