The other day I came to the realization that my house will probably never be done being decorated. As such, putting off posting pictures of the house until it is means never posting pictures of the house! I also realized that my house is as decorated as it's going to be for a while, at least until after the baby comes and we can even afford to buy more for the house. Right now our money is mostly focused on baby purchases-- amazing how something so little can be so expensive! I also decided it will be fun to take a room at a time on as a project when the baby is little older and that I shouldn't rush myself to have it all done now, anyway. With all that being said, let the tour begin!
Ta da! Here is our beautiful house from the outside with a freshly mowed lawn (Thank you, Bryan!). Unfortunately, due to a drought and water shortages, our lawn has died a little in parts and the grass seed we planted in the back didn't really take. You'll notice that I don't show any pictures of the backyard in this tour. We're thinking we might plant grass seed in the upcoming fall or next spring when the earth isn't scorching-- killing friendly grass and bearing ugly weeds.
This is our in-between-holidays wreath. I made it in our old townhouse to match our red door here. We love this door and when we they first installed it they put the wrong door in! We brought it up and they realized their mistake so they replaced it but again the door was wrong (it was very similar to this one but without the vertical lines and more of a wood grain). Finally, on our walk through with the builder, we told them the door was wrong and a few weeks later we finally had the door we'd actually ordered. I'm not sure how to mix up happened but we're glad they finally got it right.
When you first walk into the house you enter our living room. We like to call it the home teacher room because that's probably going to be it's main use. We especially love our beautiful bay window, which we specifically had built into the floor plan. The model home just had a blank wall. I just imagine this will be the perfect place for my Christmas tree!
Eventually we'd like to get some upholstered chairs for either side of the window and a coffee table as well. I'm also planning on getting curtains for at least the big window but I'm not sure how to go about the bay window yet.
Through the hall from the living room and past the stairs is our kitchen (probably my favorite room of the house!). I've always wanted a very light and bright kitchen and I think this qualifies with the light streaming in from the sliding door and window. Orginially I wanted white cabinetry but Bryan didn't like that and I'm sure it would get messy easier so I decided to do the darkest cabinets I could with light countertops. I think it's a nice contrast. We now have much more room for our table and keep the leaf out at all times. At first I wasn't sure about this pantry because I wanted something I could walk into but this one is actually quite spacious and I definitely haven't even filled it up (though I'm sure I could find a better way to organize it!).
I love having a window over the sink to look out as I do dishes. I also love this humongous island and have spent more than a few times rolling out tortillas or pie crusts or what-have-you on it.
I just wanted to focus in on one of my favorite things about the kitchen. This is our gas oven and stove, which was our splurge in the design studio. Isn't it pretty? I'm probably a little bit of a dork for finding an appliance pretty but I do! It came with a griddle for the stove top and can be used as a convection oven as well! It has some pretty nifty changing racks inside as well but I didn't want to show off residue of past meals that is sitting stubbornly on the bottom of the oven.
This is the fridge we purchased from Sears. It's nothing fancy other than being a french door fridge but I really love it. I love having my food on eye level! I use the fridge so much more than the freezer so I always hated having to bend down to get into it.
Our family room backs up to the kitchen. We bought this couch a few months ago from RC Willey and we love it. Three of the chairs recline and two of them are electric, meaning they have to be plugged in and you push a button to recline. Honestly, I'd have preferred them all to be manual because I hate having to plug them in but we didn't think about it when we bought it. Other than that, we really love it. We also got this simple TV console. I'm not really sure how I'm going to decorate the wall space around the TV but I guess I have some time to think on that. Last from this picture I wanted to point out Callie's throne cat tree. She sits atop it very regally. Once we bought it (the day we bought the leather couch) she stopped clawing our furniture altogether and started clawing on that so it was well worth the purchase!
This is probably the most decorated aspect of our home right now. Bryan has been hard at work hanging curtain rods, mirrors and picture frames for me. I saw this mirror at CostPlus World Market and couldn't stop thinking about it for months so we decided to buy it. I didn't take a picture any closer to it but maybe if you click on the picture you can see the neat detailing on the frame (and the top of my picture-taking head).
Past the family room and to the left is our den. We bought these two desks from IKEA (shipping was atrocious but the overall cost was much better than what we were considering in building something custom, plus it was a pretty advanced project for these novice DIYers). We love that we can both be in the office together! We used to just have a little desk for the desktop and Bryan would take the laptop to the kitchen table or the couch. We both like this much better. My kitchen table is now justa kitchen table, which I love. Past the den we have our downstairs bathroom and across from the den is the door to our garage, both seen in the video tour at the end of these pictures.
Walk back past the family room, kitchen and almost to the living room again and walk up the stairs... (We love the big window on the landing, I'm just not tall enough to open it so I have to get Bryan to if I ever want it open).
Here is the upstairs landing and the loft. When our little boy and his siblings are bigger I'm going to make this loft area into a playroom.
Here is the guest bedroom, which shares with nothing! What a novel idea! We have a two other bedrooms that are not pictured. One is very empty except for a table, sewing machine, serger and a closet full of craft supplies and storage. When we have a second baby this will be his or her room or we'll move our little boy in there and use his old nursery for his/her nursery. When that happens, I think I might make the guest room closet become my craft room (just put a table in there and close the doors when not in use). That'll be a while off though, so I have some time to figure it all out.
Here is the guest/kids bathroom. I'm considering making it a whale themed bathroom when the kids are old enough to appreciate it. This is the bathroom decor we started our marriage with!
Our laundry room is upstairs, which I love. I don't have to haul loads of laundry up and down stairs! It is just right outside our bedroom, where I fold clothes, so it's very easy. We also got this nice washer and dryer set from Sears. They are very good quality, which I am happy for since I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing a lot of laundry in a few months...
Here's our bedroom! I know, it looks massive. I'm not even sure what we're going to put in here. We'll probably get a different TV for the downstairs at some point and so we'll move that one up here. We might get reading chairs for the corners-- maybe a bookshelf. We'll see. For now this is all we need. Eventually I would like to put up curtains and make or buy a headboard and put a picture above that.
We love our bathroom. If you'll notice to the right of this picture there is a separate little room for the toilet, which we like. We also have a double vanity and I have a little stool in the center for doing my hair and make up.
We also have a walk in shower and a nice tub with arm rests and everything. You can't really see them, but I made curtains for the little windows above the tub from our old shower curtain.
Through the bathroom is our closet. It is huge! We could almost make another room out of it.
Callie loves to jump up onto the banister in the loft area. She can usually be found here, in her bed, under our bed, or on her cat tree. When we first moved in we tried to get her to stop jumping up here but it was a lost cause. I used to be worried she might fall all the way to the bottom floor but I've realized cats are very balanced and she can take care of herself. We continue to adore this cat but I try not to post about it as much anymore, lest anyone realize that I actually am a crazy cat lady. She is going to have to get used to sharing the spotlight in a few months.
If you're still reading, I now have a video tour that might make sense of where things are a little more. There are other rooms the I didn't zero in on for pictures that you'll see in the video (closets, bathrooms, bedrooms). Also, sorry for the jumpiness. I tried to walk smoothly but I tend to waddle a little more these days.
You may notice I skipped a bedroom (next door to our bedroom) in the video and in pictures. This is the baby's nursery and it's still in progress (read: things everywhere and totally unorganized) with a definite end in sight. I'll give it a blog post all it's own when it is finished.
Oh, did you think the post was going to finally be over? Sorry! I wanted to share a few more pictures of our new car. Well, it's a used car but it is new to us. Bryan and I have been living with one car between us for our whole marriage. This means that every morning I drive Bryan to work and every afternoon I pick him up. It takes about a half an hour to get downtown so that's an hour of unnecessary driving and a waste of gas. There isn't a lot of parking downtown and you have to pay to park so even taking the car on days I don't need it hasn't been much of an option. However... in three-ish months I just can't take Bryan to work whenever. If the baby is sleeping or in need of eating or something like that, it's just impossible. We looked into biking (way too far) or using public transportation (even if he had a bike he rode to the bus stop it would still be too far) but we kept coming back to needing a second car. Bryan applied for a monthly parking pass through his work, which he'll probably get in October. We went to a labor day sale for used cars the other day and came home with this very nice 2012 Nissan Versa! It only has about 31,000 miles on it and gets great gas mileage (a must for us when we were deciding what kind of car to buy). Mostly this will be Bryan's car but I still have to drive him to/from work until he can get his parking pass in October so we'll use this much more gas friendly car in the mean time. It's going to be so weird not to drive with him every morning and every afternoon and just have him come and go. It'll be nice for sake of convenience but I will miss our little chats in the car. I'm sure I'll look fondly back on these days. Anyway, without further ado, here are the pictures.
Now it has to be over, right? Well... Even though I tried to leave baby out of this as much as a I could (it's pretty much all I talk about) I couldn't leave off without a couple of bump pictures and a small update.
Here I am at 22 and 24 weeks, looking more and more pregnant each time. On Labor Day (Monday) I'll be 26 weeks with another picture but it might not get onto the blog for a while. I'm sure this isn't that funny but I keep thinking how amusing it would be if someone had their baby on Labor Day (insert cheesy laughter here). Our baby is due December 9th but last Tuesday (August 27th) Bryan got a fortune with his company lunch from a Chinese restaurant that read, "Remember three months from this date. Good things are in store for you." We had a good laugh about that. According to the fortune, we'll have the baby November 27th, a week and a half early. Honestly, I'd be happier if he came two days later so I can enjoy Thanksgiving on the 28th! So things are going well with that and, really, he can come when it's right for him. We just want him to be healthy! Anyway, I think I earned myself a long, long hiatus from the blog with this post but I'd better keep up with things. Until next time!
I say "reveal" because most of you already know via Facebook or word of mouth what we're having. To the blogging world, though, it's my first chance to say we are having a boy! We are so thrilled! Throughout most of this pregnancy I've had a small feeling that our baby was a boy but I was afraid to commit to that feeling and be confident in it. What if it had been wrong? I didn't want to feel bad for saying it was a boy when it was a girl. If the baby had been a girl we would have been just as thrilled, though. I've just had a lot more thoughts of green and blue and dinosaurs in the back of my mind than of pink and frills. When we went to the ultrasound, before the tech had officially told us it was a boy she said something like, "He's really moving there," and immediately I jumped on that and said, "He???" and she just said, "Oh no, I said baby." But then, she was showing us his legs, which he'd stretched out for us and Bryan said, "Is that...?" Finally our waiting was done and she said, "Yep, it's a little boy!" The rest of the ultrasound (like an hour long!) was spent measuring different parts of his body and being jubilant. He had his head way down and was very good about showing his spine, heart, legs, arms, etc... but he just didn't want to show us his face. We got one good profile picture and a glance at his face as he moved. He was very wiggly! Anyway, it is such a relief to finally know and really start to be able to plan!
So... plans. We are painting our walls blue and just decided on the color after painting a couple of samples on the wall. It's so great to have our very own nursery meant just for baby, unlike in our previous rental, where we couldn't paint, use nails and it was two bedroom so baby would have shared with craft/storage/guest bed. I'm going for a blue and green dinosaur theme. I haven't been able to find any bedding sets in those colors with that theme so I'm just kind of making it up as I go. I found this neat dinosaur wall decal on Etsy that is a brontosaurus looking down into the crib. I got a stegosaurus picture at Target and am hoping to find it's pair somewhere in stores. I've started registering a little on Target.com and Amazon.com. I'm realizing more than ever just how expensive babies are! Today, I'm going to make baby some Pee Pee Tee Pees, which are pretty simple. My mom is going to come out in September and we're going to get busy sewing blankets and burp cloths for this little guy! So yeah, it's pretty much 90% of what I think about. We are between two names that we both like. Each of us leans toward one. We'll probably waiting until he's born and then choose, based on how we feel. His middle name will be Wallace, which is Bryan's middle name and the name of his great grandfather. I am told that he was a very good man. I think it's neat to make all the middle names significant to our family history.
I am grateful to have Bryan be this baby's dad. I think he is pretty excited but also pretty scared at the prospect of being a father. It probably won't even really sink in until someone lays this little boy in his arms. I know he's going to be a loving and helpful dad and that he's going to make our kids laugh every day just like he does with me. I'm grateful to be married to my best friend and I hope that our kids can see this as an example as they grow up. Marriage is kind of funny-- sometimes you think you know what you want and need and you find that in a person. Heavenly Father lets you try it out but knows, in the end, that he has a different and better plan for you. So, after that trial has passed and when the person and timing are right, He helps it happen. I feel like I can be completely myself around Bryan and I know that he was the right one for me and now we're really starting our little family! Anyway, sorry for the momentary cheese. I'll wrap this up by sharing a couple of pictures.
Here is the aforementioned profile picture of baby.
He's definitely a boy! This is the shot where Bryan said, "Is that...?" Just proving it to all of you!
Here I am at 20 weeks (about a week and a half ago). I'll try to get the rest of my bump shots up as I take them. I can't believe I still have 18.5 weeks to go... it's going to take forever!
