Still Transitioning…

When we purchased our house nearly 3 years ago come this holiday, we were simply smitten by the house.  At first glance, most would walk in, and ask their realtor “What were you thinking showing us a house in this state?”  But for us, it was an old, cringe worthy piece of work.  As for most home owners, we definitely underestimated what NEEDED to be done, and what we WANTED to be done.  We had 3 months to flip, and we succeeded.  Three years later and nearly everything has changed about the house since we moved in.  The wall colors that we thought we loved, we grew a deep hatred towards.  The decor (and lack there of) was at a definite stand still and what existed was being changed every few months.

Transitioning into a new home is exciting and overwhelming.  Overwhelming in that you may make decisions based on what you can afford at the moment, not what you particularly like.  Our kitchen counters for instance (first to go on our list this spring).  Cheapest countertops you can buy.  We had a ton of unexpected work that popped up in the kitchen, and our budget dwindled quickly.  Decorating an entire house is not a task to be done overnight.  We learned our lesson.  Unless your on HGTV with a decorator and a hefty budget, having that “look” you dream of for a particular room (or your house as a whole) will take time… lot’s of it.  Truth be told, even if HGTV were to come into our house and do everything for us…  we probably wouldn’t love it as much.

No matter what your budget, purchasing items as time goes makes decorating your home easy and affordable.  So, here we are, three years and lord only knows how many paint cans and holes in the wall later, we are FINALLY at a point where we are feeling satisfied with our hunger to re-do our spaces.  Now we can take each room and make the upgrades we want too.  These past seven months or so our game plan was to put down the paint brushes, and prep to put the house for sale come this new year.  After MUCH consideration (and frustration) we decided to stay a few more years.  Finish growing our family here, and see where life takes us.  We’re waiting to turn the big 3-0 to purchase our second, hopefully-forever-home.  Sitting back, looking at our house and all that we have accomplished at this point is a wonderful feeling.  What’s even better? All the projects we ignored on our To-Do list this year, will be rewritten and ready to be devoured.  Here are some of the simplest projects we have done over the past few months.  We are so excited to get even more cozy here.  Get the decor rolling, and settle into the cracks (literally).  This old house may not be an ideal house for some… but for us… it’s just right.

Remember this ugly pantry door? The first thing you see when you walk into our side door

We painted it black…we will never go back.

The upstairs bathroom walls have been over stimulated by the paint brush, thankfully, we are delighted with the new color…

An easy switch-up was rearranging the art work on our stair landing, now I just have to replace that “boob-like” fixture from the ceiling.  See the boob? I’ll never look at those lights the same way again.

Oh my teeny kitchen.  New paint (you’ve seen) – new appliances – and I painted the white chairs black.  Black is my latest obsession –

That fan in the dining room NEEDS TO GO.  Working on convincing the hub who has a “thing” for fans.

Our nook before…

See what a can of paint can do? I love our new sitting area

Our living/family room has gone through a few changes this month.  Haven’t gotten around to taking great pictures yet.  Brody and Owen trash a room in under 30 seconds, so it’s nearly impossible to capture a clean moment.  So, these will have to do…

Our t.v. is now above our fireplace which allowed us to rearranged furniture in our what we thought was a dreadful rectangular space.  We love the new sitting area, really opened up the entire room.  So glad we got rid of our tv stand, and uncluttered the space even more.

New bamboo roman shades over a few windows, and window treatments have really warmed up the spaces quite a bit! I’ll get better pic’s soon.

I painted the dining room for the 5th, and final time when Dan was in Texas.  Regretted the light blue the second I put it on the wall last year, but didn’t want to admit to my mistake of changing it in the first place to Dan.  Here’s one wall, and the nice transition it has to our kitchen.

Oh- and probably the best move we made yet was switching our bedroom with Brody’s.  We had the largest bedroom, and with Owen getting into a big boy bed after the new year we knew we wanted a space they could share together.  Our new bedroom is small, that’s for sure, but it works for now.  Here’s our new space , screaming to be decorated.

That’s it.  All of our rooms have received some tweaking… now we need the official list for all we want to do in 2013.  Can’t wait!