You Can't Always Get What You Want

I had to take a pause in the house tour for multiple reasons.  First and foremost, we went home to Texas for Thanksgiving, which interfered with issue #2, which is that I haven't gotten the last room picture perfect and ready for a photo shoot.  I promise to return to this soon, hopefully later this week.

Finally, even in light of the first two road blocks, I'd intended to post something witty and funny tonight in place of more house tours, but L received some very sad news today and I'm in too much of a funk about it to be funny or witty.  It seems that L's mentor and former boss was diagnosed with a cancer, and unfortunately, it's a really bad kind and the prognosis is not good.  This is a man who is very good, very smart, very kind, and has had a profound impact on L's life, and by proxy, mine.  We are both heartbroken for him, his wife, and his two children.  And, selfishly, we are disappointed that the relationship L has with this great man is likely going to be cut entirely too short.

So instead of being funny and witty and whatever I would normally be, instead I ask that everyone just say a short prayer for a man in Virginia with an advancing disease.  Please pray for him and for his family; pray for them to have time together.  Please pray that God gives him strength, hope, courage, determination, peace, and acceptance so that his time is well spent with his family and loved ones.

I can't imagine what it's like to face your own mortality.  As this man walks into this arena, I can't imagine all the things he must feel desperate to do, accomplish, and resolve in the coming months.  I am so terrified of the day when I can't call and talk to my mom and dad.  Losing parents is just part of life, but at least I know I've had my parents for 32 years.  You shouldn't lose them before you get to high school or middle school.  The older I get, the more I continue to really, truly enjoy spending time with my dad and I wish the same for everyone, particularly this family for whom L and I are praying so hard tonight. It just isn't fair for them to go through this, but I realize that no one ever guaranteed fairness in life.

And so, to close, I say please call your parents tonight, or, better yet, go spend time with them.  And please, as you pray tonight, pray for this family.  Thank you.

Stay, Stay, Stay, Stay for a While

Continuing on the tour of our abode, our next stop will be the guest bedroom.  To get to the guest room, there's a door off to the left of the living room that leads to a hallway; off of that hallway is where our guest bedroom is located.  The guest room actually came together first and probably the fastest. 

Here it is, pre-move:

Oddly, I don't recall noticing the weird corners before we moved in. This room perplexes me a little in that way - I don't get why the builders didn't just make those two walls nice and straight, because I know they could have along the left wall - on the other side of that wall is just the hallway and the closet (for some reason, the enormous closet does not open directly into the guest room. Oh well.  Worse plans have been constructed.)

Despite the fact that I previously said this room was one the first to really come together, it was used as a dumping ground and staging area for the rest of the house for most of the first week.  This was largely due to the fact that we didn't have bed rails for the bed.  So, we lived like this for a while.

The shocking thing about this room is that L and I agreed very early on that we both liked this bedding.  I love that it has so much color to it and that it's a big departure from what I had  previously.  We're currently re-using the same accent pillows that I had with the old bedding.  I'm not sold on the combo, but it works for now.  The one thing I don't love about the whole thing is that the duvet looks so flat.  I want it to be fluffier.  And maybe not quite so long, but whatever.  It's fine.  Projects for this room will include installing curtains (once I figure out what kind of fabric I want to use), hanging floating shelves on the wall where that mirror is currently leaning in the picture above, finding some kind of artwork to hang over the bed, and hanging the mirror elsewhere in the room (likely wall above where the suitcase stand is currently located in the second "complete" picture).

A quick shot of the closet:

It's larger than it looks - it's much wider than what you see here (WHICH. I. LOVE.).  This closet is now my accessories closet, my holiday decorations closet, and sort of a catch-all for random stuff at the moment. 

Around the corner from the guest room and the guest closet is the second bathroom.  It should be noted that this bathroom is larger than the bathroom at our old house.  And I don't know why we would ever need to both be in that bathroom at the same time, but if we needed to, we could stand next to each other and both see ourselves in the mirror.  Both the mirror and counter space are sooooo much larger than what we had at the old house.

Some finished shots of the bathroom:

And finally, a shot of the gallery wall in the hallway:

All I can say about gallery walls is this: thank goodness for 3M Command Strips.  It's not the most creative layout, but with the limited amount of space, it seemed like it made the most sense. 

The picture above is taken from the doorway to the bathroom.  To the left, you can see the closet door.  You can also see into the guest room through the open doorway.  The only thing I didn't include a picture of from this side of the house is the laundry closet, which is directly across the hallway from the door to the guest bedroom. 

So that's the guest quarters!  If you want to come visit, just let us know - we've got space and love to host.

One more post and then we'll call this tour done. 

Dare You to Move

Next stop on the tour d'new house: L's and my bedroom.  Here 'tis before we moved in:

Woo hoo!  Nice, empty, non-descript square of a room.  Here's what it looks like now with furniture in it:

 What you can't see in any of these pictures is that the curtains are about 6" too short.  Awesome.  Obviously this is a recurring theme.  Apparently what you CAN see in these pics is ugly power strips.

And now some shots of the bathroom:

Those are both pre-move in.  Nothing has changed since we moved except now there are white towels hanging on the towel bars, white bath mats in front of both sinks and the shower/tub, and more stuff on the counter (like soap dispensers, tooth brushes, etc.).  The bathroom definitely needs some items of interest (at the very least, artwork for the walls) and possibly a new color on the walls.  I think the bathroom is probably the very last room on our list of projects, mostly because we're both so excited to have so much space that's JUST IN ONE BATHROOM!!  Plus, look at that tub.  I never took one bath during the entire three years that we lived in our last house because the tub just creeped me out because it was so old.  I've taken quite a few bubble baths in the new place.  (If anyone has any recs for great bubble bath, please share with me.)  Our last bathroom was the tiniest thing ever, and if you know me or ever came to any of my Austin apartments, you probably know that I've never been interested in tiny bathrooms.  I prefer space to primp and get ready for the day!


So that just about sums up the master suite.  More rooms to come soon!

Movin' On Up

We've been in the new place for just under two months, so I figured it's about time for a picture update.  I thought about waiting until we have everything the way we REALLY want it, but then, if I held off for that, there would probably never be any pictures.  There's a lot of things I/we would like to do that will require saving up for.  So, consider this round the "in between" phase and just know that eventually, there will probably be another round of pics once we've made upgrades and changes to each room.  Also, I think I'll try and do this room by room over a series of posts, because otherwise it would be way too long. I'll also work through the rooms in the order in which you would see them as you walk through our home.

That means that first up is the kitchen/dining/living room.  Essentially, this is all one big room.  This is what it looked like before we moved in:

This is the view from the front door.  The perspective isn't great, but beyond the island is a dining area that isn't defined AT ALL in this pic because there's no light fixture.  Beyond the dining area is the living room.

Similar point of view NOW:

The room definitely looks longer now that we have furniture all moved in.  Everything fits nicely!  Definitely a relief.

A view of the kitchen, pre-move:

Better view of the kitchen.  So much storage compared to our old house!!  To the left of the refrigerator is the pantry - you can see the door handle here.

 A shot of what things looked like on moving day right:

 

This picture is deceiving, as it gives the illusion that the only boxes on the island are the ones you can see from this view.  Rest assured that there was another row of boxes behind what you see here.

And lastly, a view of the island and front door from the dining area/pantry, pre-move:

Similar shot, now:

A few shots of the dining area now (sorry, no pre-move pics of this space):
 

And a view of the living room, taken on moving day right after the movers left: 

We were a little nervous how things would fit in the space.  Luckily, we were able to part ways with a lot of stuff at our yard sale (a whole other post) and it all worked out.

Some current shots:

So what will change?  First and foremost, we want to get a new sectional sofa.  We actually found one that we both agree we REALLY like, which may come as a shock, given what I last wrote on the subject.  That will probably be one of the first things we pull the trigger on.

We also plan to invest in a new dining table and chairs.  What I think we will probably do is get the table and chairs from Crate and Barrel that coordinate with our hutch.  Still not sold on the chair situation (I don't want to be overly matchy), but we have a little time to figure that out.

We also want to get rid of the current coffee table.  Prior to moving, we had a yard sale and we sold the one we were using inside at the last house.  Now we are using the one that L had prior to us getting married.  It fits this living space better than the other one we had (that one was bigger), but this one is just not fabulous. 

I also want to paint the walls in here at some point and hang curtains.  Paint is daunting because it's a really big space to paint, so it'll have to be a color we really like.  This will most likely happen post-furniture purchasing.  The curtains are tough because the windows are so tall.  L's suggestions so far have been to just hang curtains at the top of the main windows so that natural light still comes in through the top windows or to get two curtain rods and hang a short set over the top set of windows and a long set over the long windows.  I know, I know - you're thinking what the rest of the world is thinking: WHY hasn't this man started his own design business yet??  Anyway, this will probably result in custom curtains of some sort because I really dislike the fabrics that are available in off the shelf options, but it's hard to pick fabrics when you're living with furniture you know you are getting rid of sooner than later.  However, plantation shutters are also a possibility.  We need to weigh costs at some point. 

Other items to tackle: finding something for the wall behind the sofa, upgrading the TV to one that can be wall-mounted, getting a new entertainment center console, and finding a light fixture to put over the dining room table.  We've looked a bit at light fixtures and we actually have found one we both like, but I kind of want to buy the new table before committing to a light fixture. 

So that's the kitchen/dining/living room of our new place!  Check back later this week for more pics of other rooms.