the great outdoors

Hahaha! Look at her happy face! Stella discovers the lake...






Pecans on the tree... (it took me forever to figure out what these were; I'd never even see a nut tree before!)


Undeniably, one of the best things about this house is the land it's on! It's almost an acre they said, and it's just chock-full of gorgeous greenery... Azaleas, gardenias, hostas, hydrangeas, red-tips, hollies, tulip poplars, big old oaks, crepe myrtles, dogwoods, an old japanese maple, an apple and a pecan tree are just some of what i can tell we have here! I can't wait to watch the seasons turn, to find out what colors the flowers are, or what other plants have been hiding and waiting to bloom.

Some "before" shots - round 4

One more guest room...

So it's a total of 4 bedrooms, and we haven't quite hammered out our plans for them yet. Clearly one's ours, and one for guests leaves 2. We are lucky enough to have a study and a formal living room downstairs, which we'll make a library/reading room. So our ideas for the other two rooms include...

- Home gym

- Sewing/crafting room

- Second guest room

- A more chill, "hang out" room with video games, posters, home to our dvd collection, etc

What do you think?

Some of the closeups of the "before details"... Like this wallpaper/curtain combo:

An old-fashioned (broken) intercom system...
These curtains probably came closest to getting to stick around... but nope, it didnt make quite make the cut! I think it was the pom poms that did it in...

It really is a lovely house, and we can't wait to bring it back to life! It looks like it was well-loved some years ago, and it sure is well loved now... our dear home-sweet-home <3

Some "before" shots - round 3

Gorrrgeous gold shower door in the guest bath:

With lovely wallpaper and curtains and CARPET...

Another guest room...

Master bath...
Check out these awesome window treatments :-P
The master bedroom...

Some "before" shots - round 2

Our little hall-bath...

The study...
A peek into our screened porch!
The family room...

The foyer...

The formal living room... (I think we'll make it a library)
The laundry room...
Another view of the kitchen...

Some "before" shots - round 1

Now, I know what you're thinking... Those curtains just came with the house, you didnt have to pay any extra? But no, boy were we lucky! All curtains, wallpaper, and dirty carpet was included - even down to our carpeted bathrooms!

Here's one of our guest rooms:

The living room/den:
The formal dining room:
Kitchen:
Eat-in-kitchen:
So there's just a little taste. There are plenty more before shots to come, but theres also plenty of work to get to in order to turn out some "afters"!

It's ours!!!

Hooray!!!!

The house is ours, at last!! Here are some front shots:

And some back shots:

(see our screened-in porch?? i'm in love with this!!)

We are sooo excited that the house is finally signed, sealed, official- ours. We couldn't feel luckier!! It's so close to family, Dave's work, and town, but it's also in a lovely neighborhood! We're such homebodies; we were really careful with our house-hunting and boy oh boy has that been worth it!

We can't wait to have you all over!

Posting more pics soon...

~april