Creek Party! is for sale

We started working on this house around 10 months ago. My husband can find the most beautiful pieces of property and then turn them into these amazing places to live. He really specializes in large tracts of land. I guess I should give you the deets...didn't really intend this to be a sponsored post. I will have to ask for compensation! haha

He owns his own real estate firm, High Pointe Properties. You can check out the website for listings  All of this to say, the Creek Party! house is for sale!! We are thrilled to put it on the market. We worked very hard to make this a place like none other in the state of Alabama. The cabin is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, full size loft with many amenities...one being, it's in the middle of nowhere!

An amazing photographer, Alan Matthews, came out one rainy Sunday and snapped some great pics. We have been trying to get together for months! We finally decided to weather the rain and make it happen. Didn't get any of the outside of the house, but you can see that here or here.

I love this view from the windows that cover the front of the house. The wood-clad beams and just enough wood accents really gives this house a modern, yet rustic feel. The rocks you see on the fireplace surround were pulled from the creek. You will see those on the patio in the back, too! The floors are reclaimed hickory. Possibly my favorite flooring right now. We just added a clear, flat finish to these so you could see the natural beauty of them!

When you turn around and look out the windows instead of into the house, you see this. Seriously, this is right outside! The color was probably enhanced just a tad since it was a cloudy day, but this captures the view perfectly.

Downstairs is very rustic. The ceilings in this bedroom are red barn wood and the walls are old bleachers! They are so fun and still have plaques and holes for the bolts. We put a set of bunk beds in this room and would probably put another set if we had them.

This bedroom has the view of the creek. It has the same red barn wood on the ceiling with a little around the walls to accent the natural barn wood walls. The doors were all saved from the same house in Hanceville, Alabama. The floors on the bottom floor are stained concrete. You can see a couple of shots of the downstairs living space here.

I was so thankful when I grabbed Connor for a shot of the two of us. I love this picture. We enjoy building houses together. We have similar tastes and when we disagree, we can usually compromise! 

I have always loved this screen door. It serves no purpose. I just love to look at the size and character of it! It will go with me to another house.....more on that later! ;)

Repurposing Old Architectural Pieces

I never watch tv. Ok, I do, but only when it's freezing outside! It's freezing outside here in Alabama. We do not get a lot of cold weather. I'm not a fan! I would rather be outside playing tennis or building something in my barn. Gah, I keep lying! When it warms up, I will be in the barn building all kinds of cool things! We moved in and I filled that cute barn up quickly. I haven't built many things, yet! Now that I have time to play, it's just too cold to get out there and clean it up!

I have been recording Rehab Addict, The Bronson Pinchot Project and today watched two episodes of The Salvage Dawgs. I love all this old, salvaged architecture! It's amazing what can be recycled out of old buildings.

You find them everywhere. Some are sentimental for family reasons. Others belong to the government and everyone can't agree on what should be done with the building or maybe someone is planning on remodeling and just can't afford it.

My Great-Grandmothers house is an example of the first. Her old farm house is falling apart and has been taken over by animals. It's been empty for 30 years. It is sad that no one has taken care of it. It still stands up on the hill with so many memories of Easter Egg Hunts and playing in the trees.

The public buildings sit for a long time. The government wants to try and use them for something else. Then vandals take over and it becomes an eyesore. There was a building in Anniston that needed to be torn down.  A fire destroyed a lot of the building and no one wanted to put the money into it to build it back. It sat there and deteriorated. It was dangerous because the floors were rotting and people were going in and could get hurt. I got to go by and take pictures because there was talk of it being torn down and salvaged. The politics got in the way and it was torn down with a wrecker ball. The doors, bricks, and beautiful ornate pieces were all destroyed. There are so many beautiful things in old buildings that need to be salvaged. They can be used again. Can you imagine what it would cost to have the character you see in old buildings?

 I had the pleasure of working with Southern Accents when they disassembled the Gay House in Montgomery. There were a couple of stories that ran in the papers in Montgomery and Mobile. The home was built in the late 1800's. It changed hands several times and was a rental when it caught fire. The owner at the time of our demo had dreams of rebuilding, but the economy wasn't good at that time and he couldn't justify the cost. The team took a couple of days to get everything out that could be salvaged. There were some amazing pieces. You can read a little about a connection with the Gay family in this post on Southern Accents blog. It was a cool reunion in the end! We also used a lot of the wainscoting in the Green House! You can see how the pieces were re-purposed in these pictures before the house was complete.