We have finally settled into our new home in Texas and we are loving it. Mr. Hunt and I agree that we may love this house more than our house in Charlotte. The main reason being that this house is a lot smaller, all of our furniture fits in the house, there is no yelling up and down the stairs, and it just feels cozy. That doesn't really matter though because we are just renting here, but maybe in the future when we go to buy another house, we will keep that in mind.
Anyway, it took me ALOT longer to unpack the boxes. I think Mr. Hunt unpacked a total of .5 boxes. I'm not complaining though. I didn't ask him ONCE to help me, for a few reasons. 1) because I knew he was already stressed with his new job 2) I didn't want him to put things away in the "wrong" spot and not be able to ever find it again 3) This was now my "job" and 4) we weren't in any sort of rush. Plus, by the time Mr. Hunt came home from work on the week days, I was way too tired to unpack anything else, and forget the weekends, we were out and about exploring our new city.
OK, so now that everything is 70% finished, I decided I could share. Then anytime I make a change or add something, we can have before and after pictures, and you will have an idea in your mind of what the house looks like.
I did a video to follow up the first video of the empty house. I'm sad to say that I'm not going to have a video this time. I have way too much to share with you and Ive been waiting to share this first, so pictures will have to do until I can figure out what is wrong with this crazy video.
Long story short, I had the house as clean as it could ever be when Davis was here visiting for his spring break. I had spent most of the day cleaning and getting ready for Rachel and Michael to get into town. What better time to video a clean house than when its clean for company? I got the camera out and starting taping when it shut off in the middle from no battery. I panicked! Then remembered I had a small video camera. I got that out and had to rush through the house while video taping because that one was about to run out of battery too. Now, apparently this Sony Handycam doesn't work well with macs. Ive looked up everything I can. Plus, I can't find the charger for the camcorder so right now, there is no video. I know, I'm a mess.
One day when I figure it out or even charge the camera, Ill share the video, even if its after we move out!
OK, below is what you see when you first walk throughout the front door. To the left is the collage wall and shoe cabinet. To the right is the dining room. Straight ahead is the family room.
This is the dining room. I still need to hem the curtains in here and figure out what I want to keep on display on the buffet cabinet. The trash can looking thing on the left is the dog food. The kitchen is so small, there wasn't any room for it. If we ever use the dining room, I will move the dog food somewhere else for the time being.
This is the wall between the entry way, the kitchen, and the dining room. I just put two pictures from our wedding in white frames with white mats. I love that you can see it as soon as you walk into the house and also from the dining room table. The picture on the floor is the picture and mat that our guests from our wedding signed. I haven't found a good spot for it yet and it also needs a hanging kit, so for now, it sits there. Told you we were only 70% done.
This is the collage wall that I have already shared on here with the new yellow mat in the palmetto tree frame on the bottom right. I love this entryway because its so colorful and happy. To spruce up the shoe storage, I just bought new knobs and put them on there.
This is the view if you were standing in the dining room with your back to the big window facing the front yard. It looks into the kitchen, and beyond that is the family room. It also shows the pictures from the wedding.
This is the view from the kitchen. Very small kitchen. I actually had a hard time trying to figure out where to put a lot of our kitchen stuff. I love that the kitchen looks out into the family room though. I tend to spend more time in there, if I can see everyone else.
This is the view if you have your back to the family room and you are looking into the dining room. Another thing about this house is there is so much natural light! No rooms feels dark.
This is standing in the same spot, just looking slightly to the left at the oven. This is our first gas stove and we love it. It makes us feel more like chefs, although its a little harder to keep clean. The door is to the pantry.
Here is our favorite room, looking in from the kitchen. The sectional fits in there perfectly. The room looks into the eat in kitchen area (I think the people who lived here before us used it as an office). To the left is where the TV stand is, and the hallway to the bedrooms. Also, my brother Davis makes the room look 10 times better.
Here is the TV stand wall. I originally thought this TV stand wouldn't look good here, but I LOVE it now. Its perfect. I bought the white boxes to go in the bottom cubbies so that I couldn't see the wires to the TV (That's one of my pet peeves). The other cubbies have a bunch of other fun stuff that Ill get into another day, including lots of my favorite animals. I made the white sunburst mirror above the TV, do you like it? It was super easy to make and can share the steps if you would like. To the left of that wall is the laundry room and the hallway to the entry of the house. To the right is the hallway to the bedrooms.
Here is a better shot of the TV Stand, and River's tail.
Here is the view when you are standing right in front of the TV looking to the left. The laundry room is to the right, and straight ahead is the entryway. To the left is the kitchen and the breakfast bar. I'm still on the lookout for two fun stools because Mr. Hunt and I would use this spot a lot if we had some.
Taking a few steps toward the entry is the little green drawers that I painted. The drawers have all of our medications, dog treats, dog toys, and randoms tools....all in separate drawers, don't worry.
Above them I put two circle mirrors and dressed the drawers up with freshly cut flowers, and a picture of Mr. Hunt and I. In the little white jar is where we keep the dog treats so we don't have to go into the drawers each time. Needless to say, the dogs LOVE when we walk over to this area of the house.
This is a horrible picture. 1) because the laundry room isn't this color, sunshine yellow, its the same yellow as the rest of the house and 2) because its not a clean laundry room. I tried my best to have a clean home, but in order to have a clean home, you have to have clean clothes, and to have clean clothes, you have to clean them...OK Ill stop there, just please don't laugh.
Making it back to the right side of the TV stand, this is the hallway to the bedrooms. Yep, I did another collage and I LOVE it. Everytime I look at it I smile.
Standing in the family room and looking into the eat in area and out to the backyard. Again, I need to hem the curtains still.
To the right is the table and the china cabinet. We couldn't fit all the dining room furniture into the dining room so the china cabinet made it here. It doesn't match to the best it can, but its fine.
And to the left are these little cubbies with a wine rack on top. I can't wait to paint the wine things a different fun color. See my white owl? I love him. Also, there is one basket missing in the cubbies. I didn't always have all of these baskets in these cubbies, I used to have some in the TV Stand cubbies too when we lived in Charlotte. Now, I'm one short and I don't think Ikea sells this basket anymore. So sad. Ill have to figure something out.
Now, if you go down the hallway to the bedrooms, the first bedroom is to the right and its the Master Bedroom. This view is if you are standing in the door looking to the right. We really like this bedroom for a few reasons, the main reason being that its a lot smaller than the master we had before so our furniture looks like it actually fits. One thing I'm definitely going to change is the color in this room. This room is a darker yellow than the rest of the house. I really would like a nice tan color or even grey. I took the window treatments they had down because they were hideous, so I still need something for the windows. I also want to make/buy something for right above the bed, that wall looks too plain.
Now just looking straight ahead you see the dresser with my jewelry and our fan. to the left of the dresser is the ballet bar my mom gave me a few years ago. Its folded down right now with Mr. Hunt's work clothes hanging on it. If I can get him to put them there and not the floor, its a success, so I don't complain. I originally didn't want the bar in the room, but there isn't any other place for it in this house unless its in storage, and I really do like to use it sometimes for stretching. Our room is in the back of the house so our windows look out into our privacy fenced backyard.
Looking left while standing in the doorway is the chest of drawers with the TV. We didn't have a TV in the master when we lived in Charlotte, and it was nice to be able to have "us" time when we went to bed. But again, there really wasn't another spot for the TV since we don't have a loft like we did in Charlotte. We love to watch movies now in bed, its a nice change. The double doors are to the bathroom.
Here is the master bath, looking in from the double doors. Nothing too different from a regular bath. I had to take the window treatments off that window too, so I need to find something for that window. Its nice having a window in the bathroom though, I don't think Ive ever had that before. I like having natural light to get ready in.
This closet is SO much smaller than what we had in Charlotte. This is the one room I would like to be a little bigger. This is as clean as it gets right now. This room is on my list of to do's.
Here is the hallway to the rest of the bedrooms. This is looking from the master doorway and is the continuation of the hall from the collage wall if you turn left. The only door on the left is the guest bath. The two on the right are bedrooms. The first bedroom is the guest bed, and the second is the dog room for now. Straight ahead is a little nook that I like but haven't figured out what to do with it yet. A little bit of storage has spilled out into the nook from the dog room. That stuff is just thrown up there. Oh, and the black thing hanging from the door is Mr. Hunt's pull up bar.
Here is the guest bath looking in from the door. I love the shower curtain and it actually matches with the lime green color they decided to paint this room. Davis was in town so that's his stuff on the sink. Nothing special about this room, but the shower curtain is the rounded kind and the towel bar is straight across from the toilet, if you were wondering.
Here is the not so finished guest bedroom. I got this bed from Ikea after realizing that our pull out couch wouldn't fit in the room. I just threw everything else together. I had the side tables which I may change the color of them. I would like to paint this room, but we will see what happens. You can see the corner of the small rug at the end of the bed. Its grey.
Here is the right side of the room. I put the tall cubbies in the corner with candles and other decorative items. On top is a basket of extra towels for the guests.
This is a horrible color in this picture. Ive had this bench since I was still living at home so its pretty beat up, but it looks good and is a good place for guests to keep their luggage. The shelf and curtains are what Davis and I put up while he was here. I have one more shelf that I want to put above that one one day too.
This is standing by the tall cubbies and looking out the door. I hung this huge mirror on the wall in front of the bed. It makes the room look a little bigger and also reflects a lot of light from the window infront of it.
I'm so sorry for this next picture/room. I just haven't got around to doing anything in there. When guests are here, I just shut the door. The first really bad thing about the room is the paint. The BRIGHT pink below and the stenciled white and silver above. Yuck! Everything else in here is left over stuff that we don't have room for and all my craft stuff. I NEED to go through this room.
That's it!
I hope you can understand all my direction changes. I goes you can go back to the first video and see where everything really is if you are confused.
I really hope to get the video up here soon, but if not, Ill just have to wait to take another video the next time we have company, because lets face it, the house won't be clean until then.
Love,
Jennifer
