The Beginning of My RRR House

Rescue, Restore, and Redecorate are the 3 R's that are the motto behind the Amy Howard At Home product line. About a year ago we decided to sell our home in Normandy Park to build a new home on some land. We have felt for some time that we were suppose to build a retreat for ourselves as well as to be used by others for healing and support from what life brings. 

We knew that we would need to have an "interim" house. While we built our retreat home. 

We discovered an older home that was being lived in, but had literally been abandoned. It was built in 1942 and had a basement and a 3rd floor. It had great bones and a lot of potential.

So we embarked on a Rescue Restore Retreat of this wonderful old home. 

Gene and our youngest son Preston are standing outside our Rescue house. 

I wanted you to see how overgrown it was. 

You really couldn't see the house and the details of it because the plants were so overgrown. 

I hate showing this image but it shows how grown up the house was and neglected. 

A diamond in the rough

Our Architects

We were considering adding an addition, 

so we went to see our friends and architects Doug and David. 

We love their taste and we easily agree on simple and edited looks for homes of all periods.

Roof Selection

The first thing that we had to do was replace the roof. 

In doing so we found a 50 year old bee hive. 

Oh the joys of Rescuing a older home. 

I knew that we were going with white on the brick, 

so a simple 30 year roof in black was going to be perfect. 

We decided on painting the brick in Benjamin Moore Dove White.

I went back and forth for some time about having shutters. 

I eventually decided that there were simply too many shutters. 

The house was so busy that we needed to edit and simplify. 

You can see the blue shutters with the red brick and windows in terrible repair. 

Trying to decide on our front door color

I decided we would focus on using the Amy Howard At Home La Grange Lacquer on the front door. 

That way it was simple and elegant. 

New plan for landscaping

Cutting away the brush, trimming up the trees and putting in simple boxwoods would give the house the look that I was wanting.