Grand Tour pt2

Past the den (you can see the couch) is the breakfast nook. We'll be using it as our dining room since the formal dining area in the living room is carpeted and we have toddlers. The breakfast nook is a big enough area that we can keep our leaf in the table once Ben is joining us for dinner.
What I've done: nothing
What's left to do: paint - might just leave it the same color and paint the trim only
What I'd love to do: I'd love it if that window was bigger or if there was a french door to a back patio there instead. I can dream about that.

From the breakfast nook, you can look into the kitchen. It's a lot smaller than I realized. Through the doorway in the back is the formal living area.

What I've done: nothing

What's left to do: paint, add pull-out drawers to the deep cabinet in the back. Again, I might just paint the trim. The cabinet at the back and to the right is really deep and Chris is going to put pullout out shelves in a few of them so I can see everything in there. I might just buy some plastic storage tubs for the ones he doesn't do. I also want to get new hardware.

Oops! How'd that get in there?

From that kitchen picture, if you turn left, there is a small hallway that leads to the laundry room/garage entrance and the master bedroom:

What I've done: painted, hung up pictures

What's left to do: hang up curtains, no big plans here. But the closet needs work. It's not too small but set up very inefficiently. A simple closet system is on the list for sure and at the top of the list.

This table is at the foot of our bed. I found that chair at a garage sale. I might paint it, but I kind of like it as is. To the left of that table is a door to the master bath. Nothing much to see there. Needs overall gutting.

Grand Tour pt.1

Since no one wants to wait until Christmas for anything, I thought I'd share a few pictures of the new house. It's not even close to being done, but this is it, as is.

I don't have a picture of the outside yet, but mom does on her blog. It needs a little landscaping in the front and a different paint color on the trim. I think I'd really want a shiney black front door, but haven't figured out much past that. This probably won't happen before Christmas anyway.

Time to come inside. When you walk in, turn your head to the right, this is the formal living room. This is where I'll be doing my piano lessons.

Living Room:

What's been done: paint. This is the room that I discovered that latte is what the whole house was painted. I painted the trim white and repainted the walls latte.

What's left to do: Finish unpacking. Decorate. Move chandelier to the dining room.We have a dark olive couch in storage that we'll put on the half-walls and a couple of formal dining chairs that I'll put next to the window facing the couch.

What I'd like to do: I'd eventually love to replace those formal dining chairs with some armless chairs with a fun fabric. Something like this would be cool. Then maybe a coffee table or one of those huge ottoman that doubles as a coffee table and seating.

Now through that halfwall window is the den:

See? There's the half-wall again. You can see the living room through it. The cabinets behind the couch is our kitchen.This is the wall the couch is facing.
This is my chocolate. Before, the room was painted (baseboards and all) latte. The fireplace was a darker latte. Very blaned. I like my dark walls and light fireplace. There are two entertainment centers because we found the small black one (next to the fireplace) at a garage sale this weekend and we have yet to move the big one to storage. We'll sell it eventually.

What we've done: painted

What's left to do: Move the entertainment center, paint a small part of a wall next to the fire place I skipped, and decorate.

What I'd like to do: We'd like to make the half-wall a little nicer. It's really textured and looks a little cheap. I'd really like a rug for the floor and the loveseat that matches our couch. There are 5 in our family and only 4 places to sit.

More tour to come.

Ben at 3 mths

• smiles all the time
• sleeps at least 6 hours at night
• starting to grab at toys
• loves his swing
• has laughed a few times - first time was at his aunt Lauren
• holds his head up
• coos
• starting to scoot around on this back
• loves to be swaddled
• easy-going

And also thanks to . . .

• Both my sisters for all their help painting our old house and the new one.
• My mom and mil for all the babysitting
• All of Chris' friends that helped move the heavy stuff
• My mil for cleaning the old house
• My mom for cleaning the new house
• Jenny for babysitting while I unpacked

Our house is now somewhat unpacked. There is a small pile of boxes in the living room and the same in the "office nook." I have a few pictures hung and a clock or two. Most of the stuff left to unpack is Chris' or awaiting Chris to do something before I unpack it. I'm hoping to get to paint Ben's room this weekend so that I can get his crib set up in there. It's getting hard for him to take naps in the living room while his brothers run wild around him. I went to Ross and Big Lots the other day and drowled over all the things I'd love to have for the new house. But that will have to come in time. Ca needs a bed and a dresser, but everything else is just things that'd make life easier or look pretty. My next priority is to get a closet system set up in our master bedroom. It's a fairly big closet, but could be set up so much more efficient with some shelves and rods. It'd take me about 1 minute to spend a few thousand on this house if it was available.

I just wanted to give a big thank you to the bestest friend ever! Meems & her family were so nice to come over & help us move on Friday. It was an extreemely stressful day. We were moving out earlier than planned, I kept having to nurse, & Chris had to go to work that afternoon. Meems packed up almost my entire kitchen & her dh helped Chris move some of the big stuff. Thank you so much. We couldn't have done it without you.

Moving Tomorrow . . .

I've been painting and painting, packing, and nursing, and ugh. I'm exhausted. We have to be out tomorrow. Holy Smokes. I love the colors I picked for our house. I've done 5 rooms. The rest will have to wait. The smokey chocolate den turned out awesome. I should be cleaning, but I wanted to check up on my blog girls. I'll invite you all over soon.

A New Chapter

Our marriage went through an operation. A nasty tumor was removed. We had a major discussion, not a fight, but a completely honest conversation. Nothing left hidden. It was painful. There were tears. All that was needed to be said was said. We closed the wound and left it to heal. A year later, to the date, was the day we closed on this new house. Here we are about to leave our old house and into a new one. Here we are, a year later, with another life brought into our family. Benjamin - "son of my right hand". I don't think it was coincidence that the closing of our house was on the same date. I think it was God, closing one chapter to start a new one. I'm excited about this next chapter. It's scarey - financially I'm always a little nervous, but it feels right.

This is Embarrassing . . .

Turns out that color that the entire house is painted - it's latte. We painted the living room "latte" and it's almost exactly the same color that's on the walls already. I guess I just hated it because it's overwhelmingly all over the inside of this house. So I spent several hours painting the walls the same color. Had to finish though b/c I did the baseboards sloppy first and I had already started painting our slightly-off latte. Geez! It does look a lot better though, now that the baseboards and door frames are white. And it'll look better when other rooms are different colors. Now I'm questioning doing the den chocolate. I really need a girlfriend to come over and help me decide. It's only going to be on one full wall and two half walls, but I'm scared it'll make the room feel too dark. I miss the days when girlfriends were always available.