The House that Love Built

For some reason I keep getting bugged about getting house pictures up.  Maybe because our house is awesome, and it's super exciting.  I don't know though.  Anyway, we have finally got the main floor to look almost home-like.  I mean, it definitely feels like home, but I'm trying to make it look like a home too.  We still haven't hung any pictures because we have really weird horsehair plaster walls and need to buy some drywall screws to hang our pictures.  Hopefully our walls won't crumble too much as we are decorating.  We've also got the basement nice and organized (although we do need to go through some of the boxes still and put things in permanent storage), but it's too dark to take any kind of pictures, since I didn't think to do this until it was already dusk.  Oh, and ignore the weird white balance issues...it was dusk, so I had to chose my white balance based on the internal light, so any external light looks weird and blue.

Ready for the tour of the main floor?

Here's the living room.  Our couches were delivered the day we moved in, so our old worn red couch went to the dumpster, and our backs couldn't be more grateful!  We got the rug on Saturday for $89.99.  Isn't it gorgeous?  It's got navy around the border, along with a lighter, brighter blue, with some yellows and greens and a cream background.  I loved it when we found it, and loved it even more once we had it in with the furniture and everything.  We got a couple of sheer panels for our windows, but need a couple more.  It's nice to have the glaring morning sun softened though.  We plan on hanging a huge family portrait above the fireplace, which is right now scattered with random decorative things.  To the left you can see the corner of our piano, which fits perfectly on that wall, and to the right is the computer desk I am currently sitting at.  We got the chair at the dump.

Oh, and I'm taking suggestions for the pillows.  I didn't like any of the options available, so we went with the ones that came with the couches in the first place.  They are UGLY.  The couches are a deep chocolate brown and have a wide corduroy micro-suede pattern, but I'm totally open to more textures and a pop of color.  The adjacent rooms are red and yellow, but this one is tan.

Turn around and you are in the entry way.  Sorry the picture is so dark.  It's normally happy and yellow.

Matthias found that mirror at the dump, and the dresser was a dump find as well.  I think I'm going to paint it white.  Oh, and it looks like that's where I left my lens cap.  I was looking for that!

I'm in love with our staircase on most days.  Not the ones where I push myself too hard on my run.  Oliver loves to climb the stairs, but he isn't interested in learning how to climb down them.  I'm ok with that, but we do have to keep an eye on him so that he doesn't attempt the climb alone.  He still tries to sit back on the air sometimes.  But, I love the white paint with the zebra wood handrail.  And that rounded bottom step:  Beautiful!  We may get a runner, but didn't find any we liked at the discount store, so we'll wait awhile.

Next to our happy yellow kitchen, with a beadboard backsplash, an original porcelain farmer's sink (I think it's porcelain at least, maybe you could tell me better!), and charm to boot!  The cupboards are all original, just repainted.  I love the hardware that is naturally childproof with built-in latches.  Please ignore the open one as well as the open spice drawer.  Oliver must have helped me with the staging.  Also notice that we only have things hung on the freezer, and not the fridge.  His playpen is to the left, and I never thought I would love a playpen so much as when I am making dinner.  Wow it's a lifesaver.  And you can see the corner of our stove with a pan that once had cinnamon rolls in it that we gave to the missionaries.

I know you wanted to see that sink close up.  And sorry again.  CF lightbulbs make me go crazy when adjusting the white balance.  We love our sink, and we love that it has the side for anything that you want to drain into the sink.  And we are lucky enough that it has a disposal as well, even though it's such an old isnk.  I love it. You can also see my little plants on the sill!

Here's my cilantro.  My old batch died while we were on vacation.  I transplanted it the day we moved, and then there was the New England heat wave, so I pretty much knew it wouldn't make it.  I even had 2 dreams about it while on vacation.  So happy to have my little plants growing again!  Someday I'll know something about gardening. 

Here are my strawberries that Matthias got me for Mother's Day.  They grow much slower than the cilantro, but they look stronger every day, and I'm not expecting fruit until next year or the year after anyway.  I'm sure I need to give them more sunlight, so I may move them to a larger planter outside.  But for now they are happy and standing tall.

(they usually face the window, but I turned them around for picture purposes).

 Our little nook for important mail and this week's ads.  The dishwasher detergent hides behind the ads (since there isn't a lock on the cupboard beneath the sink).  And don't you love the pictures we found at Target?  Only one is hung on an existing screw that was left.  And apparently my mask from when we were sanding is hidden behind there...
Anyway, back to the other side of the kitchen.

That tall skinny door actually holds a drop down ironing board!  And you can see the door to the sunporch and the door to the basement on the right.  In the center there is a coat closet, and that's the front door through it.  Oliver loves to crawl into the kitchen and close me out of that door.  Then he'll crawl over to the dishwasher or the half-bath and play with the dishes or toilet paper.  I really need to get better at closing both of them, but sometimes dishwashers need to be open so that the dishes will actually dry all of the way.

Here's the half-bath, decorated with my new $0.69 cent sea glass bottles.  They probably won't all stay there, but it's a good place for them right now.  And that picture was $1.  I bought it at the Family Dollar by the Ghetto Fry's in Tucson.

I've been wanting sea-glass bottles (or at least imitation ones) for a long time.  I love the color!

The sunporch is nothing to look at at dusk, or with our stroller, mop, and shoes on it, but look at the old windows!  (and ignore the crazy white balance differences, the paint is white, not orange)  They are actually made to come out and be exchanged for screens, but we haven't done that yet, so it probably won't get done this year as we are excited for autumn to come again now that the heat wave is over.  Seriously, I love having seasons!

The kitchen also has a swinging door to the dining room.  Oliver will play with it if it's closed, so we keep it open.  It's easier that way.  But, we do have a way to completely close off the kitchen if necessary.  And yes, I meant it to be a weird self-portrait.

So now onto the dining room:

haha! The idea is to maybe put an island in the kitchen and bring the table in here, but then we'd have Oliver's carrots all over our semi-nice wood floors.  For now it may just be a play room/craft room.  And that AC Unit is amazing, by the way.  In the corner are the boxes with all of our wall hangings.  Amazingly, Oliver doesn't go toward those cords too often.  We also finally got the boxes that were in that corner taken care of.  Except for that random cardboard bit.  hmm..

The built in hutch is beautiful though.  And we finally have a place to put our glass wares that they won't get grimy kitchen dust all over them.  Oh, and notice that dimmer switch?  The people who lived here before us LOVED dimmer switches and replaced most of the light switches.  We find it strange, and will probably change them.  Especially since CF bulbs don't dim well.

Anyway, that's our house right now.  Upstairs still isn't much to look at, and we have a bedroom rearrange planned as well so that we can see how we like the rug we bought for it.  We really need more furniture.  At least another dresser, and maybe a desk/table or two up there.  Oliver's room is okay.  Well, today he had fun moving toys all around his room, so it's a bit messy because I didn't clean it up.  But we will hopefully paint it soon so that he won't hate us for having him live in a *gasp* purple bedroom.  We will need shelves in there, but it's okay right now.

I hope you've enjoyed tour de la yellow house!  Stay tuned for more tours eventually!

Oh What Do You Do In The Summertime?

In case you were wondering, we signed on our house May 25, and moved in on Saturday.  We had tons of wonderful help from the ward, and have been working hard at unpacking ever since (well, as hard as we can work and still take care of Oliver).  We've finally just about got the kitchen done, thanks to my friend Megan offering to help when I told her she needed to come over and see our house.  I'm completely in love with the house!  I have a couple of other blog posts that will be posted once our computer is set up.  Right now we are just on the laptop and I feel like I'm on crutches because all of my edited photos are on there, as well as the fact that I haven't downloaded the plugin for PSE so I can read my RAW files.  AND I can't even scrapbook our thank you cards!

Hopefully I'll get some pictures posted soon, but unpacking is really our first order.  That and finding good house shoes since barefoot with wood floors and ceramic tile is just not working out so well.  I'm thinking Crocs.  Oh, and because of the crazy hot weather we need to install the AC units.  I had to take off Oliver's pajamas because the poor boy was soaking his sheets with sweat.  Good thing he's really cute in just his diaper, eh?  Oh, and Matthias (and probably I) needs a haircut.

We totally love our house, and it's hard to believe that it's ours.  On Sunday the talks were about self-reliance and there was a whole talk on mortgages.  Yay.  If only you could combine the beautifulness of New Hampshire with the housing prices in Arizona.  But, thankfully we read Dave Ramsey last summer and have learned a lot about budgeting and how much you pay in interest on a house, and even though we are now the poorest we have ever been and this is the first time we've really been in debt monetarily, we're confident that we've made a good choice in homes based on the market here, and based on the fact that we're only paying a little more on our mortgage than we would be paying on rent in our apartment.

And, did I mention that we love our house?

We are right around the corner from an elementary school, and our street is closed on non-local traffic during school times because there are so many kids walking to and from school on it.  Oliver loves to watch all of the kids and buses coming and going.  I should really step outside and meet some of our neighbors, but being so busy getting unpacked means that I'm frazzled and frizzy, even if I start out looking good.

Today Oliver climbed the stairs.  I just kept my hands lightly on his sides to be there if he slipped, and he didn't.  Moving has really done a lot for his motor skills.  He's pulling up to standing everywhere, just started kneeling unsupported, and is even brave enough to stand only holding onto something with one hand.  He even discovered that he can reach the piano keys if the cover is open.  I can just tell he's going to be a crazy climber because he's already trying.

Anyway, 9:30 and time for bed.  Sorry I've been bad at updating, and sorry for no Oliver pictures.  Hopefully the computer will be set up this weekend.

p.s.  We love our house. :)

Civil War Relics

So a HUGE thing that has kept us from regular blogging is that we have been house hunting.

One of our friends in the ward just got her Real Estate license, and when I saw her announcement on Facebook I snatched her right up! We had no real concrete idea what we wanted, except that we wanted to stay in our current ward, and room for our little family with hopefully room to grow.

She has been amazing, and we've done LOTS of house hunting. We've seen houses from the 1700's, to houses built in the last decade. We've seen cape, colonial, split-level, add-ons, just a little bit of everything. We've seen foreclosures that were completely demolished, some short-sales that were kept in mostly decent condition, some houses that smelled of old people and cats, and some that were freshly remodeled. We've learned how New Hampshire survives with no sales or income tax (we've seen property taxes ranging from $3,000-$7,500/year).

The hardest part about house hunting is being able to imagine living there. I've discovered that I prefer rooms that are more square than oblong. Old stairs are steep. Add-ons can be great, or completely random. What we used to call Arizona rooms are 3- or 4-season rooms here, lined with windows to be able to enjoy the natural beauty I only thought existed in paintings. Most houses here seem to have wood floors. Some houses have been built so personalized to the family who live there that it would take extensive remodeling that was really hard for me to imagine to get it to work for us. We found a few houses that we couldn't exactly find anything wrong with, except that it didn't feel right.

Then, we found it:Well, it wasn't covered in snow when we found it, but doesn't it look great in snow too? This house was built in 1865 by a Civil War veteran. Lots of restoration and remodeling work has already been done, but there is still a bit to go to make the house the home of our dreams. The kitchen has a stove with steel plate heating elements (not sure what they are called, but it screams "old"). The door handles are old glass handles. You can see where the pipes and electricity were added on the ceiling of the cellar. There's a rock/dirt floor cellar. The old windows have been preserved, but new windows have been put just inside to add a layer of insulation. There is an attached two-story barn (that isn't really a barn anymore). Plenty of room for a growing family. It's on the lower end of what we wanted to pay, but it's definitely the best house and the best deal we have seen.

The best part is that it feels right, and when you are praying about a big decision and are getting nervous that you are too picky, and then suddenly you are completely charmed by a house because it feels so good...you just know that it's a good choice, even if it doesn't have everything on our list.

Anyway, it's a short sell, which means that even though the seller's accepted our offer promptly, and even though the bank gave us paperwork promptly, they wanted our contract to expire in JULY to give them enough time to think on our offer. It's a short sell because the bank will be losing money by taking our offer, because the sellers were in over their heads, not because it will be a short process. We didn't low-ball as much as we might have been able to because we didn't want to risk rejection. We love the house, but are trying not to love it too much so that if we don't get it we won't be completely devastated. The good news is that there are still plenty of homes on the market, and it's still a buyer's market (although the market didn't crash much here compared to Nevada and Arizona). But here's hoping and praying for our Civil War Relic short sell!