Home Sweet Home: In Progress

I haven’t shared an official “tour” of our new house, mostly because it still feels too unfinished. But after my parents visited last weekend I realized how much this new house feels like home after three months, whether it’s finished or not. So it seems like a good time for a few Before/During updates… and plans for the Afters. (Of course, we’ll probably never be truly “done” but that’s OK!)

Let’s pretend we’re walking through the house from the front door, shall we?

Home Sweet Home

Entryway

Whether you walk into the house from the front door or the garage, you’ll enter the foyer that connects to the two guest rooms/bathroom and hallway to the main living area.

Here’s a Before from January:

Entryway

And now… it’s pretty much the same, with the addition of a new bench and basket for shoes.

To Do:

• find a solution for hanging coats – either hooks above/by the bench or a coat rack or some sort of armoire
• entryway table either by the front door or door to the garage
• hang art or figure out what to add to the blank wall and accent wall

Guest Rooms

Front room in January:

Guest Room

And today… the front room has had the most progress, for sure! We finally have a bed (no more air mattress!) and the bare minimum for guests – a nightstand, lots of blankets, and a space heater.

 

The sewing room is a different story… it’s honestly stressing me out a bit.

Before:

Sewing Room

 

Sewing Room

It’s become a bit of a catchall, with all the unpacked artwork hanging out in here and sewing stuff all over the place. I do love my new bookcase though! The lack of organization is driving me crazy but I just don’t know where to start… so I’m at a standstill for now.

 

 

Bathroom/Linen Closet

I don’t think I’ve taken any pics of these two rooms, so here they are! They’re functional for now, so we don’t need to make any major changes.

 

To Do:

• organize closets – (1) in the front room, find smaller bins for our holiday decorations so they can go up to the attic, (2) in the sewing room figure out how to organize my craft supplies, and (3) in the linen closet,  come up with a better system to keep everything organized (it’s fine for now but could be better).
• hang art on the walls – not sure if I want to do another collage wall of mini quilts, but I’ll probably want to hang my collection of framed cross stitch in one of these rooms.

Garage

When you leave the guest room area, the garage door is straight ahead. Over the weekend my Dad and Sam built a shelving unit to corral everything in there. I don’t have a Before pic, but just imagine all those bricks and buckets of paint cluttering the walls. What could be stored in the attic moved up there to make more room in the garage.

 

To Do:

• buy a lawn mower!

Office

Down the hallway is our office space. Right now it’s not extremely useful since neither of us work from home too often and when we do we prefer to use our laptops in the living room. Another downside is that since putting my bookshelves in here, I almost never actually read anything from the shelves. I miss them! Still noodling on what to do about it – move the books or find a reason to use this room more? Eventually I think this will be my sewing room when we need the spare rooms for kids.

Here’s a Before:

Office

And now… it’s pretty much the same, with just a bit more clutter.

To Do:

• find a filing solution – the two plastic boxes just aren’t cutting it anymore, and I don’t have a good system for transferring paperwork from incoming mail
• organize office supplies better – notecards, printer paper, etc. are still sitting in boxes
• hang art on the walls – maybe a chalkboard/pegboard/bulletin board

Kitchen/Dining Room

At the end of the hallway is the main living area, with the kitchen, dining room, and living room in one big space.

Before:

Kitchen/Dining Room

And now… pretty much the same!

Here’s the only pic I could find that shows the new tablecloth (when Tali was stalking the contractor as he worked on the door.)

To Do:

• find a more useful solution for the bar cart that’s left over from past kitchens. Right now it’s a catchall for decorative kitchen stuff but doesn’t serve much of a purpose since we have more than enough cabinets to store everything
• find a glass-front hutch or cabinet to display decorative items, to move them off the bar cart. I’m thinking a corner cabinet to use up the dead space behind the dining room table.
• organize cabinets – most things are in place but I’m so used to cramming everything into a small kitchen that some cabinets are still entirely empty! My Mom helped me figure out a few useful switch-arounds that should help make the workflow more efficient.
• hang art on the walls

Living Room

Before:

Living Room

Still pretty much the same! The biggest eyesore is the TV, with wires going every which-way and a few pieces of sound equipment that are too big for the average TV storage that we’ve seen in furniture stores. But over the weekend we discovered Rooster Tails, where they build custom wood furniture that is both beautiful, long lasting, AND reasonably priced! We were so impressed with their stock and customer photos all over the walls that we didn’t think twice about placing an order for a TV console on the spot, and I have a feeling we’ll be going back for more.

To Do:

• replace couches with sectional
• once TV console and couch are in place, find appropriate-size area rug and possibly a new coffee table (the current rug and table will probably move outside to the porch)
• hang art on the walls

Screened Porch/Yard

Off the dining room is the screened porch. No change here at all, except another row of houses has popped up in the background, across the green space. Just a long To Do list.

To Do:

• install cat doors from the dining room to the porch and from the porch to the outside (doors purchased and carpenter coming this week, woohoo!)
• buy outdoor furniture – probably a couple chairs and/or rocking chair. Trying to avoid iron and mesh this time around since all our past patio furniture has rusted and/or molded
• buy grill
• plant herbs in a raised bed
• add some bushes for privacy

Master Bedroom

Back inside, the last room of the house is the master bedroom and bathroom/closet.

In January:

Master bedroom

 

 

 

Master closet

The main change is our new bed! Something new for the master meant that we could move our old bed to the guest room. The king size is a nice upgrade, although it makes everything else seem dinky in comparison. It still feels a bit barren in here, and I’m trying to figure out what to do in here next, but it’s fine for now.

To Do:

• find more proportional bedside tables (and relocate these – either to the guest room or as side tables in the living room)
• add rug(s)
• relocate the trunk
• add a chair and/or another dresser to fill up some of the empty walls.
• hang art on the walls

…

And that’s about it! Hope you enjoyed this In Progress tour… I had fun at least! I’ll try to do regular updates as we fill in more of the empty spaces. I think once we get some art hung on the walls it will feel a lot more “finished.” But even if it never feels done, I love our first house so much!

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