The new house!

Today we close on the new house.  It's official - we have a new house!  EEK!  We are ready to dig in and start living there because we are getting tired of living in limbo.  We moved out of our old house last week and it's been a lot of transition for our kids.  

This weekend will be filled with boxes and moving trucks as we start to make it ours.  The old house is still staged so we can't move everything - but enough to at least spend the night!  

Here are a few pictures of what we bought.  I know - what were we thinking?  Especially as you've seen what we are leaving all week...  I promise it will be fabulous one day and we'll take you along on our journey from this 'blank slate' to perfect.  (Blank slate is code for crappy looking with good bones)

Looking back at the front door.  Yep - carpet at the front door.  Evidently we are the only people who have dirty shoes??  It's getting cleaned this weekend.  The living room floors are wood, but they are unfinished short run oak.  If I were choosing floors it wouldn't be wood - and I detest short run (lengths of wood are only 18 inches at the most) - and oak makes my skin crawl anymore.  

We are painting them green.  Are you dying?  Bright, bright green.  

The walls will be all white with white glossy trim and the hallway will have a cool stencil at some point. Not sure when that point is, but I'm hoping it's soon.

domino magazine

We have all of the furniture we need for this room.  It's just all in the wrong fabric.  I have two couches to use in the room and I'm thinking about covering one of them in a fun, bright, green fabric that's vibrant and young.  The other one will be in a classic linen because it is definitely more of a permanent piece.

Maybe something like this?  Obviously this swatch is a bit contradictory to the floor color, so we would make sure to coordinate better.  There are some amazing styles and patterns on Spoonflower.com that would be awesome in this space!

This is supposed to be the dining room.  But I have some ideas on moving our spaces around a little bit to make them work better for us.  We'll see what happens once we are in the house, but I'm thinking this will be a small couch and chair with some kid stuff.  It's right off the kitchen so I want it to be a living space - not a table that we use once a day.

This picture from House Beautiful is actually what got me thinking about moving the table to a spot in the "living room" instead.

House Beautiful

See how the dining table is actually a part of the living space?  Could be interesting...  

Can you believe how claustrophobic the kitchen is?  We have some thoughts on how to make it work for now and some major remodel thoughts for the future.  Right now it makes me cringe a little bit.  Luckily, I just learned some awesome couscous tricks which should reduce the time I have to spend in here.  And we'll be grilling this summer...

For now, I think the upper cabinets will be gone as soon as Mr. Hedin allows me near them and replaced with shelves.  I've looked at loads of shelves and shared them with you here.  I am particularly digging this look and I'm pushing for it.  But I have A LOT of stuff that all needs a home and open shelves may end up 'styled' rather than practical...

design*sponge

And finally, two of the three reasons we bought this house.  

#1.  The Basement.  

It's basically unfinished.  What you are looking at is the part they considered the 'finished' part of the basement.  It's not.  The concrete floors are painted and so are the plywood walls they hoisted up at some point.  The fireplace is cool - and the space will make a great playroom.  There is also plenty of room in the rest of the basement for bedrooms, an office, and a storage space.  We haven't even begun to plan what we'll do down there.  It's a little overwhelming!

#2 The killer lights in the master bath.

The rest of the room sucks.  Like, pale brown toilet and bathtub sucks.  But these lights are amazing.  I am so stoked to move them into a powder bath at some point - maybe one with wall paper and a bamboo mirror?  

The third reason we bought the house was the location.  We can walk to the elementary school, walk to the swimming pool in the summer, and walk to my parent's house - nothing is better than being able to walk to them!

I truly can't even tell you how excited I am to take you on the journey as we 'fix' this house the same way we fixed the other house.  It's going to be a fun adventure - with three kids and a dog - but it can be done, and done fabulously!  Have a great weekend.