The Old Jacobson Home Place

The old Jacobson home place. Though meticulously built by Matthew Jacobson ages ago for his young and growing family, the house seemed to lose it's will to hold itself together after Matthew and his wife passed away in their old age.


The old house was left to the family, but all of the children had moved on to various bustling cities with their own young and growing families, where they were very contented to remain. No one wanted to sell their place of birth and upbringing, but no one was willing to care for it properly, either.




To the family's credit, some of the major damage to the home was dutifully repaired, namely, the dormer that had been destroyed by a falling branch of an ancient oak tree.



The exterior of the house was also given a fresh coat of cheerful yellow paint, Mother Jacobson's favorite color.















While the outside of the house maintained at least a portion of it's original charm and dignity, the interior was quite another matter.


A few years after both Matthew and his wife died, their children leased out the home to a lively family of twelve, who put their own stamp on the Jacobson home place. They were much less meticulous than Matthew had been, particularly in the area of painting.







No one knew exactly how, but that entire family of twelve completely vacated the house in the middle of one mild winter night, taking with them some of the home's finest features, including the wooden doors Matthew had made by hand and the beloved old cook stove Mother Jacobson had used to lovingly prepare thousands of meals.









Stripped almost bare, no vestiges of the beautiful and cheerful interior that reflected Mother Jacobson herself remained.






The house was never put up for lease again after that unsettling experience, nor was it sold. It was simply "kept" by the Jacobson children and grandchildren, wistfully visited a few times here and there for "old time's sake".


Eventually, though, the Jacobson home seemed to be all but forgotten. It was abandoned and left in it's shameful state to face alone the cold and cruel consequences of time.

A Farmhouse Dream Come True

Many years ago when we were first looking for a home to buy, my dream was to purchase an old farmhouse. That didn't work out, but I still get completely twitterpated at the very mention of the word "farmhouse". So what's a girl to do? Well, I'm so excited to tell you that I am now the proud owner of this very old and neglected large farmhouse style dollhouse! I'm in love! It truly is like an old abandoned farmhouse that just needs some tlc and a good dose of cottage style.


Just what I need, right? Another house to remodel! The best part? This big house only cost me $25! Gotta love Craigslist!


"But Kim", you say..."Didn't you order this other dollhouse kit a few weeks ago?"

You are correct. I did. But the company I ordered it from was out of stock and I ended up canceling the order. I had that house in mind for a miniature bakery I'm dying to build. Instead, I found this kit called The Storybook Cottage by Greenleaf, ordered it, and now it's just waiting for me to figure out how to put it together. Isn't it adorable? It will make a perfect bakery!


But my girls and I also wanted a house. A full sized miniature house with a few rooms to decorate in my beloved cottage style. Being the instant gratification girl that I am - and being that we are in the middle of a long, drawn out real life house remodel, I decided that I didn't want to build a big house myself. A pre-assembled old fixer is the direction I want to take for this one...that way I can jump right into the fun stuff like plastering the walls, painting, adding moulding and beadboard, installing pretty flooring and ceilings...Oh, the possibilities!

We've been really busy around lately and my computer time has been limited, so I've been flying under the radar lately in blogland and emailworld. We are still working on the studio. I said before that I wouldn't make anymore deadlines for the studio. I did anyway - hoping to be finished by now, but we couldn't have predicted some

Oh, the possibilities

family issues that recently came up {and may be an ongoing thing for a while}, nor did we realize how this room would continue to drain our budget as it has. It does keep looking better and better - it is getting there, but as with a lot of other projects in the house, it's still a work in progress at the moment. I realize that if I wouldn't have made the decision a few months back after the room was painted the first time to add beadboard and farmhouse style door and window mouldings, we'd be finished, but for me anyway, it was worth it. I go in there daily and just dream about it finally being finished and even ask hubs if it ever will be...and he promises me that it will. I sure hope so! This project is starting to embarrass me!

At any rate, life goes on and this week we are preparing to take an out of state trip. There is lots of shopping and packing and cleaning to do - it wears me out just thinking about it all! But I'm looking forward to our return and resuming work on "all our houses".

Of Doors and DollHouses

Sniffles and sneezes. *sigh* There's nothing worse than a summer cold. Boy, do I feel miserable now, but I know that though it feels like my head is going to explode any minute now, I'll be back to my old self soon. My couch and bed and have been seeing a lot of me the last few days, which Ruby has loved. That saves her from having to follow me around all day long!

I have some good news. I did it. I decided what color to paint our interior doors. You all gave me many wonderful suggestions in my last post which helped me tremendously. Ultimately, I decided on a color that I've always loved - robin's egg blue. The shade I bought is very close to the example in the photo above, much brighter than what my studio once was. Why such a bold color statement? I mean, my cabinets are already red, right?

I found this comment left by Jenni of Quixotic Aesthetic after I had made my decision, but she explains perfectly why I made the choice I did:

"I love the red cabinets, but red doors would be A LOT of red. Brown seems too safe and your house is not safe. I love the blue green but I also like the idea given by Ticking and Toile of doing more a robin's egg blue with white in a worn look. Or even a pale turquoise. It would look fabulous with the white beadboard. If you hate it, it's paint. Easy to change--relatively."

The part about not being safe is exactly what I was thinking when I made my final decision. I LOVE red and if my cabinets weren't already that color, red would have been my first choice for the doors. However, I didn't want the doors to steal the cabinets' thunder{ha!}, so I decided against the red. How beautiful they would have looked going down our hallway, though!

I adore the dark brown, too, and have plenty of it in accents around the house.

This color just makes me feel happy!

It would have been gorgeous on the doors! Dark, rich, classic - beautiful! But I feel that maybe that it is a very predictable color choice. It is logical, traditional, and perhaps even expected because it matches my dark brown accents.

I know that I'm not one to incorporate color into fabrics like curtains, upholstery, pillows, etc...I crave whites and neutrals in that area. Even when it comes to accent pieces, I tend to use white or dark brown save for the little red lamp on my kitchen counter! But despite my longstanding love for whites and neutrals, I just feel that the doors, like the cabinets, need a special, dramatic color of their own. Just as I toned down the red of my cabinets by antiquing them {distressing them by sanding and brown glaze, and maybe a bit of white glaze}, I will also tone down the blue on the doors a bit. I want them to look old, worn...like they've been here a hundred years.

Finally, I chose this color because I want to add some good old fashioned cottage style cheeriness to Twice Remembered. This color just makes me feel happy!

So whether one is drawn to the warmth of red or the coolness of blue, hopefully most visitors will feel right at home here. :) I'll be sure to post photos when we get our first door painted. I can hardly wait!

---

Can I tell you something?

I'm addicted.

Just plain old addicted.

I can't stop thinking about miniature dollhouses. Miniature doll food. Miniature doll furniture. Miniature doll dolls. I feel like I've stepped into a whole new dream world of possibilities, so from here on out, you all will not only hear me talk about what's new at the Twice Remembered Cottage, but also what's new at the Twice Remembered Cottage dollhouse. Please bear with me...I haven't been this excited since my mother bought me a giant Barbie RV at a yard sale when I was a little girl {incidentally, I played with Barbies until I was 15 or so!}. Ohhh, what fun is about to be had by all us girls here at home - and all of you too!

I want to tell you that if you've never built a dollhouse before but have always wanted to, why not start this journey with me? You can find relatively inexpensive

I feel like I've stepped into a whole new dream world of possibilities...

kits starting at around $30 {look on Ebay and Amazon.} You'll probably pay more for laser cut kits. Mine isn't which means that it's going to take me forever to punch out the pieces. I've read that dollhouse building can be challenging and requires lots of patience and many, many, many hours of labor, like building a real house, really, but the reward is well worth it. The "challenging" part kind of scares me, honestly. I'm wondering if I can really do this. But I guess I'll never know unless I try. My doll house kit should arrive any day now and I can't wait!

I'm excited to blog about my very treasure for the dollhouse. Funny, eh, considering the house hasn't even arrived yet! Check out this antique style cast iron stove...isn't she just lovely?!



She's on back order, though, and won't be shipped until August, but that's ok. I still have a house to build!

Interior Doors: Red or Brown? {Or Blue?}

Ah. More color decisions. I know I've asked before, but I'm getting down to the wire deciding on a paint color for our interior doors throughout our cottage. The door leading into studio {above, old photo taken before beadboard was added} is on sawhorses already, primed with a basecoat of white! Whatever color I decide I will distress slightly so some of the white will peek through.



I know that I don't want the doors painted white. However, the trim around them will be white just like the beadboard.

The options that I'm considering are:

A} Red, just like cabinets

OR

B} Dark, dark, chocolate brown

I would like to have a third option {C} which would be some kind of greenish blue color{with a brown glaze applied and wiped off to tone down the color}. It would be similar to the color my studio was once painted or something even richer and darker. This would be really different and unexpected but I'm not sure about it. Hubs already says he's not at all crazy about it. I don't know...but I'll throw that out there for some opinions as well.

The doors inside the studio will be red. No question. They just have to be.:) It's the rest of the doors that I'm up in the air about. As usual!



Edited to add a couple of examples of darker blue/green shades that could work. I guess it's apparent by now that I'm not afraid of color for the doors!




What say you? Ideas? Your suggestions are most appreciated! Thank you!