Ok, so this isn't the sexiest of house transitions, but it is definitely one that takes my breath away the most. And it would probably be the most unassuming, had you never visited our house prior.
A little history on me: I like white trim. I love a clean look. Our little SC house had the old farmhouse baseboards and I just fell in love with the whole whiteness of them.
Call me a weirdo.
So when we moved into this house, they had painted all of the downstairs baseboards, but left the upstairs dark and it always bugged me. I just wasn't sure how to make it look pretty without painting them. So with the help of my good friend, Rita (painter/home designer extraordinaire!) we (she??) got to work.
Now that, my friend, is a lot of dark wood. Every door, every baseboard, every window frame...well, you get the picture.
Ahhhh...isn't that CA-RA-ZY?? We carried the same wall color from downstairs and all the woodwork became white. I thought we were going to have to change out our door hardware too, but being a dark bronze, they actually looked really good when we lightened everything up.
The first day Rita started on it, she had been working for about an hour when I came upstairs.
Me: *Gasp!!* Rita!! I love it!
Her: Annie, that's primer.
Me: Well I LOVE primer!!
And seriously, it's just spinned into a love affair from there. Every time I walk up the stairs, I really feel like I'm entering into a new house.
All in all, it took her months to get everything painted. Pretty much everything took a coat of primer and two coats of paint. But I am so happy with the results.
Will share more soon! Happy Monday, sweet friends!
I really did have every intention of posting this yesterday, but it was a busy lesson day for me (and an exciting one at that because one of my little pitchers, Bre, pitched to batters for the first time at her practice later in the day and did awesome!). Knowing it was going to be busy, I actually planned ahead and spent nap time preparing dinner in the Crockpot. I got this recipe for Pesto Spinach Lasagna from Stephanie O'Dea's, A Year of Slow Cooking and since I had a mile of basil growing in the backyard, I thought I'd give it a try. (And it turned out great! Although way too much green for the skeptical Elizabeth Rose.)
I even woke up early to take pictures before the girls could do their damage...ha! I love our den and it was a big selling point for us on the house. Our rental house only provided a living room and dining room as far as living space and we really thought that one more room would be perfect for the girls to trash play in. It has turned out to be a God-send and most of the toys stay in this room, leaving mostly books in the living room. It has a high, vaulted ceiling with a wood beam and a wood burning fireplace that I can't wait to try out this winter. What a blessing to know that we can still have heat if the power goes out!!
I feel like an idiot when it comes to decorating mantles and I wasn't really sure what to put up there. I'm still not 100% thrilled with this - so start chunking suggestions and I'll switch it around. The basket is full of "dog towels," as the door to the back yard is to the left here. There is a wood parkay floor inlay that curves around the fireplace and the doors and then the rest is carpeted. I didn't show it to you because it's filthy and I must retain SOME dignity, people!
My grandparents gave us this shelving unit and I absolutely love it. My husband didn't love the moving process from Pennsylvania (which involves wonderful stories like having to take a elevator ceiling apart and getting the truck stuck in the mud), but that is an entirely different post! It is wonderful storage for pictures and knick-knacks and it looks so good on that wall, I think.
I love that we finally have a spot for our ridiculous collection of books...and this was after we weeded out the ones that we didn't want!
And of course, the girls have designated drawers...currently occupied by puzzles.
And there is room on the top to display some family antiques. Now, I must back up for a moment and explain to you that my husband is a minimalist. He would have been fine with moving into the house with the girls, me and a backpack and called it a home. Me? Not so much. I have had boxes of memories, pictures and little odds and ends packed away and waiting for the perfect home. So just please realize that when you look at these pictures, you are seeing purely my decorating taste, as my husband would have been perfectly happy with just looking at empty, clean shelves.
He lets me do what I want though...so perhaps that's a secret to a happy marriage?? ha!
Another angle of the room. The ottoman has toys in it and the room never looks like this. In fact, you can rarely see the floor. Well, except for the spot in front of the piano, which they keep clean so they can climb up on it and jump off. The monkeys also love climbing on the outside of the staircase, so I tried to deter that by putting the baby bed and kitchen in front of them. Three guesses on if that worked or not...and the first two don't count...
Our wonderful realtor, Susan, donated the toy bins to our cause and most of the kitchen food is located in the toybox on the other side of the sewing machine there. Rachel loves the sewing machine, that was my Memaw's, and will open and SLAM the door shut, causing me to fly into a fit...which makes her laugh...
kids...!
Ok, there's the den! Onward to the living room tomorrow and then I'll do the bedrooms all in one post. Shew...house tours are exhausting!
My parents used to send me care packages every weekend for the first few years in college. Most of the time, my mom would wrap freshly baked cinnamon rolls in foil as they came out of the oven so you could almost smell them as I walked down the hallway with the box...or maybe you COULD smell them, as my friends always seemed to drift to the doorway when it was being opened. Anyway, many times, my dad would stick a CD in the box for me and it was always classic rock. The Eagles, America, CSNY...these were my favorites.
So just enjoy this one for a second...it's ok, I'll wait...maybe grab a cinnamon roll while you listen and take yourself back to 1997 with me...
I realize that we haven't posted pictures of the house yet, except for the request for help with the front windows, and that's pretty much due to my own vanity. I just hate putting out unfinished documentation...I've always hated people to read my writings before they were unedited or see a project before it was finished...I would just rather wait until it is all done.
But, my friends, this house is FAR from being all done.
I told myself that I would post pictures after I had curtains hung. Now, what may sound silly to you used to be a quite simple formality for me.
In fact, I remember moving from Indianapolis to North Carolina with my mom and Robin and Danny (you know true friends when they help you move across several states!). This was the last of many legs because I was too poor to be able to afford a U-Haul so we had to move over the course of a couple weekends. On this last stretch, my mom and I spent the night at my new, little apartment and stayed up pretty late putting things away and hanging pictures and curtains.
The next morning, we met Robin and Danny for breakfast and I will never forget her face when we told her how late we stayed up the night before. "You hung curtains already??" she said.
I can recall similar events at pretty much every house we've lived in...until now.
Now, I am still curtain-less.
But my children and clothed and fed and the house is relatively clean, so I can't count myself a total loss - but this is what has been holding me back from posting pictures. I know, I know...give it up, Annie. I am.
So anyway...on to the house. I was thinking of posting a different room every day so that you can see the whole shootin' match. But first, let us prepare you just a little for what you are about to see...
The couple who lived here before us kept the house immaculate, albeit out of date...which we didn't mind because I think everyone moves into a house hoping to put his or her stamp on it (and I consider myself a little bit of an expert simply because we have watched every episode of House Hunters known to man).
So we have made small improvement here and there when we moved in, but mostly, our plan is to live in it for about 6 months to realize what changes we truly want. Plus, I think my husband would shoot me to ask him to make a change only to change it back to the original way later. I'm not a furniture mover or repainter every year, so I kind of like to make permanent decisions.
And really, the only truly permanent change we've made to this house is hand and feet prints on the wall...
Oh yes, I said feet prints...
So your first peek is at Scott's pride and joy...the garage. His goal over the first month was to get our mountain of junk and boxes stored away so that we could park at least one vehicle in the garage...and I am so thankful that he did. Our life is so much easier, getting in and out of the car this way. We have tons of storage and access to the attic is here as well. He even moved the shelves over so we could tuck the deep freezer out of the way.
My hero, assembling shelves
Sorry for the blurriness...but there's the deep freezer and the shelves. You get the idea.
We still don't have everything exactly the way that we want it and have a couple more trips to go to Goodwill, but this is certainly better than what it was.
The girls' favorite feature would have to be the cat door.
Oh yes, I said cat door.
The owners before us had a cat and the litter box was in the garage - which is great for us, because there's really no lingering cat smell in the house. But what it left was a kitty door in the door leading to the garage and also one in the garage door itself. The girls love this little peek through to be able to call for Daddy when he's working outside or watch mama as she runs to get something out of the freezer.
Seriously, Rachel... I think you can fit. Just try it!
Dada!!! Are you out there??
Of course, I've also come home to find Butch's big doofus snout trying to push it's way through the door to see what's going on in the garage as well. I think he can get through about to his eyes.
And I will leave you with that image as I go back to emptying the dishwasher...
I've gotten a lot of requests for pictures of the new house and it's not that I don't want to share them, but I'm waiting on blinds to be delivered...and installed...and the friendly Lowe's people to call me back to tell me when that might happen.
Window treatments to me are like mascara...which is pretty funny, considering that I rarely wear mascara, with one child pulling all the contents out of my vanity drawers and the other latched firmly around my ankle. Maybe one day I'll get back to it...sort of like plucking my eyebrows...
But I digress.
So I hate to put up pictures of the house until it's finished. Still, I am at a standstill on what I want to do with my front windows and I need your help.
To fill you in, we ordered thick white blinds to go on all the windows. I'm not sure if you would call these plantation or not, but I believe they are about an inch thick. Keep that in mind when looking at the pictures.
Here is the subject at hand. I'm not sure if you would call this an official bay window, but it is curved and I took the picture from a distance so you couldn't see the snot and hand prints from my lovely little children, looking for their daddy to come home. That both irritates my Windex toting side yet pulls so hard at my heart strings that I normally don't care.
Another angle...
Let me show you the rest of the room so you get an idea.
Couch, complete with the Princess and the Frog Seek and Find book that Rachel was attempting to rip to shreds earlier in the day.
I love this blue behind-the-couch-table and was thinking of looking for curtains that carried the dark brown of the leather with the blue of the couch. My children have really gotten into playing, "Go to Sleep" - which is why there are blankets all over. They take turns laying down and kissing and hugging each other and their stuffed animals goodnight. This is especially funny considering that it has become quite the daunting task to get Elizabeth to go to bed lately. It also normally winds up in a battle for one of the blankets.
And Rachel has obviously found the canning jar grabber thing. Sigh...
And my oldest is reading and playing the princess piano book with her feet. I swear, never the dull moment around here! But back to the windows.
I'm concerned about the curtain rods. I liked this article and woman's idea from A Little of This - A Little of that. She spray painted and used PVC pipe instead of expensive curtain rods and I think that looks nice, but do you think it would work on this window?
But do you think that would be too bold for the brown and the blue? Also, do you think two curtains on each end or I was kind of thinking of putting two panels on each window.
So really, tell me what you think. I can't wait for them to be done because I think it'll help complete the room and also give us privacy from the road.
Thanks for your help! And of course, I'll give you pictures through the process!
