Fog and Art

I have never had a great view from my domicile before now. Usually looking out a window resulted in appearing as if I was a peeping Tom-ette because a neighbor would be passing by at the exact time I was looking out the window. Plus I've always been surrounded by "stuff" and never had great scenery to look at. Supposedly there was a view from our last house, but you had to have the blinds open and peek through two houses while your body was turned at an angle. Even then, it was just a view of the industrial part of town with a little industrial inlet.

The great thing about this house is that you can see the water/Seattle skyscrapers from almost every room. At night, even though you can't see the water, you can see the glow from the city and you can see airplanes taking off and landing (though you can't hear them...that's really nice). One thing that you can really observe is the weather. Maybe most everyone else can see the weather from their houses, and I'm the unusual one that really couldn't. In my past living situations, I could walk outside and look up. I couldn't do much more than that. But at this angle & the way the house is positioned, you can see clouds rolling in above the water. You can see the ebb and flow of the fog throughout the day. You can see quite a number of rainbows. It's all very cool to see.

Most of our art/wall decor is back at the other house. Our real estate agent wanted the house to look as staged as possible, so we left all the art and other piddly little stuff to make it look cozier. So we really don't have anything on the walls here yet. And I've been antsy to get stuff on the walls. I have dreams of getting really nice art. In our bedroom, I have visions of black and white photography in matching black frames. I'm thinking mostly nature photography but maybe one family picture in black and white.

The weird thing about this house is that the main living area of this house isn't picture friendly. There really isn't any space for pictures on the walls. Now I know you must think I'm smoking crack because I've said this house is 2.5 times bigger than our last house. How could there possibly not be space on the walls, you ask? The living room and dining room are side by side and have windows completely on one side. In the living room, there is a fireplace along one wall, and there is space above it for a piece of art (where we will put the picture we had in the living room in the other house). There is a short wall on the third side that could accommodate a picture, but the picture over the fireplace has a military theme (S's choice) so it's a bit tricky to pick a picture that goes with that. And the fourth side of that room is open to the dining room, so there isn't a wall. In the dining room, there's the wall of windows. Then there's the wall with the hutch, and there's not a whole lot of space to put art there. There are no other walls in the dining room.

Now then let's move to the kitchen, nook & family room area. The kitchen cabinets and big window take up all the wall space in the kitchen. The nook is completely windows on the only wall. The family room is a wall of bookcases on one side (no exposed walls). The other wall is all windows. The other wall is mostly the brick hearth for the fireplace; there is a bit wall area, and I think a wall clock would look nice there. Then there is the little vestibule to the family room, and you can fit 1 bigger picture or 2 smaller pictures there. That's about it. There is a spot above the fireplace, but it's very awkward. There's an inset in brick, and it's probably 2 feet high by 4 feet wide. I don't see a lot of pictures with those types of dimensions. Yes, you can put a smaller picture in there, but it would likely look weird because there will be ample space on the sides of it, but it would likely be tight vertically.

So really we're left with the hallways and up the stairs for placing the art & pictures (aside from bedrooms, of course). I guess we shouldn't buy anything until we see how our existing stuff fits in. We likely won't need much except for a wall clock in the family room and some pictures for our master bedroom. Of all the things to do in this house, I was looking forward to getting some new art/photos for the walls. But that probably won't be needed as much as I anticipated. Oh well, that will save some moola!