Tag Archives: family room

House Tour: Part 2

I finally seemed to have timed things right in terms of daylight and some much-needed kitchen cleaning. So, are you ready for installment number 2? Today, we’ll be focusing on the rest of the first floor, including the family room / kitchen / pantry / powder room.

Here’s the family room & kitchen table. Check out the blog’s namesake! (I think this is their first appearance! aww!)

On to the kitchen, which is my second favorite room in our house, behind my “library.” When we made our design selections for the flooring, cabinets, and counter tops, we had to choose from small swatches. I was nervous about how it was all going to come together, but I think it turned out pretty nice!

The door that you can see in the photo on the left leads to our garage. If you continue down the hallway, past our kitchen table, you’ll find our walk-in pantry (that’s right, I said walk-in pantry), a powder room, and a coat closet. Please excuse the pantry clutter. I attempted to organize it around the same time that I organized our linen closet, but it has since been overrun. Re-organizing this is definitely on my to-do list, but I haven’t been super motivated to clear it out and start over. It was much easier when we had only been here a month and didn’t have a lot stashed in there yet!

Well, that concludes the first floor! Next up – the second floor! And maybe the garage.

House Tour: Part 1

I guess it’s about time for a house tour, right? Since everything is better / makes more sense with pictures? Well, here are a few pics to get things rolling!

First things first – the exterior! (which you’re probably tired of seeing given all of my outdoorsy photos)

Once inside the front door, you have a straight-shot view to the back of our house / family room.

To the right is the “formal dining room.” Or at least, it will be someday when we finally treat ourselves blow our life savings on a dining set. There’s not much to see here. Just our “mini bar” and some knick-knackery.

To the left is my library / office / study, i.e. The Room I Dream About Daily. Again, not a ton to see here yet, but it’s in better shape than the dining room. At least it contains a desk and a reading chair that I can actually sit at and work / sit in to read a book. We’re planning to install built-ins to the left of the window, along with a picturesque window seat (in order to maximize book-reading nooks in this room). Not sure if my desk will stay against the opposite wall or not. I’m open to layout suggestions!

That’s all for now! Mainly because 1) the evening light is messing up pictures of the family room / kitchen and 2) my kitchen is a mess and by the time I get it cleaned, I won’t have the benefit of natural light (I know, that’s a poor excuse.)

**Note: Let’s call this a preliminary house tour, mainly because I think it’s becoming more evident that I need to take photos with a real camera and not my iPhone, haha! Stay tuned for more house, and (hopefully) better photos!

6 Months Old!

We moved into our home 6 months ago today! My, how time flies!

Let’s take a look at the progress we’ve made since then:

Family room on move-in day (Dec 2011)

Family room today! (June 2012)

Kitchen on move-in day (Dec 2011)

Kitchen today! (June 2012)

We still have some “finishing touches” to add, but overall, I think it’s coming along nicely!

Have a lovely Sunday!

Throw Pillow Throwdown

**I’m going to start this post off with full disclosure: I don’t sew. I can sew, but I did not sew these pillows. My excellent mother did. While I probably would have been capable of sewing these, I would have needed her expertise/supervision, and then we both agreed it would just be easier for her to do them herself 😉  But, I did “design” these pillows! I will take credit for the “creative vision,” haha!

When we ordered our purple couches (technically – a sofa and a loveseat), we got to choose the fabric and color for the throw pillows. We selected a red, as we thought this would be a cool combination with the eggplanty purple of the couch fabric. Here’s what we ended up with for the 4 throw pillows:

The pillows weren’t as red as I hoped they would be. They weren’t even orange, which I would have liked. Instead, they were a weird middle ground, kind of a rusty red-orange color.

As soon as we signed the contract to build our home (maybe before), I started designing a “mood board” to capture ideas and wish-fors for our new spaces. I knew I wanted to give our family room palette a revamp – centered around our purple couches, of course! – and the rusty red-orange pillows would have to go! Thankfully, they have zippered covers, so I could keep the pillow form inside and just have new covers made.

This is where my talented mother comes in. After plenty of perusing and pinning on Pinterest, I sketched out a few ideas for new pillow covers, and off we went to the fabric store. I was hoping to score a fun purple print or pattern for 2 of the 4, and a solid neutral that I could embellish for the remaining 2. We came home with a black-and-white print, which I have already changed out in favor of a fabulous Waverly print I discovered on a return trip to JoAnn fabrics. The black-and-white covers will make an appearance in my office/library sometime in the future.

Here’s the Waverly throw:

waverly modern essentials luminary in lilac

and the neutral covers with embellishments:

a strip of faux fur for added texture

tulle flowers

And there you have it! A throw pillow throwdown that gives our favorite purple couches a fresh new look!