Windows and Accessories

We finally broke down and did some window treatments and accessories in the living room/kitchen and shutters in our master bedroom.

Here is the "before" in the living room/kitchen

And the after pictures...

And the bedroom windows with a little help from Mr and Mrs Claus (aka Ryan's parents)... all nice and covered just in time to get lots of mornings of sleeping in when Claire arrives.  Ha.

New Rug

Buying rugs has always been a challenge for us.  At the old house, we had to get rugs once we put in the laminate floors.  We didn’t want to spend a lot so we got two cheapies from Target.  I really liked one of them… at least for the price.  When we moved in the new house, I knew the rug for the living room would be a challenge.  Ryan and I didn’t really know what style we wanted.  I knew what I DIDN’T want which was something really classic, traditional oriental.  I also didn’t want anything too contemporary. 

We just let the room go without a rug.  We slowly filled up the room with furniture (couches, chair, tables) that ultimately helped us set our color palette. I think you are supposed to go the other way around but couches and coffee tables were just more important.

For a while I’ve been eyeing this rug in the Pottery Barn catalog.  Problem is we were on a bit of a Pottery Barn strike.  I don’t think I ever told the full story about our Kitchen Table and Chairs.  It was a little bit of a fiasco.  Well, really, it was just the two end chairs.  We ordered ones with arms.  They took FOREVER to come in… meaning supposed to be 6 weeks (before Thanksgiving) and took like 3 or 4 months.  Then we finally get them, and yeah, they don’t fit under the table.  The arms were too high.  We investigated and none of Pottery Barn’s arm chairs would have fit under the table.  Nice.  So we ended up getting some very similar ones at Bassett.  At the end of the day, it all worked out, but Ryan was NOT happy with Pottery Barn and I was forbidden from shopping there (okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration).

I finally convinced him to go back and look at the rug.  I think we both realized it was the right “style” and the catalog made it seem to be the right colors.   It has been a year since the chair fiasco started so I guess Ryan was softening up!  :)

In the store, it looked really washed out and we definitely needed a rug that would “pop”.  So they sent us home with a swatch and to our surprise it looked amazing in our house.  Yay!  The sales girl that helped us told us the Friends and Family sale (20% off) was coming up but only on in store items.  We needed a special order 9x12 rug.  So, I knew just what to do… I went back to Pottery Barn and found the manager that worked with us on the chairs.  She remember us and gave us the 20% off.

A week after we ordered, this is what our living room looks like!  I think Pottery Barn has redeemed itself!

New Chair (and a half)

When we bought our couches, we also got a big, comfy chair and a half. We originally had it in the bedroom, then pulled it out to the living room over Christmas.
We always intended to get another chair for the living room and put the leather one back in the bedroom. With Cason's arrival looming, we wanted to get that new chair sooner rather than later so we could have a chair for nursing, etc in the bedroom. We really became accustomed to the big chair in the living room so we went in search of basically the fabric version of the one we had. We found an almost identical chair with tons of fabric choices and after a few days of fabric-choice-decision-making (I am SOOO not good at this stuff) we ordered the chair with an April 30 delivery date. Little did we know how early Cason would arrive. :)
Here is the before with all the leather.
 
And the new chair that was delivered this week!


Ryan and Cason give it the seal of approval!!!

Family Room Changes

While we had both familes at the house for Christmas, we decided to move our big chair and ottoman from the bedroom to the family room so we'd have some extra seating. Plus, my mom was dying to make it her morning reading spot! We always planned to get a chair of some sort for the family room but wanted to do something upholstered in a fun print. Since Ryan's brother helped him move the chair to the family room and I couldn't help him move it back to the bedroom, we decided to play with the furniture arrangement to see if a chair this big would fit so we know what to look for.


Some pictures from before



And now...
All four pieces fit really well and I love having the chair in the family room. We still want to get a non-leather piece so we can move this one back to the bedroom and now we know what size to look for. I don't know WHEN we'll get the new chair since there are probably a few other things we need to be focused on first!

Christmas Tree Additions

The tree is up and pretty much decorated. I might add a few more filler ornaments but I'm in no rush. I was finally able to get some pictures last weekend. Of course it was during the day so it doesn't really sparkle like at night. Oh well.


In my Christmas post last year, I reflected on how I decorate the tree. Again this year, I had a pretty easy time with the lights and was excited to use all 4 sections, though I made the EXACT SAME mistake when putting it up! (I missed a section and had to take it apart and start over). I enjoyed hanging all the meaningful ornaments and the memories they hold. The boat ornaments made me sad but happy at the same time (we'll get another one one day!).

Here are the new ornaments from this year: New Home 2009 (from my parents)
Mom To Be (from my aunts)
Snowmen making Sugar Cookies -- I got this one last year since cookies are my favorite thing to bake!

Hot Wheels aka "As Close to Darda as I Could Find" that I got for Ryan, Kevin and Eric after Christmas last year.

Swing

I've always wanted a front porch with a swing, and now I have one! My parents bought us the swing as a housewarming gift and it was delivered Monday. Ryan managed to hang it all by himself and it looks fantastic!!!

Now all we need is some neighbors so I can be the nosey lady that sits on her front porch and spies on everyone!

First Christmas in Woodforest!

This year I've had a lot of trouble figuring out where all my Christmas decorations should go. And even after putting up the tree, decorating the mantle, draping garland on the stair handrails and putting Christmas colored place mats and napkins on the table, the house just doesn't feel as "Christmasy" as the old house did. I guess this is another one of the fun parts of having more space... gradually getting things to fill it all up.

We ran into the same problem outside. We have all these lights... icicles and nets... and no place to put them. Okay, we COULD line our whole house but just the peaks on our one story freaked us out in prior years. There is NO WAY either one of us are attempting the peaks on this house! None of our plants are big enough for net lights. But, we made it work and it turned out nice.

A few icicles on the porch and some lights up the columns (I've always wanted to do that). Frosty and the lighted trees are in the yard and this year they have snow around them (net lights!). The lights that normally string together the candy canes were on their last leg last year and we were too lazy and cheap to redo them this year so its just candy canes for now.

Another challenge was the front door. Our doors are tall and we have the wrought iron over the top glass panel. How do you hang a wreath without putting a nail in the door? I got creative and used some fishing wire to hang it from the wrought iron.

I opted for a more "natural" look to the wreath this year and left the bow off. I think I like it this way best.

I'm happy with the finished product of the outside decor. And to be honest... I think we have a great shot of winning "Best House" on our street! Ha! :)

A few additions

Yesterday was "Black Friday" and we contributed, but we did not really do real deal hunting. We didn't even leave the house until almost 12. Our main goal was looking for a swing for the front porch. We didn't realize how hard this would be. I guess the city is not the place for a country porch swing. We reverted to the Internet and got this swing which is being stained a dark walnut color.

Thanks Mom and Dad!!!! Hopefully its here by Christmas and you can see it!

While we were out looking, we made a couple of stops to look for side tables and other things we might need. We went to Old Town Spring (to check the Amish furniture store for a swing) and then went into a few of the antique shops looking for tables.

There is a great home decor place, Metals, Petals and More that I've heard about but never been to. It's not a bargain place but its not over the top expensive either. I was really looking for more florals/greenery for my kitchen cabinets but after getting a good deal at the Holiday Market I'm being cheap! But we did find these awesome planters for our entertainment center (and one was priced wrong so we saved $20... ha).
We previously bought something else that we only sort of liked so those are going back to the store today. We are VERY happy with these planters as they add a little color and totally fill the space.

Then, we hit up Pier One to look at some things I'd seen in their Black Friday ad and to look for little side tables. We found this cute little side table with two basket drawers. We didn't know if the drawers would actually be able to function but Ryan said "If they do, it be great to put toys and things in." Definitely not a conversation we'd have had 16 weeks ago unless it was about doggie toys! Luckily there is plenty of room for the drawers to open so it looks like we have some toy storage for the family room! :) And of course, a place for the lamp and nice place for someone to rest their glass.



The biggest thing we are lacking in the Family Room is a rug. We've started that search and have finally seemed to come to a good meeting point on style. I'm more modern and he's more traditional but we seem to be agreeing on several "transitional" style rugs. I guess they are named appropriately. I'm about to head out and try to see if I can see a couple we've found online in person... and to meet Suz, Luke and Hudson for lunch while Brandon and Ryan play golf.

Starting to feel like "Home"

In the last 5+ years, I've lived in a lot of places. 3 apartments in College Station during graduate school; an apartment in Houston; Ryan's house in The Woodlands. None of these places were "Home". And now, I'm finally in OUR first house together. Yes, you could consider the house we lived in for our first 3 years married as "our first house" but it was always "Ryan's house" to me. He bought it. It was his bachelor pad complete with dart board, foosball table and roommates. Even though I slowly made it feel like home, and it was OUR HOME, it was always "Ryan's House".

When we first moved in the new house... OUR HOUSE... it was so empty feeling that it didn't feel like "home". We are still working on filling it up (in more ways than one) but it's finally started to feel like more than "our house"... it's HOME. I even stored our home phone number in my cell as "Home" and changed my parents number to "Mom and Dad". For some reason, this was a big step for me. I will always feel like "going home" when I go to my parents house in Jackson but our new house together is my new home. This is where I'll start my family... where the good times and bad times will happen... where the rest of our lives begins.

So, it's feeling homier (is that a word? spell check didn't catch it...). We got the couches and the kitchen table.

Now, we've added a new coffee table and end table. They have iron bases and beautiful copper tops.






And we've started to add the little finishing touches. I got these florals and accessories at the Junior League Holiday Market. They help to soften up the kitchen. I still have more to do on the bigger wall of cabinets.



I love this teapot... I couldn't decide on buying it but they put it on sale the last day of the market. So, what did I do... I bought two of them. Ha! I'll find a spot for the other one!





And, we even got a new bedding set for the Guest Bedroom. Mom and Dad, I hope you like it. I've still got to get the square pillows for the solid brown shams that came with the set, and a curtain rod to hang the valance. But, we think its very pretty and much more grown up looking than my old apartment bedding.





We've also added finishing touches in the powder room, but I forgot to take pictures of that... later! Next on the list is drapes in the Master Bedroom and a rug and throw pillows in the family room. I've called an expert to help with these activities so we'll see how that goes.