Home sweet home

You know what I have discovered? When you get out of the habit of blogging it is really hard to figure out where to begin again. And not only that, but it seems that as of lately finding the time to squeeze out another post has been the hardest to come by. I think that this has been the busiest summer we have had in a loooong time. I have hard time when I look at the calendar and see that practically every weekend until mid September is full. It makes me itch and twitch and want to cry a bit. Don't get me wrong, they are filled with great things....but it means no decompressing time, no time to just chill out and prepare for the week ahead. No time to just be. I need that time. I can go, go, go with the best of them....but then I hit an emotional wall. I feel that is where I am at.

I think the biggest factor has been buying this house and then trying to find the time to do all that we want to do to it. We are trying so hard to make our house our home. Unfortunately with that comes money and time. Both of which we are trying to either save or find. we still have so much we want to do, but I have had several people ask to see pics of the new place. So here are a few bit and pieces, we still have a lot of decorating to do, pictures to hang, ugly green marble to rip out and replace, mantles to paint, rugs to buy, tables to find, and a buffet or sideboard to lodge all of Cole and Bennett's art and fun project stuff.

I keep reminding myself that all of these things will come together and evolve with time and a new piece here and there. I think I just get hung up when I read design blogs and see all of the before and afters and it seems that they get beautifully renovated over night.....what I fail to see behind the before and afters is all the sweat, blood, and grunt work that happens in the between time. So I am trying to appreciate and be grateful for the achievements whether big or small that we have made.

So here are a few pictures of some of the little things that we have accomplished in making our home.

Curtains. These were the first things we changed. You should have seen the ones that came with the house....they were thick, dark, flowery valances that seemed to suck all the light out of the room. We ripped those puppies down as soon as all the papers were signed. Oh but no fear, there are still some ruffled flower curtains hanging in the upstairs bath, and maybe even still in Cole's room...as embarrassing as that is to admit.

We decided to hold off on painting since the whole house is done in nice neutral taupe. Eventually I would like to change the kitchen/ living room into more of a soft greige or grey to make it seem more light and airy. But that will have to come after we figure out what to do with our very own Mr. Green.

Jealous? but wait, that same wonderful green marble is carried throughout all our counter tops....and there is a lot of counter space which = lots 'o' green. So in the meantime I am trying to do what I can to take eyes off of the green. I putter around putting things on shelves. Shelves are my new favorite thing.

I have since changed them a bit, and added a few more things here and there. But this is the main gist.

I have the best little helper, isn't he just the cutest playing with that puzzle?! Don't know if I could have set up the shelves without him. :) I have great plans for some built ins.....hopefully someday. But for now I plan on filling this house with shelves and pillows.

I'm working on my collection in teals, yellows, and greens. Pillows are EXPENSIVE! So it's a slowly growing collection.... But next on the agenda is putting up panels in the formal dining as well as a rug...since we can't seem to find a table for the eat-in kitchen that we like, we are eating in the formal. And little mouths means lots of crumbs and spillage....Need.A.Rug.

Here is what you see heading up to all of the rooms.

Yes, those blank walls need some serious attention and art work.....but I have a serious problem called being "indecisive". 

We still have several rooms that don't have a lick of furniture in them, one has a huge cheapo chandelier that screams at me every time I step in the room, so I just close the door and ignore it for now.

The boy's rooms.....well, lets just say they still look like we just moved in. I've bought a couple pieces of fun prints that i am sooo excited to hang up. But we still need to get a few more things like dressers and curtains and beds and.....the list goes on. For some reason I have a hard time completing a room until I have everything I want in it. So I will post photos of rooms as we finish them. But please don't hold your breath, because at this rate it may be awhile. ;)

I am really really excited to do our kitchen. We picked out counter tops and back splash this past weekend. And honestly going into it I thought I would leave in frustrated tears, sometimes Kyle and I can't always agree on decor. But amazingly we both fell in love with the same everything. And this is hopefully going to be our new counters. We didn't like any of the granite choices but LOVED this Caesarstone Quartz.

And the back splash is GORGEOUS! I went into it dead set on subway tile. But then the lady showed us this new subway-isque glass tile, it's bigger and longer than the classic subway. And picks up the the grayish-brown flecks in the counters perfectly. I can't find a picture of the tiles, but imagining it on our walls makes me even more excited to cook in my new kitchen.

Soooo lots of stuff going on around here. most importantly I have two adorable little boys that are in Heaven with the space. We run laps around the main level daily, sometimes it's in a game of tag or because we have magically transformed into airplanes. We are sooo thankful for a nice sized back yard and spend a lot of time there doing this.

And some of this.....

Dinner parties, birthday celebrations....yes, this yard is going to get lots of good use.

Especially when there are squirt guns at hand.

Hope you enjoyed the mini tour. And hopefully this post will get me back into my blogging rhythm. :)