Our New Home: A Tour

Hello Friends,

Thank you for being patient with me as I have been settling into our new home. I have gotten many requests for pictures and have been anxious to share some but time has escaped me. As Brad will tell you, when I am a woman-on-a-mission, I am a whirlwind - set on my task and not distractable. This trait has it's positives and negatives, but has served me well the past week as we have been packing, moving and settling in. :)

Here is a tour of our new home. I know you will keep this in mind, but wanted to remind you anyway, we are not done settling in yet - so you will see us in real life here: The good, the bad and the ugly. :)

Here is the blueprint I made up, hopefully it will help you "get your bearings."

So this room isn't done yet. But it is the Front Room - it is labeled "Living Room" in the above blueprint, but we haven't been calling it that. :) The fan, on the floor, is from the "Family room" (which we are calling the Living Room - confusing I know...) we removed it for a specific reason - which you will find out below. :)

This is the other side of the room - my wonderful Hubbie just anchored the bookcases to the wall today, so the books are a new addition. :) (We decided to anchor them since our little one will be crawling, walking and pulling herself up soon. :) ) Ok - so see the door on the right? That leads to the.....

...Dining Room/Living Room/Kitchen! (And the reason we needed to take down the light/fan in the living room - can you see it?)

A better view of the kitchen. :) There is a door - to the right of the blue cooler - that leads to the garage (which is looking a TON better thanks to some tidying that Brad did this afternoon).

Standing in the Kitchen, looking at the Dining Room/Living Room

Standing in the Dining Room, looking into the Living Room.

Another angle of the Living room - desk stuff is to the right.

Some details on Brad's (well, mine too - but if the washer and drier are my babies, this is his) new toy: After a FULL day of moving on Thursday, we collapsed onto the couch to watch a movie in our new living room. We turn on the TV and Brad notices some dead pixles at the bottom - not good - and goes to touch them to see if something just needs to be bumped into place. AAAAHHHHHH stripes of red, blue and green appear on the screen!!!! No matter what we do, we can not get them to go away. In the process of fiddling with it, everything turns a strange shade of green and starts to move in slow motion. After some research we realize that our TV is dead. Kaaput. Not going to be used again.

Sad day.

But some good came out of it - we got a new home theater. :) Thanks to Best Buy for some AMAZING deals and my husband for researching for hours (over the past months - this has been a dream for him) to see what is the best price for the best quality. :) What I love about the new system is this:

The screen goes up - and it becomes almost invisible! :) We are thinking of building crown molding around the room (we are FOR SURE removing the wallpaper - don't worry your pretty little head about that) and building the crown molding around the screen so it IS invisible when rolled up.

Also, please note the back speakers, you can barely see them, but they are in the ceiling. They are a result of a lot of team work and communication. I was in the attic and Brad was in the living room - they are evidence that our marriage is doing well! :)

For those of you who want to see things up close (::cough:: Brandon ::cough::). (We were watching the evening news w/ Brian Williams. :)

(Brad has asked that I say, "The screen looks WAY better in real life!" and it totally does - just like our TV used to - crystal clear. Ahhhhmazing.)

Here is the far wall - I like to move things out of sight at the end of the day, so that tomorrow morning when I sit on the couch, with my coffee and bible - I am not distracted by what needs to be done. :)

And here is Lulu's corner. :) The lamp is a Wal-Mart find. When we took out the light/fan we needed a new light solution. We used our two lamps we had before - but needed at least one more. I am loving the shape of this one!

Here is a picture of the built in bookcase and our office. (Hey - I'm sitting in that chair RIGHT NOW! :) ) And please note - that little window on the wall by the bookcase. On the other side of that is my kitchen sink! I can watch TV, view the fireplace and keep an eye on Lucy Lu all from my kitchen sink! :) I LOVE IT!

Ok - going to the other side of the house now.... Standing between the front room and the dining room (The buffet is to the right on that longhorn-orange wall - that color is changing too, LOVE UT, but not in my dining room). This is the hallway (obviously) the first door on the right is....

A pink bathroom! :) I can't wait to get my hands on some paint and color those dusty pink walls a different shade!

At the end of the hall is the Master Bedroom.

Standing in the corner, bathroom is directly to the left.

I'd love to add something over the electrical panel to hide it and to also even out the the window.... any ideas of what I could do? Would a picture, about the same size as the window, look weird?

Here is the Master Bath - the shower looks nice, but has some poor workmanship. So we will need to do some repairs/remodeling eventually. :)

Ok, so backing up, standing in the hall way in front of the Master bedroom, to the left is Lucy's room.

Dontcha just LOVE the window coverings? :) Gotta do what you gotta do.... her room faces south east and gets a TON of sunlight. Which is wonderful - for play time. Not nap time. So beach towels are working while I decide what to do about blinds/curtains. I have some ideas - and there may be a vote coming soon between two options.

Lucy's room is mirror opposite of what it was in Chicago! I'll show you soon with a blue print, once I put the finishing touches on her room (aka. hang some stuff on the walls and find a curtain solution).

Back in the hall, Lucy's room on the right, guest room on the left.

Not much happening here.... yet.... We have a house guest coming this weekend (OUR FIRST!) so this room will be done and pretty before then, without the kitty litter. :)

So that is our home. Hope you enjoyed the tour. Did everything make sense?

In other news, the high today was 5 degrees. It was snowy. It was windy. There were snow drifts. It was a freezing tundra. Apparently it gets cold in our part of Texas. Burrrrrr