If you have read any of my previous posts, you will probably know we moved last year and I LOVE my house and neighborhood. We recently passed our one year anniversary of living here, and it was interesting to look around and see how much we have done. I did have motivation (I threw an engagement party for 90+ people three months after we moved in... there was a bonus to having a few rooms with no furniture), but it still has been a long process.
So I knew pretty much the nanosecond I walked into this house that I wanted to live here. When you have looked for a house, you know what I am talking about. The vibe is obvious, and this vibe was US. I loved the street, the area, the neighborhood, everything. We had looked at a house up the street prior to this, so finding a random short-sale on the street we loved was sort of crazy. We had to battle it out to get it (or more correctly, my mother-in-law battled it out for us and is the sole reason we got it). We had put our contract in sometime in May, and didn't hear until August. We closed August 16 and moved August 19. It has been such an amazing home for our family.
We had nearly the entire house painted in the days between closing and moving. I vowed to leave everything at our old house that we didn't want (we kept it and are renting it out). I wanted to start fresh and stop the hand-me-down trend of getting furniture.
FOYER:
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DINING ROOM:
You saw the transformation, but here it the official before (and I'll add after for effect):
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We have still pretty much done nothing with the formal living room. I didn't even take an after pic of it. We have a bookshelf and a piano in it.
KITCHEN:
The kitchen is still something I want to do major work to. The cabinets and countertops are horrid and I detest electric, but I LOVE the space and layout. We painted, changed up hardware and some appliances:
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(Matt was wiping off what appeared to be beer pong rings on the counter. It is the perfect length for it...).
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The Breakfast area is great, and we eat here for pretty much every meal. I switched up the lighting, did the roman shades myself (pinterest, future post), and got barstools:
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From the family room looking in:
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FAMILY ROOM:
The family room is large with TONS of natural light. We actually don't yet have a ladder tall enough to change the lightbulbs.
From the kitchen, looking into the family room:
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View from the balcony:
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THE OFFICE:
So neither of us doing the work from home thing that requires an actual office. We have a desktop and lots of papers and junk, so I wanted both a place for that stuff and a place to have the girls able to keep their art stuff. This is what I came up with:
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Sorry for the lighting issues. Lots of natural light. I LOVE having a place to keep all of their stuff.
Here are the stairs, and I loved how it broke off into two directions. I do use both options quite a bit.
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I had to get Emmie in this picture. That is her station.
The hallway upstairs overlooks both the foyer and the family room. We have four bedrooms upstairs and three full bathrooms. I loved the bright and airy feel. And you will easily be able to see my favorite part of the after pics in the next few.
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MASTER BEDROOM/BATHROOM:
I had picked out bedding first for the Master Bedroom. I went with a totally random color that I ended up being absolutely obsessed with... it is warm and coppery, and goes great with the floors. I have barely done anything else to our bedroom. In time...
We had the same furniture at our old house but I literally had to suck my stomach in to get between the bed and the dresser. Quite a bit more room here.
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The Master bathroom needs some work as well but it is a great size. One of my favorite aspects of it is the separate room for the toilet (apparently called a poop closet?). I love keeping certain things separate in my marriage, that being one of them.
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I love love loved the ceiling, but the sellers took the fan (not too devastated over that one). I installed a new one myself on a whim and I love it.
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I have no "befores" of these, but here is the master closet (I can't wait to redo it because I think it can be SO much better holding clothes.
BEDROOMS:
We have a bedroom we currently use as a guest room upstairs, and it has an attached full bathroom. We haven't really done anything to that but I hung an awesome shower curtain (moroccan print, shocking):
I didn't have 'before' pics of the girls bedrooms either. We are currently having Layla and Summer sharing a bedroom, and Olivia has her own. There is a jack-and-jill bathroom in between the rooms.
BASEMENT:
We have a fifth bedroom in the basement and an additional full bathroom. This will eventually be the guest room and all the girls will have their own rooms upstairs. For now, the basement bedroom looks like someone vomited pink, princesses and babies. I wanted to be able to contain their toys to a room while still having an adult "man cave" situation down there. That fails miserably, but at least I have somewhere to stuff all the pinkness when I want to. And the moonbounce is pretty much a staple there so I left it as-is. I put tons of our sports memorabilia (there are like six more boxes in the storage area) dedicated to our fave teams: if you can't figure it out, they are the Redskins, Capitals, and Orioles. We are also golf fans and have other random stuff like the Kentucky Derby.
This is where we eventually want to build a bar:
This 60 incher and surround sound was an early purchase when we moved in. And who can guess the show that is on? It is a tough one...
It walks out to the lower part of the deck (the breakfast area has the door to the upper area): Eventually a few comfy chairs will be going in front of that fireplace:
The walk-in closet is the official "dress-up" area along with stuffed animals:
OUTSIDE:
The upstairs deck: don't ask why we have two grills right now, long story. And don't judge my herb planters that I never got herbs for...
So if there were absolutely no leaves on the trees, you would be able to see the back of my sister's house. I know, it's amazeballs.
The best thing about this picture is the path that you can see, which is the path that goes directly to my sister's cul-de-sac, as well as the park, tennis courts, and pool.
One thing I was a complete idiot about was cleaning. I actually thought it would be easy to keep clean because we were literally tripling our living space. I thought, "Oh, everything will be spread out, it won't look as messy." Totally wrong. When there is more room and surfaces for crap, more crap expands to that room and those surfaces. But I really do feel spoiled and like I am not mature enough to live in this house sometimes (I mean it has crown molding everywhere. That is very adult-like), but it has been absolutely amazing for our family. My sister and I often look at each other and say, "This is literally our dream come true." We also have amazing neighbors who I already consider some of my dearest friends. We are extremely fortunate.
So it is Layla's first day of preschool AND Summer's first day of ballet AND the Redskins home opener. BIG DAY! Happy Monday!!!
Its beautiful!!
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