Home Sweet Home!

 Our New House!

I know this post is way past due!  Between moving, kids starting school, unpacking, actually getting internet service (that finally happened about 2 weeks ago), and just life in general... I'm finally blogging again.

So, I haven't taken a picture of the outside yet.  I forgot to when we bought it, and right now our lawn desperately needs to be mowed.  You'll just have to check back later for a picture of that.  These pictures were taken when we put a contract on our home. 

 Our Front Living Room that we've turned into the music room.

 You walk in the front door and the music room is behind you to the right and the stairs are immediately to the right.

 This view is from the music room.  The wood area is the front entrance  and past that is the dinning room.  You can see the hall to the kitchen/family room area.

 As you walk through the dining room, there's a hallway to the right that goes the basement (door on right), a coat closet (right), the garage (past closet on right), bathroom (straight ahead), 

and study (on left).

The study.  Todd has already agreed that this can be my craft room!  Oh, the fun I'll have here!

The down stairs bathroom

 This is the family room. 

 A fireplace! Yay, for Christmas stockings!

 My kitchen.  I love having stainless steel and I love that it's granite.  Although, I would've have picked a granite with more grey/white instead of browns.  Oh well, I'll make it work.  I've already warned Todd that with our new flooring we're going to need to paint all those cupboards white.  I love white kitchens!!

 The desk area in my kitchen.  We may turned this into a pantry someday.  See that skinny cupboard next to it?  That's the existing pantry.  Not the biggest for a family of 8.

 Our back-side yard.  I'm thinking a garden would be perfect here.

 Back patio.  Maybe I'll have patio furniture someday.

 Back yard.  Swing set needed next spring.  Although my older girls are putting in requests for a trampoline.

 The upstairs loft.  This will be another bedroom, eventually.  We're also looking into having a 5th bedroom added to where the vaulted area is in the family room....

 Upstairs kids bathroom

 The tub and toilet are behind a separate door.  Love this!  That way hair can still be done while the tub/shower/toilet are being used.

 Upstairs laundry!!!

 Kids room

 Kids walk-in closet.  What!?

 3rd bedroom

 The closet

 Master bedroom.  I'm thinking window seat?!!!

 Master Bath

So, since we've moved in, we've ripped most of the carpet out of the downstairs.  We replaced the kitchen, music room, dining room, entrance and hallway floors with dark bamboo.  It's beautiful!!!  Don't worry, I'll be posting pictures soon.  This Monday is Columbus Day and Todd and I have plans to paint the music and dining room!

Attic Bedroom

Like December isn't a busy enough month with 2 birthdays and Christmas.... Todd and I decided to renovate!!  Our hundred year old home has a third story attic.  It's fantastic!  When we bought this house with only 3 bedrooms, we definitely had our minds set to finish this story.  So here are our before pictures.  

 I really should've taken pictures before we even started anything.  This space was chuck full of storage stuff.  Todd worked on knocking down the unused chimney.  This is what you saw as soon as you walked up the steps.

 Above is a picture of at the top of the steps directly to the left.

Below is a picture from standing in that gable above and taking a picture of the stair area.

 Below is the gable sort of in front of the stairs, to the left of the chimney.

 

 Below is the picture of the roof looking down into the chimney.  Todd used a mortar chisel to knock off the top part of the chimney, but the chimney inside of the house was so old that he could just pull the bricks off!

 Half the chimney gone... look at all that dust in the air!

 No chimney (picture taken from stairs)!  It really opened up the area.  And as for those bricks... they're sitting in my backyard waiting to be used this spring to pave a path in my garden!

 Luckily when we bought this home, there was already sub-flooring, heating and airconditioning in the attic.  We hired a contractor that framed, dry-walled, taped, mudded, replaced windows, installed carpet and adjusted the heating/air vents just a bit.  This is after framing the second day.

 Above is the gable directly left of the stairs.  This is just the view from where the chimney used to be.

 This is looking down the stairs.  We ended up taking that right side of the steps wall down to a half wall.

Above is the gable in front of the stairs.

 Above is after framing is completed and they started windows.  That's the gable to the left of the stairs.  We put in a larger window to meet code for fire safety.

 This is the gable in front of the stairs.  We ended up replacing that window with a crank window so that we could keep the old look of a full window.  That was expensive miscommunication!

 These are looking from the one gable at the stairs and the framed in closest and door to storage!

 Ta-dah!  A finished room.  It took us until this past weekend, but we did all the trim work and painting ourselves.  What a job.

Up the stairs and then looking to the left.

 

I love the gable to the left.  I have plans of built in bookshelves and a pillows on the window seat!

Here's a close up on the wood work.  Todd did a beautiful job.

 This is standing in that gable looking at our double closet doors and the door into our storage area.

 Looking towards the stairs...

 This is the gable in front of the stairs.  Just enough room for a single bed.

 Our small, beautiful, crank-out window.

And down the stairs!

We moved beds in on Saturday, but I don't have their new bedding yet.  So, stay tuned for more pictures!

Meg Walking!

So this video was taken January 18th.  Meg started to walk!  I can hardly believe it still.  The funniest part was just how small her little steps are!  She's a bit faster now, but it's taken her awhile to lengthen her stride!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  Better late than never, right?

 Christmas morning.  Rylee wasn't so sure that she wanted to be awake.

 

 Somehow we missed taking Meg's picture this morning.  It probably had something to do with needing to get to church by 10:00am. 

Marcella got a scooter from Santa.  She was riding it everywhere!

 Audrey got an American Girl Doll bed that has a trundle so both of her dolls can sleep at night.

 Olivia got a very cool camera.  Perfect for girls camp this year.

 Rylee got a Lala Loopsy tree house, which she loves, but was just as excited about all the candy in her stocking!

 I love getting a picture of everyone in their new jammies in front of the tree.  And yes, Meg is pajama-less.  Just before pictures she had a blow out.  Oh well, she's still cute!

 We had a very merry Christmas!