Dear Lillie: June 2014

Well, one year and one day ago we moved into this home. (And yes, I was planning on posting this yesterday which would have been exactly one year ago but things don't always go according to plan when you have little girls, so this is a day late - sorry!)

After living in our townhouse for five years we were quite excited to be moving to a house with a yard for the girls. We knew it was going to take a good bit of cosmetic work to get the house updated and feeling a bit more our style but we didn't mind that seeing we didn't need to move any walls and the house was well built and we loved the flow of it and LOVED the location! And we have loved this new house, I haven't loved all the hours I have spent painting it, haha, but we have loved raising our girls here this last year and have already had so many wonderful memories here.

First up is our dining room. We haven't put a ton of work into this room. We pretty much just painted the trim and then the walls and added the beadboard wallpaper to the lower half of the chair rail. Then we added in some furniture and changed out the chandelier (that was a bit of an adventure) and we eventually ended up using the chandelier from the before picture up in the girls playroom. Although we painted it bright pink before we hung it up there. =)

I am still on the hunt for wallpaper for this room. I actually just ordered a bunch of samples last night so am hoping one of those will work. I have tried quite a few samples so far but am just a bit unsure of what I was to do and haven't loved any of them yet. Then I'd like to go with a different table (I built this one for our townhouse and never really intended for it to go in here) and then will probably move this one outside. I may try to build one or I may just continue keeping my eye out for one. I also am on the hunt for a hutch for the wall you can't see in these photos. Right now it's bare. I pretty much check Craigslist and our consignment shops pretty regularly but so far haven't found what I have in my head.

Full source list for the items shown here in our dining room can be found here and you can find all dining room related posts here.

And here are the updates we've done in the den/study. This room required the least amount of work so far seeing how we have decided to keep the dark woodwork as is in here. I painted the walls a creamy color (they were a pale peach) and then just did some basic decorating in here using pretty much all things we already owned. I haven't put any effort really into this room yet but I am hoping to in August. I've got a couple of small projects ahead of it on my list (like making over our pantry and linen closet) and then I am hoping to tackle this. Even though I often ponder painting the woodwork I think we will keep it dark and try to make this more of a masculine looking room for Jon seeing how the rest of the house gets kind of taken over by us girls. I've been thinking about incorporating old family sports photos and some of Jon's basketball things. I don't want it to have a literal theme but just kind of a subtle feel. Or I may not do that at all, I'm not really sure.

Full source list for the den can be found here and all den related posts can be found here.

The room we've probably done the most work in is our kitchen. Pretty much the minute we moved in we started working on it by immediately replacing the appliances and removing the cabinets overhanging the peninsula. That completely opened the room up and made the kitchen feel considerably larger. Then we tackled the painting and had a hood custom built. That was the first phase. Then this spring once we had saved up for it we added the marble counters, farmhouse sink and the subway tile backsplash. Then we've made one more change in here. We removed the metal rolling cart island and I built a sideboard for under the oversized chalkboard. I just finished that last week though and although I finally got it photographed I haven't transferred the images onto my computer yet. Once I do though I will do a post on that and try to remember to update these photos. I also just removed the flush mount drum shade that we put in the kitchen temporarily up to our bedroom. We are hoping to have a bunch of recessed lighting to added to the kitchen and family room that way there won't be anything competing with the beams (except the pendants over the peninsula of course). The one on the family room side is still up though and will stay there until we actually have someone out to make the change to the recessed lighting for us. Oh and I'd like to eventually add different stools to the counter but that will probably be a little while down the road. I think my favorite part of the kitchen now is the farmhouse sink and the new faucet.

And you can find a full source list for our kitchen here all kitchen related posts here .

Our family room was pretty much just painting and then having fun decorating.

For a full source list for the items shown in these photos of our family room click here or here.

And then here is the powder room. This room required quite a bit of cosmetic work but we didn't change the footprint which helped keep the cost down. We got rid of the old wallpaper and then had this new paper put up. Then we replaced the toilet and mirror. We kept the existing vanity but added a new top and sink. Then we just spray painted the sconces for now. I plan on eventually replacing them but am not in any hurry. I still haven't hung any artwork in here. Hopefully I will get to that at some point very soon. It's starting to drive me crazy. =)

A full source list for the powder room can be found here and here.

And then there is the entry way. I am not going to lie - I pretty much hated doing all the painting in here. The spindles and risers seemed endless... I mentioned it in the original post, but I felt like I didn't make the best choice for the stair runner. I don't think it was the best pattern to do on the stairs and I don't love it. However, it has grown on me and I have to admit I do like it more than I originally did. (There isn't anything wrong with the runner itself, I just think I would go with a different look if I could).

This was how it looked with some garland for Christmas:

Full source list for the entry way can be found here and here.

And here is the upstairs hall:

And here's a source list for what we've done so far in the upstairs hall here. We actually just added a piece of furniture this weekend to the part of the hall you can't see in any of these photos. I will hopefully take some photos of that and a few other changes we've added upstairs in the next week or so.

And next we have our gray guest bedroom. This room is pretty close to being done.

A full source list and more details can be found here and here.

And next we have our other guest bedroom that also functions sort of as an office. I've played around quite a bit in here with some accent colors for pillows (did gray and also tried red at Christmas) then pink at Valentine's (those are now in our playroom) and some tan but those are now in our den.

A full source list for this room can be found here.

And then here is Lillie and Lola's room. We did their room right after we move in. I still have a couple more projects I plan on doing in here including doing some kind of upholstered headboard (I've considered several things including kind of making a slipcover for their current headboards) and adding a bench or trunk to the end of their beds. I actually moved the rug into the playroom a couple of days ago and added some buffalo check quilts to the ends of their beds. (If you've been reading most of this text in this post you can see I was doing quite a bit of switching things around this last week or so. I had planned on taking a bunch of new photos for this post but it was a bit of a rough week with some sick kiddos so that went out the window. Hopefully I will get some photos taken soon though).

A full source list with lots more photos and details can be found here.

And here is our master bedroom. We just recently finished this. Well, it's not completely finished, but it's getting there.

More details about what we've done in there and a source list for what we've done so far can be found here.

And here is the progress we've made in our upstairs hall bathroom so far. I still haven't found any mirrors although I have been searching! Once I find the correct mirrors (right now we are using one that we had in our attic but I'd really like to bring this up to Jason's and use two mirrors in here - one over each sink) then I will add some artwork to the walls which will help keep the wallpaper from feeling so busy.

More details and a source list for what we've done so far can be found here .

And then here are the quick and inexpensive updates we did in laundry room until someday when we do a proper makeover in here.

You can read a little about those updates here.

And then here is our playroom. Although this was not the look I was originally going for in here (the girls helped make most of the design decisions) I have to say despite the fact that I don't like pink nearly as much as they do, this has turned into one of my favorite rooms and we spend so much time in here reading, coloring, doing puzzles, putting on "performances", playing kitchen and dolls and horses...and well pretty much everything you can imagine that a 3 and 5 year old girl likes to do.

And then we have our porch:

You can read more about our porch here.

And well that pretty much covers everything except our master bathroom. It's the one room we haven't touched. We plan on having it completely gutted and so we are still saving up for that. I have to say I am so relieved to have the majority of the painting behind me! I am not going to lie - I hated doing the painting but I am so glad we did because I think it really helped lighten the house up and make it feel so much more updated. And now I can focus on more of the fun decorating type things I love doing. I'm excited to show you the sideboard in the kitchen and some other projects we've been working on. But I think this is more than a long enough post. Ha! So I'll sign off for now.

I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!