Bringing Order into Chaos (a house tour)

I've been in my new house for a little more than three months. I guess it's about time to introduce you to the place, no? We (my roommates and I) are pretty settled in at this point and we've hosted a couple of get-togethers. I have been sensing your mounting jealous of said guests. So--calm DOWN--here is a house tour for you!

To show you exactly how far we have come in these three months, I present to you a picture summary of where we are and where we've come from (I hope the philosophers out there appreciate that pun-attempt..). Because this is a long, picture-heavy post, I've decided to try to keep words to a minimum. Youuuuu'rrreee welcome!

Before going any further, I must say a big thank you to Sole, Paul, Brandon, and Holly's family for helping me move. Also, a HUGE 'thank you' to this girl, my sister, Gracie.

People often mistake her as me, or as my twin. Wrong and wronger.
I do not have a twin. But if I did, she would play the part famously.

The move ended up being much more complicated than I anticipated (thanks to the fact that the house had not been cleaned before I moved in....it was as gross as it sounds). I might have been a big(ger) hot(ter) mess if I had gone through with my original plan of moving all by myself. So, yeah, extra big thanks to Grace.

Living Room:

Right after emptying the moving truck

At the end of day two

The living room stayed like the above photo until [1] my roommates moved in (bringing a necessary area rug and bookcase (see below pic)) and [2] wall hangings. The empty white walls started driving me nuts by about week two.

All finished!

View two

View three

View final

True story: I live less than five minutes from campus, though typically I stay on campus until I finish with classes. One day, I had had enough of the naked walls. Finding myself with a spare hour between classes, I bolted home, hung all 16 paintings/icons/sconces/etc., and was back on campus in time for class. I felt like I had conquered the worlddddd!

remember these?

All of the books on the bookshelf belong to one of my roommates, and it is only half of her personal library!

Bedroom:

Poco a poco, se va lejos. "Little by little, one goes far." This was the official mantra of my junior/senior year high school Spanish class. I think it is a pretty fair and accurate description of the ever-ongoing styling project in my bedroom.

Uno

Dos

Tres

Throw in a few rugs and some wall decor...

Viola! (Wrong language. Mea culpa.)

After sleeping in not-my-bed for three months, my home mattress felt like heaven!

I don't know why I didn't tidy the desk area before snapping this pic

Kitchen:

There was some kind of Explosion of Nasty that happened in the kitchen (and bathroom) before we moved in, which meant a 7-10 hour delay in the unpacking process since it had to be cleaned up. It was gross. And Grace was a total trooper through it all.

Don't let this picture fool you. Grace was amazingly upbeat actually!

Making some progress. And eating lunch.  

In the picture above, you can tell that we are our mother's daughters by the fact that we put on a tablecloth, used glass dishes, and had a centerpiece [a] on moving day and [b] for a simple meal of PB&J. Bringing some semblance of beauty and normalcy goes a long way in actually making the transition from house to home! 

Also amazing is what food can do: Change a hangry badtitude to a happy camper. Turn a frown upside down. Okay, I'll stop...

 And some extra deets:

getting all artsy-fartsy

When it was all said and done, Grace and I made ourselves a fancy-pantsy dinner and dubbed it the official "first meal" of the new house. Maybe it was cleaning-chemical-induced delirium, maybe it was exhausted hunger, but we both thought it was the best meal ever. 

The end!

Pollyanna-ing

My life has been going pretty well lately. I have great friends and a wonderful family. My roommates are pretty sweet. My house is pretty much all settled into (we hosted our first party last week!). I've lost ten pounds. I still have my job (not that I was really ever close to not having it). Autumn weather is setting in (my favorite season!) The Apocalypse is still yet to occur. Yes, I am indeed doing pretty well.

But a girl can still dream, right? You bet!

The imagination is one of the best things about being human (okay, I know that there are some of you out there who will think of all the exceptions to that statement...just go with me for a sec). But, anyways, when used well the imagination is the bomb-diggity. I use my imagination a lot, especially when it comes to decorating a room , scoping out and designing my next project, or trying to MacGyver some thing or other.

Today, I would like to invite you to take a tour with me through my dream house. Cooome alooong with meeee. Our tour starts in

Three.

Two.

One.

Welcome to my dream house! I am so glad that you could stop by today. I can't wait to show you around. Please, come in (yes, I am having an imaginary conversation...don't worry, totally normal).

This would be the foyer. It is done in a "Swedish Country" style. If you would, please, ignore the yellow bench. Because in my dream house, that would be replaced by this lovely bench. Complete with toile and all.

Yea for toile!

Now, we will go around the corner into the living/family room.

This room is oh-so-cozy. Please, imagine yourself sitting on that uber soft sofa, having a conversation with about...home decorating. When we get bored with that, we can walk across the room to the library...

..and look at some decorating books. There also will be other books, don't worry. So you can read about other things like psychology, philosophy, theology, political science, fiction, non-fiction...etc.



Going back in to the foyer and hallway, we will walk back to the kitchen. What do you see? Checkered floors!

The kitchen is in a rustic country style. I love the red accent cabinetry (in my real house, that window trim would not be red). The red with the black-and-white of the floor gives a cozy feel, I think. Perhaps I'd add a little throw rug in case I forget my slippers one morning. Oh, and maybe I would add a bit'o'wood polish to that table, looking a bit too rustic for me as is.

Now, I am always late, so this too would be fixated in my kitchen. With it, I most assuredly will never be late again.

Oh, also on the first floor there would be a dining room. the dining room would d have a wicked awesome chandelier made of Italian Christmas lights, wrapped around a wreath of branches.

Off of the dining room, there would be French doors leading back into the sun room.

Now, I probably would ditch the pallet wood and burlap table. And I would mostly elect to hang the mirror rather than just leaning it up against the wall. Why? Because, in all honesty, as much as I can like the look of a large mirror leaned against the wall, I can't seem to successfully pull off the look (or at least be satisfied with my attempts). So I know that I wouldn't have a mirror leaning against a wall in my dream home because I don't know how to do that. Oh, and please note, too, the Italian-Christmas lights that reappear in this room on the ceiling. Can you say "awesome"?

Down in the basement would be the laundry. My laundry room would be beautiful like this.

Since I clean my clothes when I do laundry, I prefer to do my laundry in a stylish environment to reflect how incredibly stylish of a dresser I am. That is why there would be a mirror (hanging on the wall) in the laundry room, so I can look at myself why I fold my underdrawers.

Across from the would be a little table booth. it would be very colorful--particularly with pink.

Why will this nook be in the basement? I most likely will end up married to a man who hates being overwhelmed with pink, I will relegate all of this glorious pinkness and frilliness to the basement because I will be so in love with him that I don't want him to drive him crazy. (I know, I am such a nice person).

Okay, back up the stairs, let's take a look at the rest of this dream house!

I cannot decide which of these two rooms would be my room and which would be the guestroom (or the children's room...actually I probably would need five children's room for the offensive number of kids I plan to have).


I like both of these rooms so much. the canopy set up of the first room is just dreamy. The bright and fresh colors are so relaxing too. The second room I find to be very cozy. Though there are the black accents, there is so much white (and a little gold) that it is not overwhelming. In fact, I find this room almost cozier than the first room. And those curtains are fabulous...Hmm, I think the second room would be my room. Which might be a good thing, because the black and white would much better match my jewelry box.

Oh, yay! Look at that jewelry box. For those of you who know me, I am sure you get a bit of a chuckle out of that jewelry storage, because you know how much I like my jewelry. (I admit, though, I would be slightly embarrassed if all of my jewelry filled this up. That might signal a problem...).

Last, but certainly not least, There would be an office area.

The office would be on the large side: Large enough for more than one person to work there at once, though only one person could get the desk. There would be the window nook with plenty of room to sit to read, work on a computer, take a nap, stare at whoever is at the desk...possibilities are endless, really. The nook is also large enough for multiple kiddos to occupy it. When they got bored of sitting there and whacking each other with the pillows, then they could practice piano.

Now THAT is a piano worth practicing on!! And I plan to practice upon it as well; there are few things in the world more magnificient than piano music.

Thank you so much for coming along with me on this little dream house tour!

(For links to all of the above pictures, please see my pinterest page. Thank you!)

When I grow up...Checker Floored Kitchens

I am going to dedicate this post to some dreaming....

All of us, or most of us at least, have memories of going over to grandma's house while growing up. Perhaps such memories are filled of happy thoughts and accompanied by warm, fuzzy feelings. I, for one, can easily pull from the great expanse of memory that fills my brain's storage recollections of summer and autumnal afternoons spent running around Grandma's back yard, walking very briskly around her house (because running wasn't allowed inside, of course), and sneaking M'n'Ms from the candy bowl on the counter by the kitchen sink.

One thing that I always will associate with my grandmother (of my maternal heritage), is checkered floor tiles.

Grandma always has had black-and-white checkered floors in her kitchen--even when she and Grandpa moved to a new house, this flooring appeared in the new digs. My grandma is a very chic, polite, glamorous and ladylike woman. This is reflected not only in how she carries herself, but also in how she keeps her house. There are always new updates to be found; little new "touches" being added. In my mind, she is the quintessential homemaker and home-entertainer: Her house is ever-ready to receive guests and you always feel at home because she has made every little thing in her house special. So special, in fact--even to the little things that could go unnoticed--that you would feel it were just for you.

But I digress (I told you that I am just like everyone, can easily fall into reminiscing about grandma). What was I talking about? Oh, yes, my grandma's kitchen floors. Yes, they are and always have been black-and-white checkered tile. Now, some may think that such a choice is too retro. Too casual. Or even too restricting...the floors so dominant that you can't be too bold elsewhere. Never mind what these opinions may opine (I love how the word "opine" rhymes perfectly with "whine"). I am here to say that I lurve checkered floored kitchens and I dearly wish for such a kitchen floor in the dream house I hope to live in one day.



A kitchen like this one would set me up for life.

I can understand that checkered floors might not be just any one's cup'o'tea. That is fine...so long as they don't live with me. Though I don't have my dream house now (and I don't know when that will be either). I do really hope that it will have checkered floors. If my husband doesn't like the idea; it will be a wonderful act of sacrificial love for him to let me have checkered floors. Now, I don't want to come off as being high-maintenance. It is just that I will most likely be the one spending a lot of my time in the kitchen, so why not make the place a little more enjoyable to inhabit, eh? (Yes, I am totally aware that my feminist forerunners are rolling in their graves at what I just said.)

Now, in the interest of the love I will have for my husband, I will be willing to compromise. Look at this...they have checkered floors with small black tiles.

Flooring totally designed with compromise in mind

I mean, really, I think he can at least let me have that kind of tiling. While it still might be checkered, this kind of tiling looks a bit more upscale. Some people have this kind of tiling in their bathrooms. And I've even seen some hotels, etc., choose it for designs. Heck, it's not like I am asking for a kitchen like this: (though, I admit, there is a certain appeal to it....)



For the eccentric types...

So, perhaps one day I will have a dream house that will have checkered floor tiling in the kitchen. For now, I am quite content with simply having checkered curtains above my sink.

How quaint

Yes, that indeed is one of the more lovely things about being young, right out of college, there are so many happy things to look forward to--like checkered floor tiling in your kitchen--while still enjoying the little things in life until you get there--like checkered kitchen curtains. I'll even go so far to say that I don't need the checkered tiles right now. I have the rest of my life to get 'em. And if I don't ever get 'em, at least I got to dream about it for a little while today!



Okay, done with dreaming for today...

P.S.: In case some readers are not aware, I can be a horribly sarcastic person. So my obnoxious rant about husbands, feminists and compromises are all (mostly) in jest. I would never tyranically insist of a husband to have checkered floors in my kitchen. Though the home can be a women's primary work place and thus "her kingdom" (as some may say) there are far more important things in life to bother and bicker with one's spouse about without worrying about flooring choices...