Living Room Before and After!

Some of those we love, who may not live nearby, have been asking for some pictures of our house.  And I finally got around to taking some "after" shots on a day that was sufficiently sunny enough for me to take pictures. :)  But of course I thought I would include the "before" as well!

Here is the living room before:

No, that is not painter's tape around the window.  That is dark, dark teal trim around the window.  Like, took four coats of white to cover it, and it still needed to be touched up.  That gem of a color will make an appearance in some other rooms too.  She was a beauty. 

 

 Here is the living room "during"!  There's Melly, painting her first room ever!  You should have seen her excitement when she was realizing how awesome it was looking.  She was giddy.  She was the best painter helper ever.

Here is the after!!  The paint color is Martha Stewart Silver Drop.  I have a gray obsession, therefore the whole house is gray.  :)  Fun Fact: we bought the floors online without ever seeing them in person, but knew that we would love them because the color is called "barnwood".  Turns out, we were right!

 These curtain rods were Hubby's idea.  When he said, "Let's make our own curtain rods," my first instinct was that he was either kidding, or trying to just trying to save some money.  Then he insisted he had a specific idea, and googled around the show me what he meant when I didn't quite understand what meant by "steel pipe".  A few days and a few trip to the plumbing aisle of Home Depot, and there we have our curtain rods!

We love the industrial look, and the mixture of metal and wood, and we are really trying to incorporate that into our home.  I love how these turned out, and love even more that Hubby had an idea, looked into how to do it, and we made it happen with our own two (four?) hands.  I love being able to create and decorate with his help, it makes the house such a product of what we love.  I'm pretty impressed with Hubby over this one!

 Reading nook.  Now all I need is some time to read!  Oh, you will notice some new lighting choices as well.  Limitted ceiling lights in this house, so now I had to make lamps my friend.  I hated them, but we are cordial now.  I discovered super-bright bulbs, and cheap(er) lamps at Home Goods.  (Part of what I disliked was their price. Ugh.)

Here is our fire place!  Mantles and I were always meant to be together.  I've always loved them.  I already changed this mantle like 7 times, at least.  Just THINKING about Christmas makes me giggly with excitement.  Oh, the possibilities.

Also in this picture is the first thing we bought for this home, that firewood basket.  As soon as we looked at the house, I knew I wanted that baby to be filled with firewood waiting to be burned.  (Or newspaper, waiting to be kindled.)

 Here's the mantle as it currently sits.  My favorite is the family picture by Gina Lenz.  Just in love.

So there is our living room so far!  I'm so hesitant to hang anything on the walls, but I know we'll get there eventually.  For now, we are enjoying the clean freshly painted walls. :) More projects and adventures, coming soon!

Boxes

We collected them.  We filled them. We taped them.  We tripped over them.  We were surrounded by them.  We moved them.  We unpacked them.  We tripped over them once more.  And now they are in our basement, waiting to be burned and disposed of.  I hope to never again see a box. 

I could never work in a storage facility.  Or at the post office.  Or UPS.  Or a loading dock of any kind.

But if you gotta have boxes around, is there anything cuter in the world to find in it than this little bean?

 She certainly is excited to be getting all settled into her new house!

Home!

 We are finally settled (settling) in!  I know I speak for the whole family when I say I have felt at home here since the first day we moved in.  Reilly has been ecstatic, still sometime exclaiming how excited she is to have her playroom, or yelling out "OUR COUCH IS HERE!" like she just noticed.  She LOVES her big girl bed, and has been sleeping and napping in it since the day we moved in, with no issues (phew!).  The girls are adjusting so well, that it barely seems an adjustment at all.  The transition has been relatively seamless, despite some not-so-seamless hiccups along the road.  Namely:
1. Hubby got in an accident (but is 100% fine, thank you God) the week before we moved, and has been without his truck ever since. (Thank you family and friends who have been so so helpful, we are ever so grateful!)
2. On moving day, our movers showed up to the house an hour late, just to tell us that the truck wouldn't be able to get down the dirt road and that they couldn't move us until Spring. (This will have a post of it's own, long story short, after a few hours of me cursing like a sailor, we found out that another moving company was miraculously available and it got done by late that night.  Again, thank you to all who helped us that day!!)
3. We moved in to find that we had no gas for our oven, and then that the oven was broken, and have therefore been without an oven to this day as well! (Thank you crock pot and microwave, for serving us so well these past few weeks!)

Despite these little hiccups, and I do say little because even right now, without the truck and without the oven still, these things are so minor.  All in all, we have been so blessed by this home.  We are so happy here and so excited every day.  We have been design and creative freaks over here.  We have been crafting lamps from old lighting fixtures, making our own curtain rods from the plumbing aisle of Home Depot, and beating up wood for what will soon be our stair case. :)  We are having so much fun making this our home, and we are counting our blessings every day.

This home has already seen weekend pancakes, snow days with Daddy, dance parties in the living room, fires after dinner, scratches in the floor, wine round the island, smudges on the walls, crayon on the hearth, snuggles in all the beds, and lots of dinners around our table, and we've only been here 2 weeks!  It's so hard to believe, I feel like we've been here for so much longer.  I can't wait to make more of these memories together. 

I hope to be posting some pictures soon!  For now,  I will leave you with some pictures of the cutie girls on Christmas in their pretty little dresses. :)

Packing Up!

Happy New Year!  Merry Christmas!  All those wonderful things.  I have been missing from my blogging pastime, but for very good reason.  That reason being, there was no extra time in my days for it.  You see, all my free time was devoted to the many phone calls and meetings and planning and packing involved in searching, finding, selling, buying, and MOVING into a new home!  See, I told you it was a busy month!

We move in about a week.  Just to the next town, but to a newer and bigger house.  It's still a very modest house, but to us, it's a dream.  It has just enough rooms and just enough space - more than enough for us.  It has a room that Reilly calls "The Toy One" every time we go see it.  Right now it's empty, but to everyone that comes to see the house she says, "This will be the Toy One!".  She and Reagan will still be sharing a room, because they love it, and because they're small people who really don't need a room to themselves yet. :) 

We move in one week and we still have no floors and unpainted walls, but it will all get done.  Clearly this week will be busy like the rest, but oh so exciting.  Our house is mostly packed, a process in which I found to be mostly therapeutic and only slighting exhausting.  It was very intimidating and daunting, but once I started, I became a pro.  I wrap and tuck and tape and label in my sleep.  I see things in my cabinets and immediately know which box it belongs in, where it will live in the new home, how I should pack it.  I love the organization of it all, and the many many bags that have left this home either for the dump or to be donated.  It feels to good to be rid of unnecessary things, and only move what we need.  So packing is not quite the demon I though it once was, and I hear that UNpacking is it's not-as-annoying and not-near-as-daunting cousin!  So I'm looking forward to that part!  We are eating with paper and plastic, and tripping on boxes everywhere, but the excitement that lies ahead has made it less stressful, and just exciting!  We can't wait.

Pictures will be coming as soon as I breathe.  :) There is an island, and a wood burning fireplace.  Two details I look so forward to! 

Reilly runs and sings every time we go visit the house, and whenever we leave she cries and says, "I thought we were moving today!"  It's tough being two, life is so confusing!  We have been bringing her large toys there periodically as I get sick of tripping on them, and she thinks that they are new.  We went to the house the other day, and her play kitchen was in the basement.  She ran over to it said, "Look at my NEW kicthen!!"  She might just be imitating her Mama. ;)

Our Christmas season was wonderful and joyful and everything that Christmas should be.  It was nothing short of magical.  Around every turn was a new song, a new story, a new book, a new tradition, a new Christmas ornament that our girls had yet to discover the magic in.  It was Reagan's first Christmas, and her fascination with the lights, our tree, and the ornaments started early.  She was army-crawling around the room trying to get to our bright little tree.  Silent Night became the lullaby that I sang to her at every nap and at bedtime.  As soon as I started singing, her thumb would be in her mouth and her head on my shoulder. The Night Before Christmas quickly became Reilly's favorite book, and Jingle Bells her favorite song.  She wore a bell around her neck, and watched her "Poofer" Santa movie or White Christmas ("Sisters") daily.   We showed them Christmas lights, Santa at the mall (who they both LOVED!), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Charlie Brown's Christmas.  We danced to Bruce Springstein's "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" every time we got in the car, and listened for Santa's laugh.  Reilly loved pointing out every baby Jesus that she saw, as well as "Mary and Jos-of".  Her favorite game for the entire month was laying on the floor in front of the tree, covering in blankets, and pretending we were waiting for Santa to come.  We baked cookies and breads, before we packed all of our baking things that is.  We went to "New York house" for Christmas, and made countless memories there as well (which will be another post, with pictures!).

So our new year is off to a running start!  We have lots on our (paper) plates, but we are ready for it!  We are so grateful to all the help we have gotten so far, and thankful for this blessing that has been given to us. God really does surprise you sometimes.  More to come soon! Babies are awake.