The whole buying our house and then moving in process felt like a whirlwind.  Well, it felt like riding on the back of the world’s laziest turtle at times, but mostly it just sped by.  I didn’t blog a ton about the whole process because I was too busy pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.  But we’re still in our house.  It’s apparently real.  Ha!

The day it became official, we wanted to move in, but we had quite a bit of construction work to do first.  So we settled on moving in one item and celebrating with McDonald’s afterwards.  We’re pretty hardcore around here.

We chose to move a globe.  We chose it because it was so symbolic of world peace and love and all that.

Just kidding.

There was no real thought process.  I just quickly glanced around our trailer, it caught my eye, and I grabbed it.

Look how cute and excited he is.  It was a pretty big deal for these Gothras!

Growing up, I got teased quite a bit for being so dramatic.  It actually never stopped.  I just married someone equally dramatic.  At times it can lead to interesting moments.  But then there are times like this.  When he doesn’t make fun of me for taking 836.5 pictures of us carrying a globe inside our first new house.  Instead, he just smiles right along and embraces it.  Firsts are my favorite.

~Whitney

So a few months ago I was roaming around on Pinterest when a certain pin caught my eye:

In case you can’t read the caption, it says “a nerd living room … Sheldon could live in here.”  And in case you didn’t recognize, that is our old living room.

Thank you dear Internet reader.  Although I’m not sure if the label “nerd living room” is a compliment or an insult.  For the sake of my pride, I’m just going with compliment.

I loved our trailer.  It was the perfect place to learn how to be married together.  It was also a great place to experiment with paint colors and decorating styles.

When we first moved in, it was a blank canvas straight from the ’90s.  Decorative frosted mirrors and wallpaper border included.

These pictures were taken on move in day – the day after our honeymoon.  Also known as 15 pounds ago.  But moving on.

About a month after moving in, we attacked our trailer with a paint brush and all the colors.  Um, yikes.  I would never choose these colors today, but at the time I loved them.

We kept the walls for about a year and added a whole bunch of accessories like pillows, rugs, and curtains.  The more colors and textures I added, the more I wanted to tone down our walls.  Finding the green leather couch of our dreams was all the motivation I needed to repaint and restyle.

And that’s where we ended up.  Nerd style?  I don’t know about that.  But I do know that our little trailer was filled with love.  The kitchen update was my very favorite thing in our trailer.  And if I’m honest?  Looking at these photos made me tear up a bit.  It was such a good first home.  We put so much effort and love into it.

Looking at the transformation our trailer went through in less than three years really encourages me in our new house.  In their book, John and Sherry from Young House Love mention several times that decorating a house is a process.  If you do it thoughtfully and right, it can take years.  While I’m itching to DECORATE ALL THE ROOMS NOW in our new house, there is something to be said for slowing down and enjoying the process.  Painting a room, then repainting it.  Deciding on a color scheme, and then finding the perfect area rug that changes your whole plan.

What about you?  How long does it typically take for you to get a room or house where you want it?  Do you like to switch up your decorating style often?  When you switch things up, do you rely on pops of color in rugs and pillows, or do you repaint rooms and start from scratch?  Do you enjoy the process?  Or just want it to get there?  Let’s talk :)

~Whitney

We have been working away on our new home and are loving every minute of it!  There isn’t one area that I can point you to and say “there, that’s done!”  Yet, we’re slowly but surely making our house feel and look like us.

One of my favorite areas in our home is our kitchen.   It’s so big and open with the most amazing corner window.  We’ve done a lot of work in there, but before I show you the progress shots I’ll remind you of what it used to look like.

When we bought the house, this was the status of the kitchen.  Floral dot wallpaper, a vintage gas range and wall oven, a decorative trim over the cabinets, CARPET, and lots of pretty light.

And here’s what it’s looking like today!  It’s still most definitely in progress, but we’re loving it so much more!

The change that has made the most impact has been opening up this wall.  Don’t worry, painting that trim is the next thing on our to-do list.  We’re not trying to go for the raw wood look.

My Dad tore the wall out, moved the light switches and outlets, and installed the gorgeous woodwork.  He’s pretty much amazing at everything.

In our old home we had very limited counter space.  Now we have enough counter space to just decorate it for fun!  Isn’t that cross-stitch piece adorable?  My sweet friend designed it and stitched it herself.  It’s one of my favorite gifts I’ve ever received!

After we knocked down the wall, we took the decorative trim off the cabinet tops, ripped off the wallpaper, painted, ripped out the carpet, and installed tile.  Phew.  It was a lot of work, but so much fun!

I adore the paint color we picked, but we plan on repainting.  After we painted, Timothy’s Dad called us and offered to pay for some tile and the install in our kitchen and basement.  Say what?!  Yeah, it was pretty awesome.  His dad wanted to get it from a specific store, so he sent us a picture of the tile and said that if we liked it he would get it. Umm, yes.  Yes, please.  Ha!

We really like the tile, but we don’t love it with the paint color.  I’m thinking of going with a much darker gray.  A room this size could handle a moodier color.  I’m also itching to tackle those cabinets with a paint brush.  Crisp, white cabinets are calling my name!

Oh, and can we take a moment to just admire that gorgeous oven (and crooked hand towel)?  I’m still pinching myself.  The old range and wall oven were original to the house and desperately needed updating.  Timothy and I made plans to start saving money immediately to replace them.  But my sweet, sweet parents had something else in mind.  They have been looking to buy a big freezer, and our house just so happened to come with one (it was in the basement).  They asked if we were interested in a trade – we would give them the freezer and they would give us an oven.  Umm, yes, again.  That rocks.

Well, they went over and above and took me to pick out whatever I wanted.  Literally.  They stood me in the aisle filled with ovens and said I could have my favorite one.  Oh mylanta.  Our “trade” was nowhere near even.  Haha!  But I have never cooked more delicious food.  This is our first brand new appliance since being married, and sometimes I just catch myself gazing fondly at it.

And that nook where the old wall oven was located?  My Dad used his amazing skills and formatted it to fit our microwave.  Like I said, the man’s a genius.

The kitchen light is just begging to be put out of its misery.  It’s pretty ugly.  I’m going to try to fix it up, but I don’t know if it can be salvaged.  Ha!

As far as other lighting goes, there’s a light in the corner window and there are lights under the upper cabinets.  They’re pretty camouflaged, but you can see the one on the right peeking out a bit.  It’s a long metal light fixture with a fluorescent bulb and two outlets.  Outlets on a light fixture?  Yes.  I tell you, the previous owners thought of everything.

The other wall of the kitchen is basically an empty slate aside from the pantry.  Timothy and I are thinking that this wall is pretty much made to be a chalkboard wall.  We’ll get on that, too, eventually.

This is my favorite view in our whole entire house.  It is a joy to do dishes here!  Well, partly because of the huge windows, but mostly because of the dishwasher.  But back to the windows.  Currently there are four shutters on the windows, but eventually I’d like to put up some wooden shades and some brightly patterned curtains.

A kitchen redo is a big undertaking, but I’m so glad we’ve crossed as much off the to-do list as we have.  Here’s sort of where we stand:

-rip out carpet and install tile

- remove wallpaper and paint

-paint again

-replace oven

-paint cabinets

-update light fixture

-paint the trim on the wall opening

-new window coverings

-chalkboard wall

-overhaul pantry

-accessorize!

Whew!  I get giddy just thinking about it!  Already this little home is so full of love that it’s just busting at the seams.  It has been an honor every step of the way to work on it and live in it.

~Whitney

I am so excited to be sharing our very first new home tour! Eeeeeeeeek!  I wish I could invite you all to a real home tour, complete with cookies and chai, but alas, the internet will have to do.  Unless you live near me.  If so, then give me a call, yo.

Be prepared for a gillion pictures.  I narrowed them down from a gazillion.  You’re welcome.

So, we have a front door and we have a screened-in porch with a side door.  It’s one of those situations where visitors use our front door and close friends use our side door.  You guys would obviously qualify as the latter.  So as of moving day, this is what you would see when you came in our side door.

A pretty gigantic kitchen, complete with handmade cabinets.  A couple of the doors stick a little bit, and it just makes my heart swell with love.  This home has been loved!

The home was built in 1953 and the oven and range are original to the house.  Pretty cool.  Oh, and yes, that would be carpet in the kitchen.  You can tell it’s been there awhile, but there were no stains.  These people were meticulous!

 The corner window above the sink was one of the first things I noticed about the house.  Before it was ours I would park in the driveway and look through that window like a creeper.  I couldn’t help it.  (Thankfully, no one lived in it at the time of my “creeping.”)

And this would be the other side of the kitchen.  The side door is on the right and the sliding doors are the pantry.  Also important to note, whoever wallpapered this kitchen?  They knew their stuff.  It took four hours just to remove the paper on this one wall.

If you were to go in our front door, you would be met with our living/dining area.  Prepare yourself.

For the wall of mirrors!!!  Dum dum dum.  (Oh, and also the cute mid-century wood thing to mark the entry way.)

Just inside the front door is a coat closet.  It makes us feel super fancy.

But back to the wall of mirrors.  The mirrored wall.  The ballet dancer’s paradise.  The parent of a toddler’s worst nightmare.  And notice the mirrored outlet covers?  These people went all out.

Oh mirrored wall, how lovely are your panes.  We do adore the chandelier.  I just want to hug it.

The living room is a really great size.  That giant window just makes me melt.  And those curtains?  There are two layers of curtains on each window and both are operated on a pulley system like hotel windows.  Prett-ty fancy.

When you leave the living room, you pass the entrance to our basement.  I’ll share that tour for another day to cut down the billions of pictures.  Just know it’s 70s-tastic.

Then we have our hall.  Complete with handrails with tennis balls on the ends.

On one end of the hall is this small bathroom.  Super tiny with a wood slider thing for a door.  It’s adorable.  Both bathrooms have a very fancy little feature:

It looks like a piece of metal on the wall, but you just push in one end …

… turn it around …

… and it’s a handy dandy toothbrush holder!  Our house is full of little things like this.  The previous family designed and built the house and seemed to adore little gadgets.

The next room in the hall is the guest room.  I’ve never seen shutters like that on windows – so cute!

Then we have another room, which is now dubbed the “craft room.”

Further down the hall is a linen closet

There’s also another closet which has an entrance to the attic in the top of it.  The bottom part of the closet, however, flips out and turns into a little step stool to help you get into the attic.  See?  The previous owners were so cute.

I forgot to take pictures of our bedroom until we had already moved our bed in.  This does look like a sad “before” pic, but we love it.  Well, we love the size and the potential of it.  Not so much the greenish cream walls and the lacy curtains.

On the other side is our closet and a small handrail.  Nice.

The last room upstairs is our bathroom.  Oh how happy this room makes me.  That mint green tub is my new best friend.

Under the mint green sink is a laundry chute (LAUNDRY CHUTE!!!) that leads to the laundry room in the basement.  That will be fun when smaller Gothras fill the home.  Who am I kidding, this adult Gothra adores throwing things down there.  And then running downstairs to make sure my dirty laundry safely made its way to the laundry room.  Love it.

Timothy liked to joke about how much he loved those bathroom safety handles.  Problem was, I don’t think he was joking.  They lasted for about a week after we moved in.  Ha!

And on that note, I think this concludes the first tour of our new home!  Yay!  I’ll share a tour of the basement asap.  Just envision rows and rows of storage shelves and a storm bunker and that will give you a good preview.

After writing this, I just feel so unbelievably blessed and humbled.  God completely orchestrated this whole thing, and I am overwhelmed at His goodness.

~Whitney