Our House

If you would prefer to not listen to the Point of View Tunes, simply mute

the music by sliding the arrow to the right at the bottom of the player. Near the top of the player is a volume control. If you slide that down, the music will be muted.

The Summer of 2009 at Bill and Sue's Point of View

Bill and I spent 30 glorious days at our house in Port Townsend, Washington. We worked almost every day. Each morning we would compile a "to do" list. Most days we completed all the items on the list. However some tasks took several days to complete.

I considered listing everything we did but I figured you'd become exhausted simply by reading the list. Plus, I didn't want to give you the impression that we're super human.

Bill's brother Stan stayed with us for about ten days, and without his help I doubt we would have accomplished all our goals for the summer.

Here is Stan. He doesn't look very busy in this picture but he really put in long hours helping us.

So let's give Stan a big round of applause!

Thanks so much, Stan!

And I promise we won't make any more guests work as hard as we worked Stan. (Well, if you show up on a work day, we might hand you a rake. We have a lot of landscaping to do.)

Let me tell you a bit about the house. It is has 3,908 square feet of living space. We have a large double garage and 40 feet of deck on the upper level. We plan to add a lower deck next summer.

We have a living room/dining area, kitchen, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a large laundry room, a great room downstairs, a game room , and a large entry hall.

The upstairs is finished. We still need to get more furniture. We purchased more furniture than the pictures show but I broke my camera lens and I had technical difficulties with my backup camera.

This is the master bedroom. We have a small wall mounted fireplace in the corner for chilly nights.

Each morning all we had to do was open our eyes to see the view outside. We could see Protection Island and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Of course if we didn't see anything, we knew fog had rolled in. In the evenings we could see the twinkling lights of Victoria, Canada. When it was foggy, which wasn't often, we could hear the ships blowing their foghorns at each other. To me it was a comforting sound.

Below are pictures of the master bathroom.

After whacking blackberry bushes and overgrown shrubs, soaking in this deep tub is a luxury.

The walk-in shower has two shower heads. One shower head is higher than the other one.

This is the living room. We still need to have a fireplace mantle made and we could use an end table or two.

The floors are South American pearwood. South American pearwood is a sustainable wood which is twice as hard as white oak. The floor has not been stained. A clear finish highlights each board's individual color variations.



And here is the kitchen.

I love my walk- in pantry.

The countertops are made of recycled paper. The product is called Paperstone. It is a very durable material. If you will notice the counter top has no support for the overhang because Paperstone is very strong.

I can watch ships coming and going from my kitchen window and watch deer nibble the clover. Apparently, the waterfront outside our house is a favorite fishing spot for the local fishermen. We see people tending their crab pots and fishing for halibut and salmon.

This is the upstairs guest bathroom. It is part of a bedroom suite. We don't have any furniture in the bedroom yet.

Because of the technical difficulties with my cameras , I don't have pictures of the powder room, the downstairs bathroom, and the downstairs floors. We stained the concrete floors downstairs brown. They resemble the floors at Starbucks.

This is a ledge above the staircase landing . I guess the seagulls and crows impressed me enough to purchase artwork of them. The piece of wood at the base of the picture frame is actually a replica of a slug. Slugs are as big as the one shown. The neighbors hate them but, since I'm new to the neighborhood, I still find them interesting enough to add to my art collection. I have never asked Bill how he feels about slugs. I suppose I should ask. He does most of the yardwork.

Some Rest For The Weary

Not every day was a work day.

Jenny and Victoria arrived in July and stayed for about nine days.

After picking Jenny and Victoria Violet up from the airport, we took in some Seattle sights.

Our first stop was the Space Needle. The Space Needle is a must see stop for new visitors. From the top of the tower you can see for miles and miles in all directions. And of course the only exit from the Space Needle is through a huge gift shop which awaits visitors when they come down.

Bill and Victoria Violet are looking at the houseboats on Lake Union.

Then we went to Pike Place Market. It's a wonderfully busy and crowded farmer's market. Fruits, vegetables, flowers, jewelry, and art can be purchased at Pike Place Market. There are also wonderful restaurants. If you're a fan of the movie "Sleepless in Seattle", The Athenian restaurant was the setting for one of the scenes in the movie.

Victoria Violet is posing in front of sweetpeas and violets!

After having lunch, we left for Port Townsend, via the Bainbridge Ferry. It is about a two hour drive from Seattle to Port Townsend and the ferry ride adds another thirty minutes.

This is the countryside outside of Port Townsend. A long valley stretches between forested rolling hills. There are only two lane country roads that lead to Port Townsend.

Every week I went to the post office to collect my mail from General Delivery. "General Delivery" isn't an officer in the military. It's a location where folks get their mail when they don't have a mailbox.
(I knew you knew that. I'm just playing around.)

The post office in Port Townsend is a grand old building. Every window has a wonderful view of Port Townsend Bay. Even the upstairs bathroom window has a gorgeous view. I mean how many public bathrooms can claim to have an exspanive ocean view?

Waiting in line to get may mail was a delight. Not only could I look out the windows but the people in line were friendly and often engaged me in conversation. I met a few local writers while waiting for my mail.

Victoria is mailing a letter for me and Jenny is buying stamps at the window. The walls are lined with wooden mailboxes and the floors are made of marble.

If a customer brings in a dog, the postal clerks will offer the pooch a doggie treat.

We had a great Fourth of July in Port Townsend. As per tradition, the fireworks were set off from a barge in Port Townsend Bay. The barge wasn't in place when we arrived at the beach. We waited and waited and finally a tugboat pulled the barge into the bay and the fireworks began! The firework display was held on the beach just below Fort Worden. Fort Worden was the setting for the movie "The Officer and the Gentleman".

Sailboats were moored off shore and the people on board were watching the fireworks from their boats. Some people on some of the sailboats were setting off their own fireworks. Personally, I thought that was a tad dangerous. Can you imagine what would happen to those on board if a firework ran amuck and went below deck?

Prior to the firework display, we played on the beach. It didn't get dark until 10:00 PM.

Yes, it was chilly. We had to wear jackets and by the time the fireworks started we were wrapped in blankets and drinking hot cocoa and coffee.

The atmosphere was festive and exciting.

Each day during Victoria and Jenny's visit were filled with fun activities.

On some days we enjoyed collecting shells and sea glass from the local beaches. No, that is not a boat that was washed up on the old pier. It actually is a boat that is on a trailer in the parking lot of the Nifty Fifties ice cream shop.

Here is the ice cream shop.

We wandered among the vendors at the Port Townsend Farmer's Market on Saturday. We bought fresh manila clams and steamed them for dinner. They were yummy! There was a young couple who sold cheeses they make. I can't begin to tell you how delicious their goat chevre was. I plan to go back next summer and seek them out! I also bought some artwork by some local artists. Victoria purchased some knitted jewerly.

One day we drove to Sequim to see the vast fields of lavender.

Did you know there is lavender flavored ice cream?

Every July Sequim has a huge lavender festival. It's a laid back festival filled with booths selling art and food, tours of the lavender farms, and live music.

Sequim also has a resident herd of elk that wander about. Bill and I have seen them near the lavender fields in the past but, we didn't see any of them this summer.

Sequim is a forty-five minute drive from our house. It is where we go if we need supplies from Home Depot or Cosco. Port Townsend does not have chain stores.

Outside of Sequim is the Olympic Game Farm. This nonprofit rescue farm is the home to animals who have been used in the entertainment business or for some reason or another can no longer live in the wild. Gentle Ben used to live here before his death.

The enclosures are very poor for some of the animals. The lions, tigers, and wolves live in small pens but, the other animals roam about and seem happy. The management had a written statement that explained "The reason some of the enclosures were not up to their standards was because in their fifty years of being in operation, they wanted to take things slowly in order to get everything right."

One day we took the Port Townsend / Keystone Ferry to Whidbey Island to shop. The ferry had just left Port Townsend in the picture below.

As an educator, I have learned children draw about things they know. I was expecting Victoria to paint flowers, cacti, her dog, and family. But Victoria Violet painted sky, the sun, the ocean,and pine trees.

Sometimes watching TV on the sofa was a good way to pass the time.

And at the end of each day, we enjoyed the sunsets over the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

We had good times with friends. Here is my long time friend Mechele and her granddaughter Shannon. Mechele lives in Mount Lake Terrace, a Seattle suburb. Shannon was visiting her grandparents. She lives in Florida.

We were having lunch at a restaurant in Edmonds. Michael, Mechele's husband is sitting on the right.

It was Mechele and Michael who told Bill and I about Port Townsend. They said it is a nice little town in an area that only gets 17 inches of rain each year. I'm glad we took their advice and checked out the town. We never would have found our Point of View!

To learn more about Port Townsend, please read my June 1st blog entry.