the new house tour

Jazz hands, folks.

Slowly but surely I'm hoping to e-walk you through a tour of our new house. I say tour with my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek because it's very sparsely furnished / decorated is it's current state. But, tour it is.

We'll pretend I was intentionally going for a minimalist chic look but there's a good chance that it'll stay this way for many moons. 

One disclaimer before we roll out. These finely photographed (wink) pics make the paint and carpet look about a bazillion times better than they do in real life. There are tons of miss matched touch ups on the walls and creepy stains on the carpets. Also the color of the wall paint in these pictures looks actually way better than it does to the natural eye. The walls are the ultimate builder grade yellowish beige and here they look more griege. To me at least. 

Longest disclaimer evah I know.^^^^

So please keep your arms and hands securely on your electronic device of choice and here we go.

The view from the front door: 

To the right we have the living room.

Oooo. Ahhhh. 

And to the left, to the left...everything we own in the room to the left.

Just kidding. We own a little more furniture. A little. 

And the view from down the hall. Around the corner is the guest bath and that room at the very end is a den/office/could be a extra bedroom. The suspense of what option we'll chose is killing you I'm certain. 

(It'll be Jake's office. SURPRISE! Suspense eliminated.)

If you turn around from this picture^^^you will see the family room and kitchen.

Probably the most worthless picture in the line up. But that's our laundry room/mudroom off the garage. Not my favorite location for the laundry, but I love having a actual entry room for shoes and Ben's bedroom.

The single pendant light really adds to the lighting ambiance.

Off of the kitchen is the breakfast nook. Do you like our folding chairs? Me neither. But the boys are weirdly obsessed with them. Rad has one chair in particular (it has padding on it) that he covets and if anyone tries to put their backside in it, the little sweetheart goes into crazed gladiator mode and will fight to the almostdeath for his chair.  His solution to secure his chair...wake up BRIGHT and EARLY to drape his blankie over the coveted treasure.

The master is on the first floor which basically makes it an oasis of peace. Which is why Ben refuses to leave it.

The master bath.

Possibly my favorite feature of the house...OK it's second to the loft which you will see in two finger swipes down, is the rather large Harry Potter style sub closet that is off of ours. Bonus closets for our suitcases and that the boys love to play toys in...the best.

And now the main event, the loft from the angels of mother's with small, insane children. 

Run children. Run free. Run. But don't run downstairs too soon.

Also, more closets!

There are three bedrooms upstairs. One is empty for now since Rhett and Rad still want to share. 

Also we have this bedroom-o-fun paint color.

This is the biggest bedroom and was going to be Rhett and Rad's room since they're sharing, but after trying to get them to sleep there one night with it's current color, not happening.

I have everything to paint the offensive color...but I can't bring myself to embark on such a fun, fun, fun project. Plus it really breaks up all the beige so it should probably hang out just for that reason alone.

The boys bathroom.

And lastly the backyard.

Complete with fountain that Rhett and Rad legitimately thought was and used, as an outdoor urinal...so we know we are doing a phenomenal job at home.

We really haven't used the backyard much because it's a bazillion degrees, but we love it. The raised beds are home to a orange tree, lemon tree, lime tree and many fort games for the young men folk. 

There's a list of projects to tackle to make the house really "sparkle" but before that three ring circus of fun begins we want to take a little bit of project free time. Here's the list of good times that we'll taking on. Eventually. 

- Electrical work...so much electrical work. We somehow missed that none of the upstairs bedrooms have even the wiring for over head fans/light fixtures...but really the fans because AZ and all. We also plan on adding over head lighting in the formal/front living room, another fan in the loft, two or three more pendant lights in the kitchen and adding an outlet in the pantry and the garage (where there is only one outlet currently) and switching out some existing light fixtures for ones that are more "us." Man that makes us sound very HGTV-wanna-be-ish.

- Paint. Everything. Walls, kitchen cabinets, doors, trim. Fun.

- Floors...new carpet and tile in the kitchen/downstairs bath and laundry room. The tiles in the kitchen have tons of cracks in the tiles themselves and the grout lines are a disaster.

- Countertops. We'll be some kind of stone...probably quartz and we want to run it up the walls as the backsplash as well. We're thinking of doing butcher block on the island and we'll be trimming it out with some moldings as well.

- Landscaping...thankfully in this house is minimal. We want to add another tree to the beds in the back and switch out a few plants in the front yard. Easy peasy.

- Bathrooms - WAY down the road we'll do a remodel on the master bath and a face lift on the kid's bath, but not any time soon.

- Misc - We'll put a barn door up to close off Jake's office, add built ins around the windows in the front living room and turn the random cabinet off the dining room and by the laundry room (it's not really in the pictures) into a built in with shelves as well.

If feel like a "tada!" is in order to wrap up this e-tour but I think the poetic words of one Flo Rida will sum it all up,

"Hear a knock on the door and the night begins
Cause we done this before so you come on in
Make yourself at my home, tell me where you been
Pour yourself something cold, baby, cheers to this."

Cheers to you and you and YOU.