It's been almost 2 months

and we've been BUSY! We've painted, packed, moved in, painted, had Thanksgiving, painted, just finished with Christmas festivities and we're gearing up for more painting!

We officially signed our old house over to the new owner on December 2nd so on top of having Thanksgiving at our house, as we do every year, we also had to move the rest of our stuff out and into the new house. It felt as though we were running a marathon... the end was in sight but we still had a long way to go. We'd already been in the house for about a week but still hadn't finished moving everything. (I was honestly contemplating just leaving the rest of it there.. we'd survived a week without even missing most of it.. did we really have to go back??)

Our first night in the new house:

This pretty much sums up how our move went.. we had everything we needed.. except the essentials. We ended up having to use chopsticks to eat our first dinner at the new house because our silverware was still at the old house.. whoops...

Since we've moved in we've been busy unpacking and painting and staining and just getting settled. We couldn't paint everything before we'd moved in because the sheet rock crew had to come back and finish evening out the walls and joints in some spots. They're actually here right now fixing some marks in the floor and finishing leveling the sheet rock on the walls as I type this. They'll be here tomorrow too, to officially finish and then we can finally finish painting! The living areas are primarily done and our master bedroom is done but the bathrooms have a ways to go and the entry and upstairs foyer haven't been done at all yet.

So! Here are a few pics of our progress before we moved in:

Here's the den:

Kitchen:

We painted, ordered the hardware and finally got it installed. Let me just share that standing on the counter tops to paint above the cabinets is no fun... and with the molding on top of the cupboards it was very hard to reach since we have 9' ceilings... and I almost died a few times... and thank God we love the color because that will be our kitchen wall color from now until eternity because we both refuse to paint it ever EVER again. :)

thankfully it looks AMAZING and we couldn't be happier with it.

Living room:

This was before during and after staining the mantle in the living room. we absolutely love the wall color and how it accentuates the fireplace in between. My friend Matt helped us stain the mantle and it looks great!

The only pics I have of the dining room are from Christmas so here come all of the Christmas pics of the house!

The close up of the door in the dining room is more of what the color actually looks like - it's a buttery yellow. We made sure when we were selecting wall colors that they all flowed and worked together - the yellow, green, blue, and beige that will go in the entry- since all of the spaces are pretty open to one another. We plan on adding some more of the living room slate blue in the breakfast nook too because I can't get enough of it! I painted a wall in the master bathroom the slate blue as well! (sorry no pic) our master bedroom is "Apple Cider" It's an orangish beige and looks really nice. (no pics of that either)

This year was the first year we had Darrell's side of the family all over to our house for Christmas. Usually we go to my in-laws to celebrate but with Ellie (our new furbaby addition this past June) and my in-laws new hardwood floors, they didn't think that'd be such a good idea so we decided to have everyone over to our house instead! It was nice seeing everyone and getting to spend another holiday in the new house. Getting everything ready was a bit of a challenge - we wanted the house to look nice so I mopped all the floors (for the 23902493th time! sheet rock dust will be the death of me, I swear!!) and trying to finish unpacking so the house looked presentable, installing the washer and dryer - which was a feat in itself - and oh yea.. working 40+ hours a week, we somehow managed to get it all done. We were exhausted and so was Ellie

It took a lot of work but it was all worth it in the end. The house looked great and we couldn't wait to show Darrell's grandmother, Aunt, and cousin who hadn't seen it yet. It was nice having a lot of space for everyone to meander around (we're still working on having enough seating... ) but it was nice being able to work in the kitchen with everyone gathered around the peninsula or watching TV in the living room and still be a part of the conversation while I was getting things ready for dinner. The fact that we have 3 bathrooms in this house was amazing in itself because no one was waiting for anyone at any point in time (our old house only had 1). All in all we had a fantastic time and it was nice getting everyone together.

back to the house

We've also stained the banister in the entry way:

After the crew is finished (hopefully tomorrow) we'll be able to finish painting the entry way, the upstairs landing/foyer, the bathrooms, the breakfast nook, and touch up the other walls that might need it. It's a bit disheartening at the moment because we still have so much left to do that we're wondering when we'll ever get to sit back and enjoy it... but we know that time will come eventually and all the hard work will be worth it. It looks pretty good so far, if I do say so myself.

Updated pics of the house

are what's in store for today. The siding's been done for a while but I realized I never posted anything so here they are!

here's the front view of the house. The garage is going to the left so the left side of the house hasn't been sided yet.
Next summer we are putting a front porch across the entire length of the front of the house and hopefully a back deck/patio as well. This year we're just concentrating on getting the garage done and sided which we'll be working some more on this weekend.

I love our front door and the lantern lights!

The right side of the house:

and the back of the house

And for your viewing pleasure, a few pics of Darrell on his tractor!

Inside tour part 1: basement and first floor

So we are about a month away from moving in, even so, that feels like an eternity and we still have so much to do that we're exhausted just thinking about it. Now that a majority of the work is finished I thought I'd take some pictures of the inside of the house (as best I can) to give you a feel for the place. There are still a lot of things that need to be finished and TONS of painting to be done but these will serve as some nice before pictures.

So!

Here we go!

prepare yourself for the picture onslaught!

These are our basement stairs... This is how we've been getting in and out of the house as the front/back/side doors still have no stairs to the ground. So we've been going down through the basement and up through to the first floor which up until about a week ago meant climbing a ladder to the doorway that is supposed to lead to stairs down into the basement.. that hadn't been built yet.

view from the stairs into the rest of the basement (featuring new stairs!)and the ladder that we used to use...

So that's one level of the house - the basement. Moving up to the first floor,lets pretend we're entering through the front door and not climbing stairs or ladders...

This is the view of the entry and our small foyer. We weren't looking for a huge foyer because we plan on using the side entrance that will connect to the garage (currently being built) and a future mudroom as part of the garage. If you enter the house from the front door you immediately have the stairs in front of you, hallway just to the right of the stairs, coat closet to the right side and entrance to the dining room to the left.

Here's a better view down the hall. The pictures were cramped because I couldn't actually stand outside the front door to take pictures down the hallway.. I was backed up against the front door. Anyway - down the hall past the coat closet is our 4th bedroom/home office, the full downstairs bathroom and at the far end of the hall it opens up into the great room.

closer look at the office and downstairs bathroom- as you look through the french doors into the office you see a door to the main bathroom, a walk in closet, and one of the windows. Second picture is of the other side of the room -nice big windows.
The bathroom on the main floor has access from the office and hallway - which explains the 2 different views. We used the same tile in the foyer as the bathroom and even carried it up into our master bathroom.

in the great room as you come down the hall from the front door you immediately see the breakfast nook:

to the right is the living room with sliding glass doors and gas fireplace (Darrell and I actually finished putting that together this past week and lit our first fire!)

to the left of the breakfast nook is my absolute favorite place - the kitchen!

the opening in the left of the kitchen goes out into the dining room. The picture of the kitchen with the microwave in the center of the frame was taken from the dining room, actually. We have a door to the garage (eventually an opening into a mudroom) a pantry, and some more cabinet storage across from the peninsula.

Here's a view of the dining room from the kitchen. I love the huge open pass-through between the two rooms.

We've gotten a bit more done since then but I don't want to post any of those pics yet so they can be a great before/after. I'll be talking more about each room and what we picked out for the furnishings after we move in and get decorating, etc.

I'll post some pics of the upstairs soon - I've taken them already but don't want to overload this post, and I don't think they're as exciting as all of the downstairs stuff :)

Fun Fact! We actually got to start painting this past weekend!!! aahhh!! so exciting to start seeing the transformation! We're hoping to paint a majority of the house before we move in but we'll see how that goes!

Anyway, that's enough for now!