Home Sweet Home

I figure it’s about time to share our new house with you since we’ve been here for almost one month now. We LOVE our house so much! We definitely don’t miss our apartment and it’s two flights of steps!

Some of you have asked for a video like we shot of our apartment, and I promise that will come one day…probably when we actually have furniture everywhere! But, here are some photos to tide you over:

Number 1:  The Study

I know Aaron wrote a whole post about his office, but I couldn’t leave it out of my post. It is definitely the most colorful room in our house! The back wall that you can’t see in my picture is BRIGHT orange! You may also notice that he’s added several Vinylmations. The Disney Store is having a BOGO sale…good thing we both have full time jobs! 🙂

Number 2:  Downstairs 1/2 Bath

This is probably my favorite paint color that we picked out. It’s called “Mysterious Mauve.” It took me quite awhile to convince Aaron to get a purple-ish paint, but he loves it now.

Number 3:  The Dining Room

So, we can’t take credit for anything in this room (except it is one of two rooms we painted by ourselves without my mom!). Our wonderful friends (and awesome role-models) the Harvey’s very graciously gave us their dining room furniture after they got a new set. It’s over 20 years old, but you would never know! It’s the style we were looking for anyway, so we were thrilled! My mom painted the hardware silver, and she had already given us those pretty dishes that belonged to her and my dad after they got married. Now we have a really nice dining room for free when we wouldn’t have been able to afford stuff for months! What a blessing!

Number 4:  The Kitchen

I love the kitchen. We wanted something different for the hardware since we got to pick it out, so we went with the square knobs and handles instead of typical round. The refrigerator is courtesy of my husband’s awesome bargaining skills…it was included in our closing. The color of the kitchen (and all of the downstairs except the three rooms above) is called “Silver Mist.” It is magical. It is blue. It is grey. It is green. You just never know!

Number 5:  The Living Room

It’s still a bit empty, but we’re working on it. The TV is temporary and will move upstairs once we get a bigger one and mount it on the wall. The coffee table is a long story, but in a nut shell, it’s a really nice one from Macy’s that we got at half price as a floor sample! There are four storage cubes underneath that role out as seats too! It’s my favorite piece of furniture that we own now! We are planning on a couple more chairs and obviously something on the walls. Patience is a virtue that I’m working on now… 🙂

Number 6:  The Breakfast Nook

Ok, use your imagination to see a dark wood pub table with four stools. We have it picked out…all in good time! Patience, patience.

Number 7:  The Loft

This is another one of my favorite rooms. One day, it will be a playroom, but for now, it’s a fun movie room! You can only see one of our four DVD towers. Yes. Four. And that’s not even all of the movies. And only like 10 of them are mine. Anyway, they are alphabetized. Except for Disney which is separate and in order of release. Pixar is separate from regular Disney. And of course, heaven forbid Batman be mixed in with the rest. 🙂 Anyway, that cool futon is from Target. We bought it because we had our TV upstairs at first with nowhere to sit. But then we got uncomfortable on our new futon thinking about our big comfy couch. So we moved the TV. Yes, I know…we should have moved the TV before we bought a futon. But it was purchased with a gift card, so I don’t feel so bad.

Number 8:  Guest Room #1 (aka “the girly room”)

This furniture and bed set are straight out of my teenage bedroom from my parents’ house. There is a desk on the opposite wall as well. They were very gracious and let us have it. Our guest rooms aren’t painted yet, because we would end up painting them again in a few years for kids. So they will probably stay without much effort spent on them for now.

Number 9:  Guest Room #2 (aka “the boy room”)

And now we have the furniture straight out of Aaron’s “bachelor pad.” Minus the TV cabinet (which holds no TV) and coffee table turned window seat. We got those before we got married (we love free furniture). You’ll probably remember them from our apartment. One day, I want one of my handy dads to turn the TV cabinet into shelves to be a dresser. And the coffee table opens up for a perfect toy box. 🙂

Number 10:  Upstairs Guest Bathroom

This bathroom is almost the exact replica of our master bathroom in our apartment. Nothing new here! It’s painted the same color as the dining room (a light cream color), and it holds the only bathtub in our house.

Number 11:  Master Bedroom (aka “where the magic happens”) (just kidding…we don’t really call it that!) 🙂

We are so in love with our bedroom mainly because we actually have room to walk in it now without ramming our shins on furniture! Not pictured is Aaron’s dresser and nightstand. Our lovely furniture is courtesy of sweet grandma who passed away less than a month before our wedding. We are constantly thankful for it because we had nothing, and it is like brand new furniture!

Number 12:  Master Bathroom

Our bathroom is painted a shade lighter than our bedroom and we chose to go with a blue and grey color scheme instead of black and grey like the bedroom. My personal favorite thing about our bathroom is having two sinks! I love it so much! On the right side is the door to our closet which can actually fit all of our clothes (for now). In our apartment, half of Aaron’s clothes were in the other bedroom closet. 🙂

And that about sums up our house! We obviously have things like closets, a laundry room, and a pantry that aren’t pictured. 🙂

Now, to give credit where credit is due, my mom did basically ALL the painting! She rocks! And all of our parents have helped us move things and hang things and install things. We are pretty clueless when it comes to handy work. We don’t even have a tool box. It’s a tool purse. And the security system guy stole our one screwdriver. And our ladder is borrowed. From a woman.

My Orange Office

After a week of being at CampKidJam, I came home to find that Whitney had been doing some decorative work in my study.  I have to say, I’m excited to have a study.  I often work from home and I have wanted a home office for studying, reading, writing, etc.  I needed some “inspirational” space, if that makes sense.

A few nights before I left for camp, my desk arrived in three boxes and 124 pieces.  Four hours later, it was assembled.  But beyond that, not much was done.  I knew what I had wanted done and Whitney took it from there!

Now, my office has gray walls, and one big orange wall.  Why orange?  What a great question!  I mean, what is orange anyway? Basically, it’s the philosophy we are working from and developing into at JourneyKidz – that two influences speaking the same thing into a child’s life is better than one influence by itself.  When you combine the light of the church (yellow) with the heart of the home and family (red), something new happens in the spiritual journey of a child.  You get orange.

Anyway, here’s a look at my study!

Above you see the orange bins!  And lots of books…

This is a print of “Dog Breath”.  I saw the original painting in Las Vegas.  It was huge.  I’ve loved it ever since.  I also have a calendar that has more from this artist and series and I’ll probably frame some of those in the future.

See my orange wall?  How awesome is that!

My bookcases are packed with books.  It’s a little outlandish.  The painting next to that bookcase is an original painting by me.

My amazing desk with an amazing lamp and pictures of me and Whitney.  Also, diplomas reminding us how smart we are (were).

That chair is comfortable.  Also, she bought me that case for my new Macbook.  Gray and Orange.  Like my room.  It’s also a picture of a coffee cup spilling on a computer keyboard.  Not an unlikely scenario that could take place in this room…

Every workspace must have some play space as well!  Here are some Vinylmations to keep me company.  (If you ever are in a situation where you need to get me a gift, Vinylmations from the Disney Store are a safe purchase!)

Whitney (with some handy help from her mom and dad) was  pretty busy.  Before this week, this room had a desk and two bookcases and a jumbled mess.  It looks pretty awesome now!

 

UPDATE:  After the original post (five minutes ago) Whitney told me that she also ordered me a clock that hasn’t arrived yet.  It’s pretty awesome too!  Check it out below: