Put your Behind in your Past

Once upon a time BJ and I fell in love with a house that wasn't our own.  After some soul searching we decided it was time to move on from our pretty little house in the cul de sac.  We had done so much work to it but with the arrival of my son, the house was coming in on us from all sides.  We wanted somewhere that had more space and more longevity.  So we manned up and put our house on the market, it sold in 6 days!  

It was a whirlwind.  As soon as we had an official offer in hand we were able to move on our house that we had fallen in love with....only they had just accepted another offer.  It was a blow to the gut.  Our realtor talked us down assuring that there were other houses in the area so we went and looked....and looked....and finally we came up on one, not too far away with a bit of land a good sized house, we put in a full price offer.  The sellers came back with the sad news that they were pulling the house off the market.  We didn't know what to do at this point.  A great blessing came in the form of a rental going up for rent just down the block.  If we had to have something in between this would work.  Only catch, it was EVEN SMALLER than the house we just sold.  In desperation we went for it, even telling ourselves it might be nice to rent, and it would have, had it not been WAY too small.  

So we kept looking, even when we would tell each other to quit, bide our time, wait a year, we kept looking.  It was like our fingers would search for homes of their own accord, especially when screaming children and Harrison's antics were right up in our face and making our lives miserable.  Then one day I found THE HOUSE!  Only catch, it was not in the area.  We would have to leave our people.  It was actually in a super desirable neighborhood, great school district, close to shopping and an alright commute for BJ.  BJ was already starting his busy season so it was up to me to go look on my own.  As soon as I stepped in I knew it was right, I also knew it was way underpriced and we would need to move fast, and so we did!  We bought it in the first day and went up against two other bidders (told you it was underpriced).  Thankfully for us our financials were in order and we had been the first bid so we got extremely lucky to only have to come up to the second highest bid as they were afraid the other wouldn't pass during appraisal.  Sidenote: it actually would have!  

So that is our story of how we left our cutie little house that we put so much love into and found our dream house with great bones and amazing location!  It has been an adjustment and this house needs some love but when I look at these pics of the old house from the realtor site I think, we can do it again!  

Creating an Entryway...

When we looked for a house I really wanted a grand entryway....enter my price range, wasn't going to happen.  In my future home!  Until then I had to make what I had work.  I love entryways because they are an introduction into your home.  They make that first impression.  I also love a long and wide entry so people don't get stuck at the front door, especially if a large group is trying to enter.  I get claustrophobic and getting caught in an entryway makes me panic. 

All that said our house gets right to it, no romancing here, you enter the door and BAM you're in the living room.  So I worked some magic with furniture placement, put some hooks by the closet for easy hanging and a runner to entice people in the door.  It's a lot easier to get people to the bench now that a light shag carpet isn't looming the way, that was one of my big reasons for getting the wood floors, durable enough so that people felt comfortable not taking their shoes off right at the door.  You CAN but you don't HAVE TO (unless you are my children or husband;) I love our little entry way, complete with reading nook, bench, coat racks and a growth chart! I love that people can come in and feel welcome and don't have to get trapped at the door. You can even get caught up talking and have several places to take a load off. Love it!

Naturally Neutral Nursery

When we started having kids my belief was to keep everything super neutral, that way when we had such a diverse group of kids we would be prepared....3 girls later and it finally paid off with our son!!! When I painted our nursery initially I used a color called "sienna mist" doesn't it sound majestic?  But more importantly I painted these birch trees which I love!  The tutorial for these can be found here.  The idea behind the original nursery was that with switching some small details it could go from precious, soft and feminine to cute, angular and masculine and I think it worked great.  Here is the original nursery with the feminine touches.

We knew we wanted a bear theme and we ran with it!

Master Bedroom Revamp!

If you remember I designed my master bedroom a couple years ago...Then the workout area happened.  Half of my room was allocated for our treadmill, a weight bench and a floor exercise area, can you say spousal compromise?  I'm actually in love with it now, it is very convenient and useful, but it took me a little bit to come to terms with the change.  (sorry for the crude phone photo bellow, I keep forgetting to take a better one)

Right after we moved everything around for the workout area I sulked a little and didn't touch the walls for a long time.  Pictures remained shoved between the wall and bookshelves and I refused to decorate again.  Then after a lot of internal bargaining and denial (yes, I know I'm all out of order here) I accepted the fate of the room and came up with a plan to still make the master bedroom look purposeful and reminiscent of a relaxing retreat. (As I said, I love having the workout area now, BJ was totally right in suggesting we put it in there! See I can admit when I'm wrong;)

My jumping off point was the board and batten wall.  My husband is not a fan of headboards and we have an adjustable base on our bed so one really wasn't necessary but we needed something to ground the bed and create the same visual line that a headboard would. Voila!  The board and batten wall was born!  It made all the difference!

I situated BJ's desk to face the bay windows and we found a cool old set of wooden file drawers from our favorite estate sale warehouse.  We were told they are from the Vietnam war but we don't really know for sure, what I do know is that they are fabulous and bring in the antique finish we needed to contrast with our other newer pieces and the bright white of the board and batten.

BJ works in telecommunications and so this old phone from one of his clients has meaning to him, I was happy to be able to incorporate it into the design.  He also found this old A&W growler at a flee market a few years ago and I love how it works as a vase, giving different heights to this corner.

One thing that I knew I wanted when choosing art to go above the bed was a quote that would make me happy to wake up to.  I needed some inspiration and encouragement and these quotes fit the bill (fixer upper, anyone?)!  I made them using this transfer technique, it's super easy, anyone with a printer can do it, it doesn't use any extra materials!  All I had to buy were some cheap canvas panels and the frames, my favorites from Hobby Lobby (going with my mom so we could each use our 40% off coupons helped the prices too!).

Before we had our upstairs carpet replaced I painted my upstairs hallway, you know how I love trees!  So I got creative with the cutoff since I'm not ready to paint the whole stairwell.

And there you have it, our bedroom decor, redecor!  Sometimes you have to adjust and I wasn't the best at accepting my fate but I hope this encourages others, even if a room has to be divided or re situated it can still be beautiful, just maybe in a different way!