House Photos!

These photos have been a long time coming!

We moved into the house last weekend and spent the first night here Sunday. After over a year of living transiently, and 6 months before that of living in an RV...it feels GREAT to have space that is all our own again!

The upstairs of the house is done...so that is where we are living. The downstairs is still a work-in-progress. The kitchen is the next project. In the meantime, we have a little fridge and microwave up in our master closet, plus a full-size fridge and oven/stove in the unfinished part of the house. So preparing meals will be an adventure! Some of my sweet friends have brought us meals this week--leftovers that we could just heat up in the microwave, or already-made meals to easily throw in the oven. I have a feeling that there won't be much gourmet cooking around here for awhile!

We're still getting unpacked and organized. Moving is like giving birth...a part of your brain always forgets how much work it is, otherwise you'd never do it again. Seriously! We have been exhausted this week, and we only moved half of a house!

I'm not posting photos of the our master bedroom or closet...not because they are private, but because they are functioning as multi-use spaces right now, and don't make a lot of sense in a photograph. Our closet is also a mini-kitchen, and our bedroom is a living room/dining room...and both look a bit crazy, neither will stay that way forever. The bedroom and closet have the same amazing floors that you see in Rowan and Piper's rooms...and the same beautiful windows, trim, and doors, too.


Rowan's room. My girly girl, of course, wanted pink. I never in a million years thought that I would have a pink room in my house. Never. True love, that's what I say. And we compromised. I'm partial to orange, and I think pink and orange look pretty cute together. So that's where Rowan and I started...and we've been having fun collecting things for her room since the fall. All of her furniture is second-hand. My sister found the headboard for her bed for $5 at a garage sale, we sanded and painted it. The mattress itself is the one Joe slept on as a kid. The dressers I found at an estate sale for $15 a piece. Also sanded, painted, and added new hardware to those. The funky chair is from Craigslist. The big Ikea bookcase is also from Craigslist. I will have to write a whole separate post about the absurd way we (by we I mean JOE) got the bookcase upstairs. But that will have to wait.

Notice the beautiful floors. Joe refinished the floors in the entire upstairs...and I'm having trouble putting rugs over any of it. They are deep, rich, warm, perfect. He spent a week working on them...a lot of it on his hands and knees. I'm catching him every day, now, on his hands and knees, inspecting this or that on the floor, making sure the furniture isn't scratching them too much.

Notice the window and trim, too. Joe put all new windows in the whole house. Not only do they look clean and sharp...they are very energy efficient, too. We also insulated the whole house, so we're eager to see what our gas bills look like. Joe's dad did most of the trim. We love it. Thick, simple, clean, craftsman lines. Just like I am having trouble putting rugs on the floors, I'm having trouble putting any kind of window treatment on the windows. I just want to show them off!

There are more pics of Rowan's room...you can see them by following the link to Flick at the end of this post.


Piper's room. It's a lovely shade of green. The crib is the one Rowan slept in...lovingly made by hand, out of ONE piece of oak, by her Papa (Joe's dad). We adore this crib. The changing table, too, was Rowan's. A dresser we found at Salvation Army in Memphis...painted, added hardware, then Joe built a beautiful oak top for it and put feet on it to make it higher for us tall folks. I found the funky old green rocker at an estate sale this fall, and another oak dresser at an antique fair. I'm still planning on painting a few things on her walls...so I'll post more pictures of her room later. Also more photos on Flickr.


The bathroom. I have to brag on Joe here. I really don't deserve a bathroom this nice. I feel like I am showering at an upscale hotel. I feel like I am at a spa. And every single detail is due to Joe. Which sometimes drove me crazy. I wanted to pick out tile at the first place we looked. He insisted on checking every tile place in town. I wanted to pick out fixtures at Lowes. He researched and bought really cool fixtures, for great deals, online. I tend to be rash at making decisions. Let's just say he is deliberate. But holy moly, check out what he did!
Bathroom Before:

Bathroom After:


The bathroom was literally a shell when we bought the house...so we had to design it...every single part of it. It turned out better than we ever imagined. A few details: the flooring is Ipe, a Brazilian hardwood that stands up really well to water, and is really expensive. Joe found some on Craigslist...a guy had some left-over from a project (not flooring) and had about 60 square feet left, just what we needed. And sold it to us for $60! Joe had to re-mill it to make it work as flooring. The shelf is made of oak from an old barn that Joe collected a bunch of wood from when we lived in Arkansas. The vanity was made from walnut flooring that we got cheap from a surplus store. Joe put the wood flooring together and then re-imagined it as furniture! The wood is dark and varied and gorgeous. The counter-top and tub surround is all concrete. Joe built forms and poured it off-site, then installed it all around the tub and over the vanity. Joe did every part of this bathroom (with help on plumbing from his dad)...from the lighting to the tile work to the floors to the vanity to the complicated plumbing. It's amazing. You can see a lot of other details in the photos at Flickr.

Check them out here.