House Tour: May 2013

Helloooooooooooooooooooo long lost lovely readers.  So many of you made me feel all warm and mushy inside when you would inquire about my lack of posting.  Seriously.  Many happy feelings were felt.  Soooooooo, I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack. :)

And it only seems normal to begin my return from the nether blog world with a tour of the Carlson Casa.  We have officially lived here for 18 months (as opposed to "unofficially" which I suppose would be synonymous with squatting??) and the old house on Birchwood has seen quite a transformation thus far.  Complete with blood, sweat, and many tears (you know how I tend to be dramatic). Daniel (Fatty, husband, hubs, hubz, hubbsie, husbie, etc.) has been my ever wonderful partner through the whole thing.  Typically what happens is that I have an idea but have no idea how to make it happen.  Enter hubz.  He always knows exactly what to do and how to make my idea come to life.  And that, my sweet blog readers, is one of the reasons why our marriage works.  I'm all "I NEED to make this shelf hang right HERE" and he's all "Um, yeah, not possible.....but let's do this instead" and I'm all "You're my heroooooooo!"  Okay, enough of that.  Ready to see the house??  (All pictures are unedited because (1) I'm lazy and (2) I really have no idea how to edit photos.....anyone care to show me in less than 30 minutes?  I'm finding that my attention span in the summer is similar to that of a gnat's.)

Now seriously, are you ready!??!?!?!  **Cue drumroll.

PS - I'm only showing you the rooms we've actually touched.  There are other rooms in the house (namely, another bathroom, two bedrooms, a silly basement, an entry way, a window seat, and a happy little sewing nook), and most will be touched this summer.

Let's walk, shall we? (For fun, I would like you to count birds while you look.  Let me know how many you found...)

This is what I refer to as the "living room."  It is the front room, and while most people would probably consider a space like this to be a "formal" living room, it will actually one day be a living room/play room (no, this is not a subtle announcement).  BIG plans for the room include laying carpet, adding faux built-ins on the back wall, and making the doorway from the living room to the kitchen wider for more of an open-concept feel.  We'd also like to add a wood burning stove insert. Oh, and I want to make curtains this summer.

 One of my favorite vingnettes in the house. And my trusty red dresser.  And a lamp that needs some serious TLC.  And a sweet rocking chair that was Daniel's when he was a little spit-fire. The hanging print I snagged at a garage sale for a quarter.  Major score.

 This is a holding zone for some of my accessories.  When I want to change things up, I almost always look here first.  I've thought about chalk painting this little shelf.  Color ideas?

 We painted this bad boy on one of my dozens of snow days this winter.  And that bin underneath I grabbed at our TJ Maxx for a few bucks.

 Just threw this stuff up last night.  Will probably play with it some more, but it's a starting point.  The vase on the right definitely will need some different flowers, but that's what I had on hand.

 Another angle.  My mom (bless her) painted the blue table while she and my dad were here one weekend. 

 And another angle.  The brass is so shiny!!!!!

 Baker's rack that was in Daniel's room growing up.  And that typewriter?  Garage sale, baby.

 Happy pillows.  I may have a pillow problem. 

And this room, my sweets, was just put together a few hours ago.  Daniel tore down the wallpaper in March.  We painted and did our take on board and batten a few weeks later.  And I made the curtains this week.  

See that pillow? (It has a bird on it in case you're counting.)  The wall color is actually color-matched to the pillow.  The walls are looking a little more green in the pictures than they actually are. 

 A glimpse at the entryway.  Silly brassy chandelier.  Big plans for that sucker.

 I really like the curtains "tied" back, so I think I might make some ties out of the yellow fabric on the left.  I just used scraps to tie them for now.

 I love this chair.  Daniel thinks it's the ugliest piece of furniture ever created.  To each his own. 

 Let's take a step outside, shall we?  We love our screened-in porch.  Many good times and conversations have been had out here. 

I'm so proud of my succulent garden.  The flower on the left was in my wedding bouquet, so every time I look at it, I get all sentimental.

 We have a friend who works for a coffee roasting company, so he gave us these two bags that we wrapped around some homemade frames.  Just need to add one more on the right.

 I have two chairs that will be painted and added to this sweet space.  And I made some bunting a few years ago that I want to hang out here as well. 

 The little table in the corner is perfect for hosting meals out here. 

 Mom and I painted these little pots awhile ago, and I added the various sweet potato vines last week.  Ignore the cesspool that is the standing water below.  We've had torrential rains every day this week.

Boom.  We're back inside. Daniel and I cleaned out this room on Memorial Day, thus making the act of doing laundry at least tolerable. 

 Our faux mudroom.  The basket at the top collects clothes from our laundry chute.

And behind the door.  On the right is an old window that I painted with chalkboard paint and hot glued some some clothes pins to (ignore the fact that that sentence ends with a preposition.....it's summer!!!!!!). 

 We have a gazillion nephews and so we keep toys and such in here to quickly grab when needed.

 Upstairs!  This is actually the only space I'll show you upstairs.  Some of my summer plans include overhauling the office/guest room and the upstairs bathroom and potentially revisiting the window seat.  So for now, here is the progress in the master bedroom. 

 Last year we found the door at a flea market in Abilene, painted it, added some trim to the top, and attached it to the wall.

 The duvet cover and shams are from Ikea.  (Can I get a woot-woot about the Ikea coming to KC in 2014!?!)

 Daniel's clothes dresser and my accessory holder.  He's such a gracious husband. 

 Downstairs bathroom.  Another summer task is to make valances for the family room (which I'm about to show you).  So to prepare, I decided to make a quick valance for the bathroom.  Pretty pleased with how it turned out.  And, get this, I didn't even touch my sewing machine. I enjoy sewing, but it wonderfully simple to just use hem tape.

 Happy yellow stripes.

 And the namesake of this here blog.

 This bathroom was one of last summer's projects.  We just accessorized it this spring.

 And the kitchen/family room. Where we do 75% of our living. 

 Remember last summer how we (and several incredibly giving people) painted the cabinets?  Yeah, me too.  Longest.  House.  Project.  EVER.  But so thankful that we did it.

 The paint is holding up remarkably well (it better!!).  There are a few spots I need to scrub with a magic eraser, but that's about it. 

 Oh, and did you notice that the teal is all gone?  It was fun while it lasted.

 Two things.  Please notice the stuff on the table in the dining room.  Yeah, I did some shuffeling of things whilst taking pictures.  Our house is never this picked up.  We're real people. Also, we have yet to reattach the glass doors to the top of this cabinet.  Yeah, it miiiiight happen this summer.

 Where we dine 90% of the time.

 Daniel pointed out to me that I'm amassing quite the collection of mauve furniture.  Yep.

 My, oh my, did this collection of hanging things take FOREVER to decide.  We're pretty happy with the results.  And many thanks for our ever-faithful Monday-night-dinner crew for helping make it happen. 

 This baby can comfortably sit 7 adults.  Our small group is not small and we need every inch of this. 

 My sister-in-law, Roxanne, gave me that adorable lamp for Christmas this year.  Love it.

 And the final image on our tour. 

If you made it this far, kudos.  You're the best.  Seriously though, you guys are great.  Thanks to those of you who mentioned that you enjoy reading about and seeing glimpses into our lives. 

Here's to a summer of fun, photos, and hopefully more updates.  Loves.

PS - how many birds did you count?