Greetings!  

Yes, it's been awhile since my thoughts have graced this page.  I'm really here because a very dear friend of mine recently told me I kind of left everyone in the lurch with our Mullan 'adventure'.  I guess I never had a proper ending to the story. :) Well, recently the ending, such as it is, turned into another chapter. To make a long story short, after living in our Mullan, Idaho home 'Camp Dunmovin' (Not!) for 4 years, we decided to sell our home and make our permanent residence the small, quirky town of Ajo, Arizona.  

What was to be a short visit to see friends, who themselves had moved from Coeur d'Alene to Ajo several years ago, turned into an instant love affair with this little gem of a town in the middle of the beautiful Sonoran desert.  Neither of us would have ever considered ourselves 'desert people' before our first trip down there but the desert has a way of drawing you in. A large part of its beauty lies in its mystery. The view is endless and never the same. You are constantly surrounded by life, some of it visible, most of it not. The night skies are coal black, with the only 'visible' companions being the stars, which you can see in abundance.  It's the ones that aren't quite as visible that can give you the most pause for thought! 

Actually, I don't think the desert is a place for the faint of heart. :/ 

While we have been working on this new chapter for 2 years, we just sold our home here in Mullan in July.  Because the house itself was not the norm, we, and even our realtor, thought it would take a while to sell.  It didn't . . . and we were totally unprepared to have to move so quickly.  You know how it goes, the best laid plans . . .

When we designed and built our home, we wanted something for 'us'. We weren't worried about who would like it and whether we would be able to sell it in the future.  We thought that wouldn't be our problem. :)  We also wanted a house we would be comfortable leaving in the winter knowing the snow would be piling up all around it. There was no name for our type of house at the time we built it.  It was just a Pole Building finished off as a house.  Now, (as of July) there is an actual category in the Realtors Multiple Listings Guide called Shouse's.  Who wudda thunk it!

I'm just going to end here today with the photos of our 'Shouse' that our Realtor, Denise Lundy of Fortus Realty, had professionally taken for the listing.  After 4 years, this is how our 'Camp Dunmovin' evolved . . .

 

House, garage and our RV.  

(The house/garage actually fronts 3 streets)

The RV is our current 'home' until we get down to Ajo in November.

Living room looking into bedroom and office/studio space

Living room looking towards dining area and kitchen

Kitchen Island

Kitchen work area

Master bedroom (actually, the only bedroom!) with the bed made from recycled Barn doors

Master Bath

Next Blog I'll show you the start 

of our adventures at 

Camp Dunmovin 'South'  :)

AND NOW, FOR THE REST OF THE STORY ....

Welcome to the Kitchen.  I think I posted a photo of what we chose for our main Cabinet before, but maybe not.  I saw this somewhere so I can't take credit for the idea. This is a Stainless Steel Toolbox on Casters.  I just love the Kitchen drawer storage it gives us.  I looked at a lot of similar styles but decided on this one (Costco) because of size and the fact that it has both drawers and a Cabinet.

The drawers are perfect depth for so many of those 'odd shaped' Kitchen items.

     

One of the 'extras' we knew we wanted was a pot filler.  No more lifting a big heavy pot with water from Sink to Stove.  The convenience is all right there.   That's the funny looking thing you see there on the counter.  It just has a cold water connection which is all you need.

Our Coffee Pot is on this counter and so it's very convenient for filling that to make coffee too.  And, with the amount of coffee the two of us drink, that's major!  :)

I opted for mostly open shelving in the Kitchen. First and foremost, I like the look.  And second, I wanted the Kitchen to be convenient.  The truth is we're not getting any younger, (well ... Glen's not :) and to have things easily accessible just makes sense.  The non-open cabinets are Hickory Cabinets, the same as what we have in the main bathroom.

This is the Kitchen Island now finished.  Our friendly little Pig on the counter usually holds notes from our Grandchildren.  When they come to visit, one of them will usually write a 'love note' on it to us.  But, before the day ends, that note can be changed 3 or 4 times by another one of the Grandchildren.  It's become somewhat of a contest as to whose note will be the last one on there when they leave.  :)

sorry, this is a little dark.  This our Buffet and it is directly across from the Island.  

These shelves are to the left of the Buffet and pretty much in the center of the room.  I opted to do our wall this way because I wanted the whole open space to flow from one area to the other fairly seamlessly.  

Here's another view ...

The diningroom table.  This is one of those things that (hopefully!) will get changed  at some point.   It's a great table, it opens up to double in size, but for this space I think a narrow Farm table would be better.  I'm working on that!  :)

Now we are in the Livingroom area.  Yes, the Binoculars are always there.  Out that window we have a great view of the Mountains on the other side of Mullan.  Almost daily we can watch the Elk and Deer grazing on the hillside.  

More Livingroom area.  The Sofa is probably going to get changed at some point too.  It's soooo comfortable but we are probably going to replace it with a Sofa bed at some point.  We don't have a guest room per se, (just our RV 'guest house')  but we've had so much company since being here that we could occasionally use an extra bed.

In case you noticed, yes, I did change the big painting.
The Winter trees are what is up there now.  :)

We have two of these Brown Leather chairs (at the bottom of the photo below) that face across the livingroom to the window (with the binoculars)  For some reason I didn't get a full photo of this side.

That's my Studio space.  YES ... IT IS TINY.  :/  It was suppose to originally be our Office Space and we were going to build a separate Studio Space for me in the back yard.  The house was first priority though, so we said 'Next year' for the Studio and I would just carve out a niche 'somewhere' in the house for now.  Well, the 'Office' actually fit nicely in our Bedroom so I took over this space.  Temporarily. :)  But, other than storage for the non-daily essentials (frames, extra canvases, etc.) this works out just fine.  It is somewhast cramped right now, but I will probably only be designing Jewelry through the end of this year.  Once I stop that and just concentrate on my Artwork, this space will actually be perfect for my needs.   And, the coffee pot is just a few feet away!  :)  

Well, that is where we are at the moment.  There is still a lot of fine tuning to do inside.  But, since the weather is becoming nicer, the priority for now is the outside and the Garage (which needs a whole new makeover!)   Could almost be another whole Blog.  NOT!  :)

"THE ORNAMENT OF A HOUSE IS THE FRIENDS WHO VISIT IT."

                    Ralph Waldo Emerson

Will keep you 'posted' !

Charleen