Goodbye Little Rent House in Suburbia

So I wasn't 100% honest with y'all last week when I outlined our moving plans.  I left a few details out.  We did load up the moving truck to put everything into storage last week.  But last Sunday we came back to clean the house out and for husband to finish out working his work schedule.

Today we are actually saying goodbye to the little rent house we've lived in the past three years.  We're very excited about the changes around the corner, but it's a little bittersweet to leave this house.  When we moved in here we were in our mid-twenties, had only been married 2 1/2 years, and had been trying to get pregnant for a little over a year.  We're leaving in our late-twenties, (gulp), coming up on our 6 year anniversary, and with our precious almost 6 month old son.  In this house we've hosted lots of family dinners, (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). a bridal shower, and a few Sunday School parties, (here, here, and here).  We were in this house for the coldest winter in DFW history and the hottest summer!  It's the house we brought our newborn baby boy home to.  This little house has seen a lot of changes in our lives!

It's also seen an evolution of changes in decorating in three short years!  I was going through pictures to email the landlord's realtor the other day, (to use in the listing for the house), and thought it might be fun to travel back through pictures of the house in the past three years and see how much it changed in the short time we lived here!  I'm pretty sure almost all of these pictures are already on this blog somewhere, (I've tried to link back to them, and wowza that's a lot of links!), but now they'll all be in one place.  Plus, some of them are on older posts where the pictures are a lot smaller, so now we'll have bigger versions on here.

So, away we go! :)

First up the dining area:

September 2009 - This was right after we moved in

Easter 2010 - We'd added shades to the chandelier, drop cloth drapes, a side table with lamps, a few plates, on the wall, refinished the chairs black and added two slipcovered chairs from IKEA

June 2010 - A few more plates on the wall, different slipcovers on the chairs, and no table cloth

October 2010 - Toile drapes, more plates on the wall, black lampshades, dying plant ;)

Sure wish I'd known how to work a camera back then! haha

Our table set up for my cousin Sarah's bridal shower in October 2010

Christmas 2010 - Apparently the last time I took pictures of the dining area!  It really never changed much after this though.  I LOVED our Christmas decorations that year!

Christmas 2010 Another picture of the Christmas decorations from a different angle, everything was so sparkly!

The Living Room:

When we moved in we had furniture that was bought when we lived in an apartment.  It fit great in the apartment, in this house it almost looked like doll furniture.  I wish I had a picture of the couch, it looked so tiny.  

Easter 2010

The bookcases Easter 2010

View from the front door

Easter 2010

In April 2010 we got new, (more appropriately sized), living room furniture!

May 2010

View from the front door May 2010

Fireplace wall May 2010, I feel like it still looks kind of plain, especially compared to the next picture...

By the fall we'd traded in our little Target tv stand for a dresser, and put up fall decorations.  Funny thing about that floor lamp,  I'd completely forgotten about it until I found it upstairs the day before yesterday. haha

Fall 2010

We had also gotten some zebra print throw pillows from IO Metro.  I love those pillows!

Fall 2010

Sometime that summer/fall we also painted the backs of the bookcases black and added this cute chair from Williams Sonoma home.

Fall 2010

And added pictures/art on the wall in the entry.  I maintain this is too small to be considered a foyer.  It's also why I'm excited to have a real foyer in our new house! 

Fall 2010

Christmas 2010

Once again I really loved our decorations that year.  I didn't do many last year because I was so big pregnant, but I'm excited to decorate for Henry's first Christmas this year!!!

Christmas 2010

In the Spring of 2011 we do a big switcheroo with the tv and the bookshelves.  The furniture basically stayed in this layout until a few weeks ago.  Most of that's attributed to the fact that I got pregnant and then all my energy went into doing Henry's nursery, and then I knew we were going to be moving so I was sort of "done" with this house.  

We sanded down our $5 Craigslist coffee table and upholstered the top.  I never got around to painting the legs because I wasn't sure about the fabric on the top.  I'm still not! ;)

Spring 2011

View from the hall Spring 2011

Front Bedroom

When we first moved into this house our front bedroom was the guest bedroom, and the 3rd bedroom was basically a junk room full of unpacked boxes and craft stuff.  By the spring of 2010 I had cleaned it out, and switched the two rooms, making the front room a little office/craft room for me.

Summer 2010

In the fall I took a big framed I found on clearance 90% off at Hobby Lobby, (it has a chunk out of one corner), and made it into a corkboard.  I still have times when I think about either covering the cork in fabric or spray painting the frame a fun color, but I can never decide, so it's just stayed the same.  

Fall 2010

When we found out I was pregnant we cleaned out the whole room to get ready for baby stuff! :)

Fall 2011

It's so funny because when I was pregnant I was near obsessed with getting this room finished and Henry never slept in it.  Not once.  Crazy pregnancy hormones? 

Winter 2012

I still love this room so much though.  I wish I had gotten some better pictures of it.  But these were taken right before Henry was born, and after he was born it never quite looked the same again. ;)

Winter 2012

We have a few more pictures to add to his collage wall. 

Winter 2012

I'm pretty sure his room in the new house will be an almost exact replica of this one though, (with a few things moved around to account for the change in the room space).  

Winter 2012

Those were the rooms that saw the most change while we were here.  Because this was a rent house and we couldn't paint, (or were too lazy to, did I mention the ceilings are 11' in most rooms?!), the rest of the house didn't see as many changes.  But here are pictures anyway!

Kitchen:

With it's abundance of oak cabinets.  Can I say for the record that I am not a fan of oak cabinets.  I have been itching to paint these suckers white for three whole years!  This kitchen is a little deceptive I think.  It seems kind of large in these pictures, but there really isn't much counterspace, and no counter longer than 3'.  I'm not complaining that it's small, because I know there are MUCH smaller kitchens out there, it just didn't work well for our lifestyle, i.e. having my family over. ;)  It's also as dark as a cave, don't ever get a house with no windows in the kitchen!!

The kitchen from the breakfast bar that we never used.  Seriously.  Everyone that came over would just sit on the stairs that came down into the kitchen instead of sitting at the bar.

The Hall Bath:

Spring 2011

Fall 2011 

Fall 2011

Christmas 2011 - Pretty much the same, but with a few snowmen and a "jolly" painting thrown in to make it all festive like. ;)

3rd Bedroom:

As a guest room Spring 2011 - I could have sworn I had pictures of this room arranged differently and with different bedding on the bed, but I can't seem to find them right now.  Perhaps it's because I have a good 40,000 pictures on my computer...

Spring 2011

Master Bedroom

 Fall 2011 

Summer 2012 - I realized I never took any pictures of our room since fall 2012, and we've gotten a new dresser and armoire since then, so I snapped a few pictures before I started packing up the room.  It looks a little odd because we had to move some stuff around to accommodate a baby in the room. That's why the bed is off center and the picture isn't in the middle anymore. ;)

Summer 2012

See, there's the new dresser!  And Henry's giraffe, and a full-size recliner where I used to sleep with Henry when he wouldn't sleep at night. ;)

Summer 2012

And there's Henry's crib and changing table.  At least his furniture matched ours' so it didn't look too crazy!  Before he was in our room, the dresser was on that wall with some black and white photos from our wedding above it.  And the wall with the dresser had a little desk I used as a vanity.  Of course there are no pictures of all of that! 

Summer 2012

View from our bathroom door

That's pretty much it!  Crazily enough, I don't have a single picture of the upstairs, (it's a big game room type space that we never really used much except for laying out quilts to be pinned before sewing, and there was also a 1/2 bath up there as well), or any pictures of the master bathroom because it was an odd layout that made it near impossible to photograph!

And now it's an empty shell of a house!  It's been a good little home for us the past three years, but it's time to move on. I think we'd be a little more sad to leave it if we weren't so ready to be done moving! haha

Goodbye little rent house. 

Jennifer

House Planning - Living Spaces

This week has been crazy busy and stressful, like most of August.  Not to mention, painful!  I'm telling you, moving in your late 20's is nothing like moving in your early 20's!  I am so freaking sore!  Nothing like a little moving and sleeping on a mattress on the floor to make you feel old!  

So today I'm taking a break for a few minutes out to think about more fun things!  I have lots of pictures of the house we're buying, (henceforth referred to as "new house"), but I'm not sure what the protocol on sharing them is since we don't close for a few weeks, so I'm holding off for now.  For the record, it is killing me! haha  

In the meantime, I thought I might share a little bit of what I've got planned.  All of this is subject to change, as I've been known to change my mind frequently, but some of the "inspiration photos," (I feel straight-up HGTV when I say that), are pictures I've loved for a long time, so who knows! ;)

I guess it may help to tell a little about the house first...

It's a pretty standard-issue 3 bed 2 bath house built in the mid 90's in Tejas.  Translation: brick exterior, oak cabinets, arched windows.  We have a decent size foyer, (hallelujah! am I the only one that hates a foyer-less house?), a formal dining room that we plan to use as an office, and a sunroom addition that we're going to use for Henry's playroom.  

It also has two bathrooms that are blue-box-mac-and-cheese yellow.  I don't care for that stuff for eating, much less for looking at on my bathroom walls, so it's pretty near the top of my list of things to change immediately.  Other than that, and a living room that is quite cave-esque, the house is really move-in ready as is.  Does that mean I love everything, no.  Definitely not.  But, it means that I can be realistic and remember that I have a baby and not infinite time and budget to do everything that I want to do before we move in.  

Now to the fun part!  All photos are from pintrest because it would take me forever and a day to link to the original sources!

Starting with the foyer, because that seems the most logical...  We plan on painting most of the walls in the house a creamy white, because I'm a big fan of white walls, and there's not a ton of natural light coming in some of the rooms, so I think it will help brighten things up a bit.  To counteract that, I think it would be super fun to have a foyer that was some kind of bold color.  Right now, I'm leaning towards orange, but we'll see if I'm brave enough to attempt that. ;)  If we don't go with a bold color, then I would definitely like to do wallpaper.  I actually really love a good wallpaper, and since it's a small space, I think it would work without being overwhelming.  I really love this entry from a home crash that Young House Love did:

And I've been obsessed with this one by Tobi Fairley for a long time too:

I LOVE that wallpaper, and I like the idea of having a chest for some added storage, because let's face it, who doesn't need extra storage?  

Also on the extra storage front, I also love me a campaign dresser, especially this navy one:

I've seen several IKEA hacks to create campaign dressers, so I guess that's an option, because I seriously doubt I could ever find or afford the real deal.  Here's a great hack I saw on pintrest:

So, basically I don't have a clue what direction the foyer is going.  I want it to be fun, and I know that we don't have anything in our house now that works with what I want! ha!

Off the foyer is the formal dining room that we plan to use as an office.  One of our main motivating factors for this move, is to enable my husband to be able to hopefully start grad school soon, (finally!).  As much as we would love to have a formal dining room, we decided that we would need and use the space as an office instead.  We want to add french doors to the entrance so we're able to close off the room from a certain soon-to-be-mobile wild child. ;)  Since the office will primarily be used by husband, I'm really liking the idea of it being more masculine.  I've always loved old-fashioned libraries/studies so I'd like to kind of do an updated version for him.  I LOVE Graham's library in the movie, "The Holiday" but couldn't find any pictures of it online.  Here are some along the same lines though.

Love the dark built-ins, black doors, and leather in this one. I think this is just about perfect.  

If we can't do dark built-ins I really like this industrial shelf until from Ballard Designs:

I'm also a big fan of the built-ins and paint choice in this office: 

And because my husband is a big fan of camping, I thought it could be fun to get a few large prints of these vintage style National Park posters framed for the walls: 

That's pretty much it for the office!  Moving on to the kitchen...

I have always dreamed of an all white kitchen.  White cabinets, marble countertops, subway tile backsplash, like this:

But, I don't think that's going to work in this house.  First of all, it's just a normal little kitchen, nothing spectacular like the above.  Secondly, it already has really great tan granite counter tops, that will not work with an all white kitchen.  I think we have a couple of options.  

Option #1 Sticking with a light and bright kitchen idea, but toning it down a bit, we could do glazed cabinets, (no matter what they have to be repainted, they're a weird almost pink hue now!):  

Or Option #2 We could paint the cabinets a darker color.  I'm really loving this kitchen with the dark charcoal grey lower cabinets:

I am also crazy in love with the brass drawer pulls in this kitchen.  Something has come over me lately and I'm just loving gold jewelry and brass hardware, (basically kitchen jewelry, ha!).  Not the super, shiny gold brass hardware of the 90's, but a duller finish.  love. it.  

For the laundry room, I think it would be fun to paint the cabinets aqua like these:

I've always told my husband that I wanted a pink laundry room, because no one would ever really go in there.  But in this house the laundry room is right off the kitchen, and you have to walk through it to get to the garage, so I don't think it's the best plan. ;)  I know it's way overdone in the blogosphere, but I'm thinking of doing a chalkboard wall in the laundry room.   I think as Henry grows it would give him something to do while I cook, but he would be in close range.  haha

The house has a sunroom that was added on to the back of the house on what used to be the patio.  Because it is an addition, the living room window actually looks into the sunroom making the living room super dark.  So what did the current owners do?  They painted the living room chocolate brown.  Between the dark walls, a big brick fireplace, and a oak inset on the ceiling, (we're not even getting in to that right now!), the living room feels like a big cave!  I would love to brighten it up a little.  Ok, a LOT!!  

I really like the colors in this room:  

Even though the walls are really light, it still has lots of color and I think that's what we're going to set out to do!  Basically banish the cave-like atmosphere we've got going on right now!  

Because we're not going to have the room for our current bookshelves, I'm on the hunt for some more attractive alternatives, and I LOVE these hacks of a new IKEA shelf!  I like the gold finish on this one, (see there's the gold again!):

And I really like how this one is styled:  

Moving from the living room to the sunroom.  The sunroom currently is tan with tan blackout shades, which aren't helping the caveness of the living room.  The sunroom isn't big, but I think it will be absolutely perfect as a playroom for Henry!  

I think I'm leaning towards painting it a light yellow to brighten it up, I like this room from Young House Love's John and Sherry's old house:  

I found this fabric on etsy: 

That is basically my jumping off point for the room.  Don't you think it's a great fabric for a little boy's playroom?   I love all the colors, and I think it will help tie in a lot of furniture pieces we already having.  Translation, we won't have to buy much for this room. ;)

We did pick up this rug from IKEA the other day that I think will tie in nicely:

The colors are more muted in real life, so it works with the color scheme.  Plus, it'll be a good car road mat for when H gets older.  win. win. ;)

I also really want to order this poster from etsy:

I grew up in a Lego loving household, so I think it's fantastic! 

I think I'll have room to put our old couch, this aqua lamp and shelf unit from our old office:

in the room, along with all of Henry's toys as we accumulate more.  

Speaking of toy accumulation...  Henry's toys were starting to take over our living room and a few weeks ago I ordered this bin from 3 Sprouts:  

I LOVE it so, so much!  First of all, it's adorable.  There's absolutely no arguing with that, it's a fact.  And secondly, it's HUGE!  I didn't pay close attention to the dimensions online, and was really shocked when it came in.  I put all Henry's toys in it, and they filled up like 1/3 of the bin.  The same toys that had been absolutely every where in my living room!  I saw 3 Sprouts products featured on the Today Show a few months ago, and thought they were cute so I got online to do a little more investigating, and just fell in love with their stuff.    So glad I finally ordered it!  I think eventually we'll get at least one more...

Ok, so that's the plans, (as they stand right now), for the living spaces for the new house.  I was going to do all the rooms, but this ended up way longer and more time consuming than I expected!  I'll have to do a post on bedrooms and bathrooms soon. ;)

What do you think??  No, honestly?  haha

Jennifer