Ethan's Room

Ethan's bedroom was actually the very first room we painted on the very first day we moved in.  We wanted him to feel comfortable in his new home (and sleep) so we wanted to get all of his furniture and belongings in the room as soon as possible.  All of the furniture and prints are from the nursery in our old house. 

BEFORE:  Beautiful, purple checkerboard :)

 

AFTER: We ended up using a pale blue color for the walls.  It is called "Tropical Surf" by Glidden (Home Depot's brand paint).

Much better!  Still need window treatments (I'd love to have red chevron of something) and maybe a mural on the wall above the crib.  But man, SOOO much better.  It is amazing how big Ethan's room is now (especially compared to his old room).  He loves it and so do we!

Next room on the to-do list?  Our BRIGHT green master bedroom. 

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Kitchen Makeover

A large, eat-in kitchen was a very exciting upgrade for us from our last home.  Although we loved our last kitchen renovation, it was A LOT of work and we took the room down to the bare bones.  That kitchen was just ugly and didn't have enough storage.  A renovation was necessary.  (You can see my posts about our old kitchen renovation HERE.) Our new kitchen has TONS of storage (we still have empty drawers), and although we aren't crazy about everything in it, we decided that a complete reno wasn't necessary at this time.  We just can't justify spending that much money right now for a kitchen that is completely function and just needs a little bit of a makeover.  We are giving ourselves a good 10 years until we take this kitchen down to the studs and at that time, we will do a completely new layout (I don't like the glass kitchen top stove on the center counter or the oven in the corner).

Sooo...what to do in our BRIGHT BLUE kitchen.  Well, for starters, we needed to paint.  (Obvi.) We found a bunch of inspiration on Pinterest and knew that we wanted to do a turquoise-ish blue on the walls with classic, white subway tiles.  (Picture was found on Inspiration for Decoration, an amazing website that also featured Ethan's nursery randomly.)

We first started with Benjamin Moore's Palladian Blue and realized it was much to light.  Mike did the second coat with the next color on the swatch, Wythe Blue. 

Not quite the color we were going for but close.  Because of the different lighting hitting the different walls, the color looks different everywhere.  Sometimes it looks grey and other times green.

Here is an after shot of the sink:

Mike pained the back of the shelves a dark gray.  We are toying with the idea of tearing that wall down.  We definitely want the open space into the family room but unfortunately, there is plumbing that is in that wall.  Therefore, it will be a bigger deal for us to just take it down and we would need more help to run the plumbing across and down the side of the room.  

Before and after: new paint color, subway tiles under cabinets and around sink, new white plugs and light switches (man, those cream ones were killing me). Did I mention that white subway tiles are about 22 cents each? So for 200, we only spent about $45! 

I guess it shouldn't really say "after".  We still have a lot of things to do.  I would like to get some kind of window treatment above the sink.  I am not crafty enough to make something but I'd love some kind of roman shade.  Anyone have suggestions on where I can get one?  (Maybe an Etsy seller makes custom ones...off to search.)  We also need some red and yellow pops of color with a rug and things on the wall.  We need to figure out something with those random shelves in the counter top (we are thinking about putting doors on them).  I am sure you also noticed, we are desperate need for NEW LIGHTING.  Yikes. 

So that's where we are in the kitchen department.  Almost done but a bit more to go.  I'll definitely post when we are completely done. We have also finished Ethan's room so that is up next!

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New House Tour

Now that we are now a bit more settled in, I have time to sit down and share a few pictures of our new home!  It has so much potential and mostly needs some love, a few upgrades, and a lot of paint.  We love it and can't wait to make it feel like OURS.

When you walk in the front door and look to the left, you see the dining room:

To the right is the sitting room.  We aren't quite sure what to do with it.  Mike wants it to be his office but I'm not sure how I feel about the office being the first thing you see when you walk in the door.

 That room flows into our family room.  Loving the big bay window that looks into our screened in porch.

 Off of the family room, you find our BLUE (well, no longer blue) kitchen.  I mean, it. was. blue!

 Check out our walk-in pantry.  Room for food and kitchen appliances.  LOVE!

 Upstairs you will find our master bedroom (it is on the "to paint" list).

 Our master bathroom.  Super excited about our double sink, counter space, and bathtub!

I love our walk-in closet so much.  It really is so exciting to have room for all of my clothes and shoes.  I even share it with Mike!

Down the hall is Ethan's room.  Yup...that's right.  Don't worry, it was the first room we painted.

 Ethan's bathroom:

 Back downstairs and off the family room is our screened in porch that leads outside to our HUGE, fenced backyard.  There is also a huge garden full of fruits and vegetables.  I have a lot to learn before spring comes!

Basement with lots of storage:

 My future workout room:

Not shown: main level bathroom (also blue), 2 empty bedrooms upstairs, empty bedroom and bathroom in the basement. 

SOOOOOO...that's it.  We have already done some work and will be posting some progress pictures soon.  We truly feel blessed to be in a home where we can stretch out and grow as a family.  Can't wait for all of the memories that are to come.  So happy to be home.

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November = Whirlwind

I can't believe it is already November 12th.  This month has been a total whirlwind and I'm actually ok with it.  The faster this month goes by, the sooner we will be in our new home!

Life has just been crazy for us lately.  Everything hit at once.  We needed to move out and close, but Mike is in the middle of his busiest months of the season for photography, and it is report cards/conference time for me.  And of course, Ethan got his first cold of the season.  Oh joy.

But we somehow survived, moved out of our first home, and settled in with my parents for the month.  Everyone asks how living with my parents has been, expecting me to say that it is horrible.  But I can't say anything bad at all!  It's been great and we are so lucky they opened their home to us.  I can't believe we only have 2.5 more weeks here.

I was sad to leave our little house but now I am just SO excited to get into our new place.  I've been pinning like crazy on Pinterest and we have tons of decorating ideas.  I'm so excited to think what memories our new house will hold.  I can't help but look at the past 4 years and think of all of the blessings we have been given.

I love how this blog has gone from wedding planning to kitchen renovations to puppy training to traveling  to growing a baby to motherhood and now to decorating our new home.  Anticipating our next chapter.

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Feeling crazyyyyyyy

Have you ever had those days/weeks where you just feel like the worst wife/teacher/friend/sister/fill-in-the-blank?  Ugh...that is where I am right now.  Stress stress stresssss is piling up.  I should be doing a million other things right now, but instead, I'm going to blog.  Oye.

We bought a house!  We won't close on it until November 30th but we have to be out of our house this weekend.  That means, for the month of November, we will be living with my parents. 

Let me be honest, moving sucks.  I'm seriously shocked at how much stuff we have and how long it takes to pack.  We have this teeny, tiny, little house and I feel like it is taking FOREVER.  I really hope that we never have to do this again!

Back to the new house...I can't wait to get in.  I can't wait to stretch out with all of the room we will have there.  I am especially excited about things we have never had before...a 2 car garage, jacuzzi bathtub, master bathroom with counter space and double sink, walk-in closet, screened-in patio.  SQUEEE!  I'm so excited, I could scream!

So, this whole moving process and packing has taken up a lot of time (that is an understatement) and I just feel like I've fallen off of the Earth with my friends.  And work...ugh, I'm drowning in papers to grade.  Of course, I am supposed to have everything graded by Friday so I can work on report cards.  That's NOT gonna happen.  And my poor husband.  He's also as busy as ever with his day job, photography job, fixing things around our house, and then packing for the move. 

BUT, we have been catching up on Season 1 of Homeland.  Anyone out there watch this show?  It is completely addicting and seriously amazing.  We LOVE it and somehow watched all 12 episodes this month.  See, definitely time to relax in the midst all of the stress.

Off to bed!  This is going to be a BUSY week.  We are going to be packing like crazy, celebrating Halloween and going to SYTYCD (we purchased these tickets a couple months ago before we even knew it would be our closing weekend) and the movers are coming on Friday!  Welp!

My little helper :)

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