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!

Back with a vengeance

It has been one heck of a long time since I have posted a project. Over the summer, as I was in my temporary residence, I was itching to do something creative. I couldn't wait to get in to my new, permanent house and go crazy making it lovely. Seriously, there were moments I was giddy with anticipation. Embarrassing picture? Yes. But I am not above embarrassing myself, and now you know what I sometimes do in my free time. Yeehaw.

My roommates and I have been in the new house for a month. Things are getting pretty and pretty settled as of a few days ago. For the first few weeks, I had spurts of organizing, hanging pictures, and general new-house activity. This weekend, we hosted a house blessing-housewarming party. It was an excellent excuse to put the medal-to-the-metal, as it were, and finish up my To Do list. While I am still editing House Tour pictures, I wanted to share two projects I tackled in the last few days.

These two projects are ones I've been wanted to do, and simultaneously putting off, for two years.  Perhaps because I am a procrastilaxer extraordinaire, I suddenly felt very motivated to complete each last week instead of doing other things that might have been more worth my while. Something tells me this is a skill I should leave off my resume....

Moving on. There was an informal "Thirsty Thursday" organized for people in my program. It was optional, so I took them up on that. Instead of getting my drink on, I locked myself in my basement with some paint fumes and gave this set of boring black mirrors a face lift.

  

Before aaaaaand After

I went into the project intending to paint two mirrors solid gold and two solid silver. Though I didn't snap a picture of it, I found the scheme too boring so I went on to add the check/stripe effect on the two gold mirrors. I was, and still am, very pleased with this second result.

Can you say, "Fabulous"?

The quartet now takes up wall residence next to our front door. Prime location for last minute beauty checks as we dash out the door.

I know you love it.

Up next is this baby:

After returning home from dinner and drinks with friends for one's birthday, I whipped this pillow up. No sewing machine. No pattern. Just an uglya$$ pillow, new fabric, and needle'n'thread. Oh, and can't forget Grooveshark.

closest thing to a before-after...I.e. I still have another one to cover=the fun ain't over yet(!)

As I said, I had no pattern to follow while sewing. I have a little experience making pillows, but I did not want to replicate that pattern since this pillow would be in the same room as the first. Still, with no sewing machine, my options were pretty limited since there is no way I can hand stitch as well as a machine. So--simple it had to be. Thanks to my mom, I know how to make a ruffle, which came in handy in making the design less boring that it otherwise might have been.

I have to admit, I am pretty surprised and impressed with the outcome. Call me a design geek, but each time I catch a glance of this baby I'm like, "Did I seriously made that?!"

Talking to oneself = Super-cool.

As they say: Pride cometh before the fall; I expect to face-plant sometime soon. So I should probably stop while I am ahead and you are still awake. As always, thank'ya muchly for reading. Up next: Re-cap of the move-in and a house tour. Get excited!

Moooooooooooving

What does a cow say? ...Mooooooooooooooo(ve)

Saw whaat??

That's right, folksies--I'm moving! When, you ask?

House Crashing in the Bluegrass State (part one)

Hello-hello there, Sports fans! Welcome to the newest series here at MKDesign & Decor...House Crashing!

A lot of other home/D.I.Y. bloggers will have the occasional house crashing post. Seeing that I am a somewhat-dilettantish blogger, I am taking a whack at house crashing. What better way to start such a series than to show case the house "where the magic began"? That's right, folks, I am house-crashing the house where I grew up!

My love for interior design and all things homey can be definitely traced to my origins. Growing up, I always held the spot as faithful sidekick to my mom in most of the home improvement projects she took on. I just couldn't get enough of it!

Last week, I took a few days off work to visit my family. When ever I go home, I love to wander around and see what new changes or additions my dear mother has added to the family home since I was last around. You could say it is one of my (many) quirks. It's just something that I do! Although there were not any major changes discovered on this last visit, it still struck me that I wanted to share with you this bit of myself. So, sit back and enjoy a mini tour of my family's home.

As you know from my last post, the bathroom is a highly esteemed room in my book. So let's start there on this little home tour.

Now, I realized after the fact (as in, when I was upload the pictures to my computer after I returned from my visit home) that it would have been waaay classier if I had closed the toilet before taking this picture. As well as folding/hiding the hand towel that is so delicately draped over the drawer. But, alas, such a thought didn't even cross my mind. #comfortsofhomegonewrong Sorry, Mom!

Anyways, in the last six months, my mother re-painted and re-styled this bathroom, which is on the first floor of our house and the recipient of a lot of traffic. My mom painted that wall free-hand. You should be impressed. I am. You might notice in this picture and the following pictures that the patter doesn't show up on all of the walls. This was on purpose. This is a small room and Mom thought that the pattern would become very overwhelming, perhaps even dizzy-ing, if painted on all of the walls. She opted to reserve painting the fun pattern on only the opposing walls of the room. I couldn't agree more with this decision (especially considering the large mirror over the vanity).

I lack "before" pictures. But, trust me, this makeover is an improvement of divine proportions. Not that I necessarily hated the "before." It never really occurred to me to make a bathroom so darling and cute. I am in love with this new look!

Moving on from the bathroom, here is a shot (from the doorway of the previously shown bathroom no less) of the family room. Excuse me for bragging, but I crafted that gallery wall. Though I didn't plan on this being the only picture from this room, it turned out I didn't document this room from any other angle. But you can see that a similar color scheme is continued through the first floor of the house. I am pretty sure that my mom would describe her decorating style and preferences to be in the are of "English Country".

Here is the living room. Again, you will observe a consistency in Mom's decor choices. The look of Mom's style definitely has evolved over time, but I would say she has been pretty consistent in the vein of English Country/English Cottage. Trust me, I am in no way complaining. I love home! In fact, the living room is one of my favorite rooms in the house. It is so cozy. Oh, and the piano is also in the room. I spent many-an-hour at the piano in my youth. (But I failed to get a good picture of the beautiful instrument. Sorry! Better luck next time, I suppose).

The living room is right off of the foyer/front entry. I think this area was a bit of a thorn in my mother's side for some time. You don't see it here, but there is a very boring chandelier above. After living in this house for almost 15 years, I think things are looking quite nice. It helps that the living room is right off of the entry, so our guests have a loverly view as they are walking in.

View from the front door

Next up is the basement. We re-finished the basement about four years ago. It was a big to-do. Although the basement was technically "finished" when we moved in, it was nothing special to say the least. Mother schemed (in the most positive sense of the word) for years about how she would re-style the area once the majority of her eight kids were out of the destructive ages. Her patient, loving waiting paid off for sure. Don't'ya think?

I really like that lamp and table combo in the foreground

 This area previously was a (very) large, double closet. With the makeover, my mom had one side converted to a reading nook slash extra guest bed (i.e. when a lot of guests come one of us kids forfeits our bed to the guest and we get to sleep in the basement book nook). The other half of the monstrous closet became a sitting booth, as you can see. It is great for family movie nights. (We call them "picnics" even though it has been a long time since we spread out a picnic set-up in front of the T.V.).

It was fairly difficult to get a good shot of the basement in such a way that did it justice. Here is the best-of-a-bad-lot of attempts to capture the book nook plus sitting booth relative to the couch area.

There are many more beautiful rooms to share with you from my family's home. However, as you might imagine, time with family is so precious that I got distracted after photographing the above rooms. Thus I didn't finish capturing the rest of the house during my stay. Thank goodness I don't live an egregious distance away, so I am able to travel back with relative frequency. Next time I spoil myself with a visit home, I promise to get the rest of the house and share it with you after the fact. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this house crashing adventure!