The Study

One of the first rooms you see when you walk in our front door is the study.

Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures. When we moved in, it was basically a white room with boxes. We lived with our computer sitting on an old table for a few months until we purchased the desk set. (One of the downsides of adding built-ins to our old house.) I decided this time around, I didn't want built-ins, but rather something that looked like they were built-in, but that we could take with us if we move again. (Don't tell my hubby, but since purchasing it a year ago, my tastes have changed! Maybe someday I'll paint it a creamy color, remove the "L" part of the desk, & add a writing desk parallel to the bigger desk.)

The desk came from JC Penney's online & the desk chair was a cheap Craigslist purchase.

The portraits were wedding & anniversary gifts from an artist I nannied for while in college. He had us come in for about three hours for a head study, which is kind of a rough draft before he does the actual portrait. I purchased the frames at Garden Ridge for about $20 each.

I had to get another shot with the lights turned off, so you could see the new light fixture my husband just put up. It is the Carlisle in Noble Bronze from Wal-Mart online.

The chair in the corner is from Restoration Hardware, but I found it on Craigslist for $60! My mom helped me made the curtains for me.

Well, that's about it! To keep it real, here is a picture of one of the many ugly truths about this room:

Why, oh why, do my kids have to chew on everything! Notice the lower teeth marks too. Both my son & daughter must have been hungry that day! Oh well!

Have your kids sunk their teeth into anything lately?

I am linking this post to Savvy Southern Style.

Welcome To Our Dwelling Place!

I have always loved old homes with great "before & after" stories.  Unfortunately, this blog will not be one of those!  After living in an older home for five years, we decided to make a thirty-minute move to be closer to my husband's work.  Originally, we were looking to move into a newer, existing home.  (We were tired of the unending repairs & wanted something more energy efficient.)  Thankfully, we were able to sell our home quickly, which didn't leave us much time for shopping around.

Not able to find what we were looking for, we decided to build a home instead.  This allowed us to have the square footage & footprint we were looking for.  After settling on a floorplan, we found this lot:

  
(Sorry, but it's the best picture I could find!)

The lot backs up to a green belt, & we had no idea when we chose it, that at the bottom of the hill there is a creek with a small waterfall!  We love to take the kids down there to explore!



Since our house sold quickly, we ended up sticking our belongings in storage and staying with family until our home was built.  Here's a picture of the front when it was almost finished (summer of 2009):



Who would have thought a new home would be so much work!  We chose to upgrade mainly structural elements (like windows, rooms, layouts, etc.) and later tweak the other things (that we didn't want to pay for in our mortgage every month!).  Not long after moving in, we came up with a list of more than 40 changes we wanted to make (and more are added every day)! 

So, that's the quick version of the story of our home!  This blog will detail how we are taking this home from builder boring to beautiful on a budget!

I hope you come back soon!  I'll be featuring our study on Wednesday!


I am linking this post to My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia.