Organized Chaos

Instead of any big changes around here, most of my victories have been small and inconsequential to most of the world.  Take our closet, for instance.  It was a bit chaotic, and we had a hard time finding anything since our move.  Boxes of random stuff, clothes, decorating stuff, and (before I took this picture) a pack and play.  I cleaned actually quite a bit before I took this picture…I’m not ready for the blogosphere to see my messy house.  :)

After an afternoon of much needed organizing, it looked like this.

Certainly not earth shattering, but much needed around here!  Now my husband can actually find his shirts!  (Although his favorite comfy pants are still missing since the move…)

First comes organizing and then comes prettifying!  I do have lots of ideas for this space.  I’m still surprised that we have a window in our closet!  Wierd (but nice)!

Baby steps, right? 

And the curtains come down…

While there are many aspects of our new home that I like, the curtains are not one of them.

Exhibit A:

The 90’s called and they want their curtains back!

B:

C:

  Grape curtains and golden oak.  The new bread and butter?

D:

And E:

Now, I realize this could be much, much worse.  I could be dealing with pom-pom curtains and looots of old-lady lace ones like in our last house.  These are fine.  I think I actually made some similar to this when I was a kid.

But I don’t like them.  They aren’t me at all.  I am not a kid in the 90s anymore!

They have to come down.  They are actually already coming down, yay!  I promised my husband that we would not be undertaking any  projects for the first few months of owning our new home so we could have a bit of a break from home chaos…but curtains aren’t a project now are they!  They’re an essential part of home decorating.  :)

New curtains coming up!

Meet our new house!

Here is house number two for our family:

 

I finally went out and got better pictures of the front.  There are many beautiful oaks that surround the house so that makes it more difficult to get a good picture, but we love them for their shade and greenery!

See, hard to get a good picture with all the trees in front!  They’re great for privacy though!

Our front door.  I’m not sure if you can see it or not, but there’s a big lion statue on our front steps.  It came with the house and my husband is quite taken with it.  :)  There is also a lion door knocker.  I actually like those.  I think with some other type of house it would look silly, but being that our home is a more traditional style, they don’t look so out of place. 

I’m not going to show much of the inside today.  We’re slowly getting things where they belong, though it will be a long road.  It doesn’t look quite this bad anymore, but there is still a lot of unpacking to be done. 

Instead, let’s look around the outside!!  Which is what really drew us to this house in the first place. 

Huge yard from the vantage point of the deck/sunroom:

And then looking toward the deck/sunroom from the borders of our property:

Lots of space for kids (and adults!) to play, plus 3 more acres of woods (with trails that have Lord of the Rings names!  Posted on signs! ???)

Chicken coop (in need of inhabitants to eat the weeds in the chicken run):

 

Secret garden which has already been claimed by our 5 year old:

Wild black raspberries:

And mulberry trees:

We’re really enjoying our new home!  Especially in the heat of summer…we moved from our old home just in time!  (We didn’t have AC there!)  Since we’re a little ways from the city it is much cooler here with the breezes and lack of hot parking lots to warm things up.  We do have AC now which we haven’t had to use much so far, though I’m sure there are many hot days ahead this summer. 

I look forward to showing you more as this house evolves!

A Peek into our Packing Mess…

Our house looks like a tornado went through it…leaving boxes upon boxes in its wake.  I’m going to be taking a little break from blogging as we move today and settle into our new home. 

Last Week’s Thrifting Haul

You just never know what you’re going to find.  I found lots of decor items last weekend, and a baby gate too (not pictured—who wants to look at a picture of a baby gate?).  Our little guy is very mobile now and the new house has an open stair down to the basement so a baby gate is  very  necessary. 
See that cute little footstool?  I thought it would be darling reupholstered in a velvet…perhaps with the legs painted or at least stained another shade?  $1.
Tin platter of the Sacre Coeur in Paris.  I have happy memories of that lovely church near Montmartre—this will go on a wall eventually.  25 c.
Two geometric metallic balls…50 c each.
Orange glass bowl…$1.
Cake plate (brand new Threshold brand from Target!) $1.
My favorite find of the week---metal urn, also a dollar.  I’ve seen these all over blogland and finally have one of my own now to decorate with!  Yay!  I could see this with evergreen boughs in at Christmas time. 
Blue basket (also originally from Target) $1.50
Garage saling can be really hit or miss, and I’m calling this week a hit.  :)  Our citywide garage sales are this weekend but I doubt I’ll have much time to go as we’re closing on our current house and the new house and moving on Thursday.  (EEEP!)
I’m excited to see what the garage sales are like in our new neighborhood! 

Our (prospective) new house

We’ve been holding our breaths on this one, hoping and praying that all would work out…and it appears to be!  We are getting close to the closing (moving all our stuff this weekend!).  It is going to be busier than normal around here for a while as we move and settle in. 

We’re very excited!  I have to say that once we found this place, a lot of my sadness at leaving our current much-loved home was mediated.  I think a lot of that was just that leaving felt so much like an ending, and now it feels like a beginning too which makes it much easier to embrace.  I don’t know if that makes sense, but it does in my head.  :)

The lot is 4.5 acres, mostly wooded, but with one huge grassy area close to the house (for kids to play/garden!)  Lots of mature trees, lots of flower gardens to potter about in, a couple of small outbuildings, and a chicken coop!!  Yay!

The house itself was built in the 1990s, so considerably newer than our existing house.  The outside of the house is a colonial style which I’m really happy about (we looked at sooo many homes that were simply hideous on the outside!).  It looks very similar to this (though the colors are different):

The house hits all of our “must haves”…4+ bedrooms, finished basement, not requiring a lot of work, 2+ acres, and a floorplan with good flow.  It will need some updating (still stuck in the 90s/early 2000s) but as far as we know that will all be cosmetic.  After doing lots of extensive remodeling on our current home, it is really nice to know we won’t be remodeling constantly for the next 10 years to get the house the way we want it! 

Now, that’s not to say I/we don’t have plans to turn this builder grade home into something a little more special.  :)

See?  Very orange…ugly vinyl floor…and those lights on the vanity have.to.go!!  But, everything is in great shape, and has the space we are looking for.  It will be rather strange to go from 1500 square feet to 2700 square feet!  But nice to not have to juggle the 9 mos old from room to room for naps/bedtime.  This will be the nursery:

Again, not my style (yet)…and the floor looks really dark and just bad here—it is actually brand new carpeting and not that dark IRL.  It is a small room but is next to the master bedroom so is a perfect nursery. 

This is the kitchen.  I love how open it is to the dining area (this picture was taken from the dining area).  And, dining area below:

I was trying to take these pictures really fast as we were walking through showing my in-laws the house last Sunday.  Hence the crooked, dark photos.  :)

Right off the kitchen/dining area is something that I just love.   It is a sunroom/4 season porch.  I’m really excited about it!  It has a gas fireplace out there and lots of screened windows and doors.  I can just imagine sitting out there on summer evenings when the mosquitoes are bad outside with the breeze blowing in through the windows and doors.  Eventually I would like to extend the deck area outside to make it even more usable. 

Another favorite thing about this house (upstairs):

The master bedroom closet.  Seriously, it is bigger than our largest bathroom at our current house.  I feel actually a little embarrassed about this as we certainly weren’t setting out to find a “luxury” master bedroom by any means.  I would have been happy to find something the size of our modest current bedroom and closet.  However, now we have both a big closet (with a window…how interesting!) and a big bathroom attached.  It’s not what sold us the house (um, that would be the backyard!) but it is a nice perk!

I’m planning to take more pictures as we move, but I think this is enough for today.  It may be kind of like vacation pictures…the vacation-goer loves to show their pictures, but to the viewees, it can get kind of old!