honey, we're home.

I lived in my condo for 3 years, 10 months, and 6 days yet it never really felt like “home”.  Despite making my monthly mortgage payment, being responsible for repairs and maintenance, and being the keeper of the castle, it somehow always felt like a temporary resting place.  When we went to look at the new house a few months ago, I instantly knew that was where we would soon be building our home.  It wasn’t in any of the towns where we would normally search so I’m not sure how we even found the property online – but I’m glad we did! 

Having a modest budget, we knew we would have to sacrifice a few items from our wish list.  Up until then, we had toured a lot of houses and a few even had potential – but ultimately, each house we looked at was either too small, too big, needed too much work, was cheaply built and had no character, was in a less than ideal location, or Joe had to kneel in order to fit in the upstairs bedrooms. 

Living in our two bedroom condo that had only two small closets, we didn’t need (or want) anything fancy.  We simply wanted some space to grow, space to live, space to play, and space to put all of Joe’s clothes.  Our new house has four bedrooms – we hoped for three.  It has two full baths – we hoped for 1.5.  It has a basement, separate laundry room, mudroom, and separate office/storage room – we hoped for a coat closet.  It has a two car attached garage – we hoped for off-street parking.  It is on almost an acre of land, set back from the road at the end of a long driveway – we hoped for a spot for James to play in the dirt.

We spent the weekend moving the rest of our belongings from the condo to the house.  It’s an amazing and settling feeling to finally be in our home.  I feel like it’s so much easier to breathe.  We have countless projects on the horizon but, for now, it’s so satisfying just to sit amongst our piles of disorganization and enjoy our new surroundings.  I can’t express how good it feels to watch James scoot around in his little rolly-chair-thingy without bumping into walls and furniture every two strides.  I know he’s digging the freedom too.

And now onto the stuff that my Mum will care less about reading…

As mentioned in a previous post, we delayed moving in so we could have the main living area and James’ bedroom painted.  That project is complete and it looks pissa. Before, the living/dining/hall area was a blah-yellow color. There was even one wall in the dining area that was tan – not sure what look they were going for with that.  It wasn’t totally horrendous but it made the place feel drab and dull.  In attempts at keeping the place light and airy, I chose Wool Skein (by Sherwin Williams) for the living/dining rooms.  It’s nothing bold or dramatic but it definitely brings new life to the room.  Have you ever looked through paint colors to find off-white?  Holy crap – there’s way too many options.  After comparing about 50 of them, I chose this one.  It’s light enough to keep everything feeling fresh, has some tan to keep it warm, and has a subtle gray tint to keep it crisp. Forgive the poor lighting and not-so-true coloring – I wasn’t able to take these pics under ideal lighting conditions.  Move your cursor on and off the pictures below to see the before & after comparison:

James’ room has a large bay window in addition to two regular-sized windows.  There’s plenty of natural light in that room so I wanted to go darker with the walls.  I wanted his room to be suitable for a baby boy without having it be too “baby”.  Do you ever watch those home makeover shows and wonder how the hell the kid is going to feel about their purple-polka-dot-Barney-themed room when they’re 16?  I do and it irks the heck out of me.  The walls are Creek Bend (by Behr) and while they aren’t as dark as I had originally thought they would be, I’m happy with the way they turned out.  His white furniture contrasts nicely with the wall color – and the navy and yellow accents I plan to add will look super handsome.  Check out the bay window…the previous owners said there are several deer that live in the woods behind our house and often come right up to the window to munch on the plants out there.  I can’t wait until James makes friends with them.  Picturing him looking at a deer just on the other side of the window pane cracks me up.  Aaaanyways, move your cursor on and off the pictures below to see the before & after comparison (of the walls, not the deer):

Since our place is still cluttered with boxes and other miscellaneous items, I’ll snap some more pics once our furniture is in place and we have some sort of organization going on.  Until next time….

If you weren’t able to see the snazzy before/after pics above, here’s what you missed: