Making Our House A Home

Well, it only took us six months, but we've finally hung decorations, organized the office/guest rooms, and added some warmth to our house. 

There are still a lot of big projects to face, like tearing down a wall and redoing the kitchen/master suite, but for now the majority of the house is coming along. Here's what Matt and I spent winter break working on. (It doesn't seem like much, but shopping and decorating take a deceptively huge amount of time and effort.)

To see the before shots, go here. I'm not putting the photos in this post because, let's face it, scrolling through a million house pictures isn't really why most people read this blog!

Living Room

First, we spent approximately half my lifetime at Lowe's picking out curtain rods and curtains (which we returned, then went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond to find new ones).

This is my "OMG CAN WE GO HOME?" face.

Then we got to work!

Matt removed our oatmeal-colored verticals. Yuck.

I patched and painted the holes, with Archie's help of course.

Matt hung the curtain rod...

...with Archie's help, of course.

We debated on colors. Originally I really wanted red curtains and finding a set that matched our rug nicely was awesome. But in the end we went with white.

Our living room gets pretty dark so white curtains make it feel more open. Plus, the sliders go out onto the pool so light, airy curtains made sense.

The finished product. We also hung an autographed SUP paddle Matt won at a race.

Dining Room

Our dining room is connected to the living room, so we wanted curtains that matched. We went with the same white. When we moved, my parents gave us three pieces of real art. We've now hung two of them; the third's frame shattered and we need to reframe it.

We hung the Möbius Strip in the dining room.

The view to our front patio. We clearly haven't done anything out there yet! You can also glimpse the new cushions I got for our chairs...no more red and green plaid!

Guest Rooms

Even though we're planning to get a queen bed for at least one of these rooms, they're still complete enough to accommodate guests.

One of our hand-built shelves came crashing down this week (too many books!), so Matt had to take them down and add supports. Now the office/second guest room is all set up. Our framed diplomas are hanging over the desk, too.

We have two beds in the first guest room, and now there are even pictures on the walls!

I had some fun framing my All Star Game tickets, etc.

Foyer

We hung our second nice piece of art, the King of Hearts, on one side of the foyer. Across from it we put up a nice mirror surrounded by photographs I took during our various trips around the world. I can't wait to add more photos to the collection...We don't have one of Panama printed yet. 

From top left around: Edinbrugh, Aix en Provence, Florence, Jerusalem, St. Mark's Square (Venice), Cliffs of Moher (Ireland), Venice, Arc de Triomf (Barcelona), Aix en Provence.

We plan to get a nice table to put under the mirror, too.

Master Suite

We finally took down our gross, broken verticals in the master bedroom and can now actually let daylight into our room! We have a wonderful view.

We haven't hung anything on the walls in the master yet. The problem is that everything we love we want out on display where people can see it! So our room is still very bland; but our new duvet set, rug, and curtains do help!

Addition

The space off the kitchen that we had been using to store junk has been cleaned out and organized! We're not sure what we want to use this space for, but at least now it's not an eyesore.

 

Obviously there's still tons to get done, but the entire house feels warmer with so many little details added. I'm starting to feel proud of it and like I can really call it "home!"

Do you like decorating and organizing house stuff?

What is your favorite room in your house? Why?

ABK