a peek at our new house

our house is definitely not "done" but it's pretty put together

for living here for like 3 weeks

we LOVE the layout of the house

but i could definitely do with carpet that isn't soooo brown

oh well, we're just renting

here's eleanor's room

 this is the dining room right off the kitchen

that extra deep wall back there works great for our book cases

there is  a shared fireplace between this room and the living room

kind of funny but not the worst

can you tell how giant this room is? our table has its leaf in and can seat 8 people

but it still looks tiny in there

here's the kitchen 

we love how big and open it is

there's enough cabinet space for all our stuff! 

we don't even have that much stuff but our old house was tiny

so the whole concept of fitting in our house and not bursting at the seems is novel

 a pantry! i think this is the first time in my life i've had an actual pantry!!

the laundry room

 i always wanted a washtub in the laundry room

i don't use it much but i think it's neat

 the living room

 it is huge and there's totally extra space over there

we're considering getting a piano..

and there's the other half of the fireplace

and a bunch of framed pictures i haven't hung yet

 we picked up a couch off craigslist for $200

i'm not sure if i like it better down here

or if we should put it upstairs in the kids playroom/tvroom

olive and hazel's room

 noah's room

 the chair is where a desk will be as soon as we get one
i'm hoping to find an inexpensive old school desk

  our bathroom

it's huge! 

we love it!

 tub and shower!

 our room is huge and has lots of extra space

we might need more furniture
like a chair or two and bench for the foot of the bed

for now our treadmill is in here

 our master closet

 i don't think this really shows how big it is
i love it

henry's room

 the kids playroom and tv room

this is possibly my favorite room because it has most of the toys

and the mess stays here rather than downstairs 

most of the rooms still need a bit of work

especially artwork and decor 

it's a pretty big change to go from 1300 square feet to 2800

so our furniture and decor are a little sparse here

but we really like it!

home update

since we're moving soon, i thought it would be fun to take some pictures of a few rooms 

i either haven't shown or that have changed recently

......

Henry's room

......

this is our master closet

and the perfect size for a nursery

i haven't done much decorating

but i added the "h" and triangle bunting today

and feel like that's about all i'll be doing

i'm pretty happy with it

 this chair is in our room, not his nursery but it's where i'll nurse him

 .........

master bedroom

........

we never did much to our room so i don't think i'd shown it much on the blog

but recently we repainted the walls and aren't currently using a headboard because we have a king bed

we bought the lamps, frame and bedding at ikea and the end tables and body pillow at target 

i've never used a body pillow before but i have loved it this pregnancy

 these are ikea pax wardrobes have been a lifesaver allowing us to use our closet as a bedroom

mine is on the left, michael's is on the right and in the middle are my shoes

 our bathrooms are tiny in this house and we don't even have medicine cabinets in them

so this vanity is where i keep all my hair and make up stuff as well as any other bathroom stuff

 .......

the kitchen

.......

we're trying to live it up at our 6 person table while we can :)

luckily this ikea table expands so we can make it work indefinitely

 i have changed this wall a million times while we've lived here

i finally realized the key to me not getting sick of it is white frames

so it's not too heavy visually

 we are still really happy with this ikea piece as our pantry

 .......

living room

.......

this is probably the most documented room in our house

but we recently found this sweet dresser/tv stand at ikea in the as-is and we love it

 we also put this map up to help the kids understand where we live, where we're from

and where we're moving

i think it has helped

 these ikea billy bookshelves are also fairly new

they add a lot of storage that we're grateful for

but it can kind of drive me crazy to look at clutter all day

 it may be hard to tell but we did replace our coffee table recently, too

we got this one in the ikea as-is also

and sold the last one (that was just a little too big and getting pretty beat up) on ksl

that's it!

the kids bedrooms aren't great right now

i can't wait to re-do them when we move and hopefully have more space (bedrooms) to work with

i am going to miss this house, even if it's way too small for us

it has been a fun house to be in and decorate

sleeping darlings and a new glider

olive took a nap on the couch a few days ago and looked so angelic

almost like a little baby despite being 3.5

michael gave me the go ahead to buy a new fancy glider with the budget of $500

we were having a hard time stomaching spending that much

but i wanted a nice glider to rock the baby

and then we found one at DI for $25 with good lines

and decided to go for it

after a good cleaning, it'll be good as new

the kids LOVE it and can't get enough of spinning it

it makes me glad we didn't spend more

i'll have to take a better picture of it

but the kids were all so cute on it when we brought it home

the girls went with me to a primary meeting the other morning

i thought they were so cute holding hands on the way there

 and one more sleeping girl

such a doll

i can't believe she'll be two and a big sister soon!

we still refer to her as the baby most of the time

couchaholic

well we all know i like furniture

and changing it...

i thought it would be fun to document allllll the couches we've had in our 5.5 years of marraige

this is the best picture i could find of our first couch

it was a worn leather sofa with nailhead trim we got off craigslist for $100

when we got married

we had it for a year and a half until we decided to move in with michael's brother

so we sold it to my sister for $100 

living with michael's brother didn't go so well for me

so we moved back out after 2 months and didn't have much furniture

since we'd sold it

so michael's aunt gave us this couch and it's matching loveseat for free

after a bit, i wanted something more "me" and gave them away

we bought this retro beauty for...i think $175 on craigslist

and loooooved it other than the cat scratches on each arm...

but since we loved the mid century shape we didn't want rid of it, only the scratches

we first tried repairing them....and spray painted it white

but a couple days later we reupholstered it

we kept it but decided to buy this sectional for the new apartment we were moving in to

i believe it was $400

i liked the shape of the sectional but the microfiber sucked with kids

it showed every milk/water spot so after i couldn't hack that any longer

we cleaned it up and resold it for what we bought it for

and went back to using the couch we'd reupholstered ourselves

 until we found this (pitter patter) gorgeous thing

(and sold our reupholstered couch for $75)

it was 9 feet long and had chartreuse velvet

it was $40 at a garage sale

and they even delivered it

i loved the color, it was comfortable and easy to keep clean

we used it for about 2 years

the only problem was that the couch was old

and the fabric kept coming un-seamed

i  repaired as many times as i could

but it got a little beyond repair

and we gave it away about a year ago

(i totally regret that decision, i wish we'd either tried to reupholster it ourselves or paid to have it done)

and found this leather ikea ektorp 

on craigslist for maybe $400

and have used it until this last week

 when i found this west elm slipcovered sofa for $150 on ksl (utah's craigslist)

and we sold the leather ikea couch for $275

man, looking back at all our couches has made me feel a little neurotic

but since we usually make most (if not all) of our money back

i don't feel too bad about it

you may be wondering how our 4 kids are doing with our white couch

and the answer is great! 

as much as i try to fight it, i hate the color brown and it brings me down

  love bright spaces

so this couch is really doing it for me

the kids are being really respectful of the white-ness

and it is soooo much more comfortable than the leather ikea ektorp

plus, the pillows look really pretty on it 

ps. i acknowledge my husband is super easy-going

and i may have a problem...