Time for another room! Finally...the morning room!

We've had the  morning room furnished pretty much from moving in.  You'll see a photo in one of the previous posts.  We refinished the old table that I love (it's even on casters and has huge leaves to seat probably 12 or more).  We had the beautiful antique china cabinet from my mother-in-law.  We had older chairs that came with the table-I had planned on refinishing them but they didn't turn out to be in as good as condition as I thought so we changed to new blue chairs to match the wall color.  And I recently made a cute burlap rose center-piece.

BUT, the morning room was the hardest room for me to decide window treatments.  I don't really care for blinds and we don't have them in any room of our house.  But, since the golf-cart path is at the end of our backyard we needed something for privacy.  I love floor length curtains but I wanted a way to have privacy without feeling like I was closing in the room.  The other big thing is we LOVE our backyard view. 

So I went back and forth a MILLION times.  We tried out blinds in stores.  We bought blinds.  We returned blinds.  And we repeated that over and over!  I thought I had decided on faux wood but I didn't like how much of the window it covered when closed(again don't want to block that view!).  We thought we had decided on roman shades outside mounted above the window to not block the view...but that didn't work for me either.  Custom cornices and faux wood mounted up higher?  Nope.  AND FINALLY the light-bulb hit.  We need top-down-bottom-up blinds! 

The top-down-bottom-up would give us privacy from golfers while keeping our view and light coming in.  We ordered color samples and then took the plunge!  I love how they turned out and we are just now trying to decide if we should have two sheer panels added on one long rod.  I say yes...Need to convince the hubby.

So here is the long awaited pics...and a quick shot of the mudroom (since it's not all that exciting to get it's own post!)

Don't mind our gate still on the slider!  Hopefully they'll take that down at our 10 month coming up.

 

 

 

Paint colors are the same as in the Family room.  Here's a shot with the blinds half up.

 

 

 

 

Here's a pic of the blinds open. The cellular shades barely take up any space!

 

 

 

There will be no pretty rug!  This is one of the things I was most excited about moving (we had carpet in our old dining room).  We have 3 kids so easy clean-up floors is a must!

 

 

 

 

 

The view we can't get enough of! (except for our yard that 10 months later still has not been finished!)

 

 

 

 

 

Our mudroom- The coat hooks are for guests.  We keep our jackets and shoes in the chest.

Two more rooms...I'm on a roll!

I'm trying to update the blog a little more frequently.  The next rooms to show are our office/computer room and school/craft room.  We have the Naples floor-plan so these rooms are immediately when you come in the house (the formal living room and dining room by floor plan).

We didn't have much use for a formal living room and we use the morning-room as our dining area.  So to make these rooms functional for us; we changed them up a little.


And Selections you can see:
Flooring- Base-Initiator carpet, Upgrade-Armstrong Illusions Sedona Cherry Laminate
Oil-rubbed bronze fixtures
Paint Color-Olympic One Weeping Willow


Pic time!!!

This is to the right when you first walk in the house (our Naples is reverse floor plan)

 

 

Computer desk and book-shelf area.  We refinished our old computer desk and bought this shelf for $30 and refinished it too!

 

 

 

The book-shelf-some of my favorites on here are the old car-factory part drawers, the Encyclopedia G (cut into a G) and some of the kids favorites at a level they can reach. 

Here you can see the antique pie-case (still waiting for pretty stuff to go inside) and our window-bench area.  My grandparents made the barn in the corner and the kids love playing with the animals inside.

 

 

Little window-seat with storage.

 

 

 

Looking into the school/craft room from the computer room.  You can see the old school desks to the right (I played with these as a kid).  They still even have little hand-written things wrote by my cousins and I.

 

 

 

 

Our school table and china cabinet full of crafting supplies!  I love the little frames with chicken wire and clothes-pins for the kids art work.  You can also see the pantry to the left where there is a walkway into the kitchen.

 

 

And here are the rooms from the front of the house!!!

 

And there you have it:)  Hopefully we will finish the morning room window coverings and I can show that room next!

Long time no blog!!!

We are all still very alive...just haven't had much time for blogging!  Having 3 kids-age 5 and under is busy but throwing in homeschooling this year definately made it even more so!  I've been keeping up with a lot of your blogs just haven't been commenting.  I've loved all the diy ideas and especially Nadase's awesome closet!!! 

We've been loving our  new house and slowly but surely finding time for decorating.  Our intentions were to do one room at a time...but I'm sure you all know how that goes!  We ended up doing a little here and there and not finishing anything!  As you saw in our last post-the kitchen was pretty much done (because there was so little to do!!!) and we had planned on tackling the morning room next.  But, I had such a hard time deciding on window treatments- so that was tabled (I have finally decided though so we'll be finishing it up next!).

So as things stand now-the family room is closest to being finished!  We still plan on buying a new tv and mounting that and possibly doing something new underneath but for the most part it's done!  We'll add in some family photos here and there but here's how it looks so far!!!

Family room-looking from the kitchen

Love these old cottage windows!!  Best find ever!

We didn't like the look of accent chairs so we found a place for my Grandma's old rocker :)

We decided against a fireplace because of the kids, but that doesn't mean we don't want a mantle!!! 

 I love functional decorations like these old books (Little Men, Anne of Green Gables, and The Bobsey Twins! all from the early 1900's).  We can get them down to read and pop them right back up there! I can't wait to add seasonal decor here too!

 This beautiful Victorian dresser was refinished in Arles chalk paint and dark wax...hard to show the beautiful finish in this picture!  And that book is a really old family Bible-complete with artwork and a children's story section!  Another great antique shop find!

 

 

We're really loving how everything is turning out!  Next up is refinishing some furniture for the office/computer room.  After that we'll be making/putting up window treatments in the morning room and changing out fixtures in the powder room! That should just about finish up the first floor! Stay tuned ;)

One room at a time...First up...The Kitchen!!!

Since I've been slacking so much on the blog I thought it would be nice to do a post...one room at a time.  This one-the best room of the house-the kitchen!!!

Our Kitchen

For those that are building with Ryan...here's a recap of our kitchen selections...
-Cabinets- Rushmore Painted Maple Butterscotch Glaze
-Countertop- Antique Mascarello Formica 180fx (with contoured edge included)
-Flooring- Armstrong Sedona Cherry Laminate
-Gourmet Island
-Morning room
-42in cabinets
-Stainless Steel Appliances

Things we did on our own
-Wall Color- Olympic in Sea Sprite
-Cabinet Pulls/Knobs-Allen & Roth Marisa
-Faucet-Moen Lindley
-Fridge-Samsung 29cu. stainless steel french-door


Now for pics!!! (Click to Enlarge)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This chalkboard we just finished up this weekend.  I'll be using it for the weekly menu/grocery list.

The bottom/middle pane will have photos soon!

 

 

 

 

 

Moen Lindley Pull-down faucet and soap dispenser-Looooove this! 

So glad we did this on our own and didn't do the upgrade offered through RH.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gourmet Island with Allen &Roth Marisa Hardware

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kitchen looking towards the powder room and hallway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Family Room looking toward the kitchen

 

 

 

 

 

Close-up of the Armstrong Sedona Cherry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the dining room looking toward the pantry and kitchen

 

 

 

Next Post: Morning Room!

40 days and all I get are a few crappy sneak peaks?!!!

Yep, Sorry!  We've been MIA for quite a while.  With moving, and starting homeschooling; we haven't had much time for blogging...imagine that!  So here's a quick update and some quick "sneak peak" pics with more to come soon!

The Big Day-Aug.10th went great.  Settlement was smooth and quick-a few (ok more than a few!) signatures and Tada!  We bought a house!  We (unlike other bloggers) had an awesome experience with NVR mortgage.  We honestly didn't have a single problem and everything with the loan went smooth.  We went straight from signing papers to do our walk-through.  We were slightly disappointed that our landscaping and grass was not in as we had been told it would be.  There also was someone working on the flooring when we first got there (I guess PM noticed some damaged boards).  But all and all everything went well.  We got keys at 4pm.

Aug10-17 was work,work, work!  Dan took off the whole week and we (along with our Dad's and some friends) spent time painting, painting, and painting!  We also installed ceiling fans, cabinet knobs, curtain rods, and all the little things that need done before moving.  A big thanks to Dan's mom for all the help with the kids and our Dad's and friends for all their help working!

Aug 18 was move-in and it went fairly well.  Almost everyone that was supposed to help us canceled the day before so that was pretty stressful.  The majority of the moving was done by Dan, my Dad, and our friend Ali...can you imagine?!  Later that day, my uncle and a couple of his friends came to help and things went a lot quicker after that.

After moving in, things have been great!  We LOVE it here!  Beautiful area, wonderful people, and so much space.  We have had a lot of fun decorating and choosing things for the house.  Still a ton to do of course but we can park 1 car in the garage and once we install the garage storage stuff-the other car will fit too!  The basement is another story:/  The subdivision is wonderful.  We've been invited to many "events" and "parties" and it seems like there is always something to do!

The bad things so far...the big one was upon closing we had what looked like a clog in our master shower.  Water was backed up and drywall debri was in the drain.  We called the PM and were told that the little cap to protect the drain during building probably wasn't removed.  He told Dan how to do it but when Dan tried it was stuck and the little pull tab broke off and the gasket type thing came with it.  Next thing we knew we had water coming out the recessed lights in the kitchen!  Thankfully my Dad knew what to do and stopped it.  Then someone came to fix it and all was fine.

Another thing-we had tons of tacks sticking out of the carpet along the seams.  Connor even hurt his foot shortly after moving in.  But another PM to the rescue!  He came and hammered down every single tack for us.

Other than that we've still just been waiting on our landscaping.  It's been delayed over and over and the rain has delayed it some too.  The PM told us this week that if the landscaper didn't come by next week he'd hire someone else.  Hopefully it's done soon.

All and all we're super happy and loving it here!  Now for a few pics and hopefully I'll post more this week!

Our house:)-hopefully I'll have an updated pic with landscaping soon!

 

 

 

 

 

The homeschooling/craft room

 

 

 

 

 

 

Window seat in the computer room (the bottom cushion is being changed once I find one I like!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Downstairs Powder Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kitchen-above cabinets shot

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morning Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

Master Bedroom

Tomorrow's the day!!!!

At 8:30am we sign papers with NVR.  10:00am is our final walk-through.  And by 4:00pm we should have keys!!!!  We'll be at the house every day this week painting, installing lights and cabinet knobs, and slowly bringing over boxes.  The 18th is the big move-in!!  I still can't believe it's really happening!

Some decorating pictures as we await the final countdown!

Since we are getting so close to move-in day, I thought I'd do a post on stuff we bought or are using to decorate!  So here are some pictures:)

Hunter Regalia 60in ceiling fan (Lowe's)-for the family room.  Love the lighter almost distressed looking blades.  I think this will look great with the antique white cabinets and Sedona cherry flooring of the kitchen.  The 60in size will be great for circulating air around the whole great room.

Harbor Breeze 52in Crosswinds Oil-Rubbed Bronze (Lowe's)-for the master bedroom.  This is a great affordable fan!  Only $89 and comes with a remote!  I think the cherry blades will help pull together the cherry cabinets in the master-bath and the burgundy sheets in our bedding.

White Entryway Bench with baskets (Target)-for the office (living room per floorplan).  This room has a great double window and I wanted to do some sort of faux window seat.  This bench should be the perfect size and I'll be shopping for some nice pillows to go on top. 

Linon Storage Bench (also Target)-for the mudroom.  I plan to get a cushion and pillows for this as well.  The seat opens and we'll keep containers for shoes and mittens/gloves/etc in the winter.  This bench is a possibly perfect/possibly bad idea size.  It's literally within an inch of our width of the wall measurements.  I think the widest part is the arms though and we'll have a little more space there because I measured the wall down at the floor baseboards.  We're hoping the size will give a nice-built-in feel but depending on how accurate the manufacturer's measurments are; it could end up slightly too big.

We also got this awesome soap foamer (amazon) for the kitchen.  We'll be decorating a little with mason-jars and have been looking for a nice foaming soap dispenser so this was perfect!  We use Dr.Bronner's soap so foamers are a must and a lot of the pretty dispensers are not foaming.  We were pretty excited to find this!

And the projects of the week....

Our $17 china cabinet is coming together nicely. This will be used in the craft/school room (dining room per floorplan). We just need to finish up the lavendar back and a little more distressing.  The pulls and wire grating are now oil-rubbed bronze.

A close-up shot to show the distressing.

The table for the morning room-this was another great Seconds City find.  We have been looking for a nice older table with character.  We wanted something fairly large that would seat at least 8.  This table gets huge- it has 3 large leaves.  I can't remember the exact measurements but I think it gets to around 9 ft.  It was pretty ugly when we got it but we loved the character in the table legs and it came with 8 chairs.   The table looks really nice now that's it's a creamy white color similar to our cabinets. We'll be glazing or distressing the legs and doing the poly coat next.

The chairs have a lot of detail and were perfect for the look we are going for.  We are keeping the natural wood color.  I'm hoping to salvage the cushions (they're are a few spots on them) but if we can't we'll reupholster them.

Some other awesome furniture items (courtesy of my awesome in-laws!).....

This gorgeous china-cabinet!!!  I've loved this forever and I'm so excited to incorporate it in our house!  This will be in the morning room.

 

This awesome antique pie-display case!  I haven't decided what we'll do with this yet but I love the story behind it!  How fun to have something that was used to display pies!  And the top drawer was where they stored the money!  So cool!

And last but not least...paint colors!

These might be paint-matches to these colors because we haven't decided on the brand for sure.

Chocolate Froth for the hallways and foyer

Weeping Willow for the office and craft room

Sea Sprite for the rest of the walls in morning room/kitchen/family room

Blue Bayberry for the accent walls in the morning room and family room

Oyster Bisque for the upper half of laundry room, bottom half will be white beadboard

Barefoot Beach for master bedroom (this one might change if it's too close to the carpet color)

Lake County for the master bath

In 2 days we'll have keys!!!!!!