After six months of living here, I am finally getting around to a few photos of our new home decorated. Between two kids, coronavirus craziness, and the reality that I never know when it will be sunny enough to clean and take pictures (thanks rainy Seattle!), I collected a bunch of photos I have taken on my phone. But I suppose a reflection of 2020, right? Imperfect everyday life. It feels about right. :)
See our home before we moved in (taken on a real camera!) here.
We have settled in nicely. A few little projects and getting all our stuff in the right places and it feels like home.
We purged a lot before we moved and once we got here. Downsizing is an emotional journey but one we welcomed. Now that we are settled I do wish I had a few things I got rid of. But at the moment it was all too much. In order to have room to breathe and actually get things organized I had to get rid of stuff.
I suppose a lesson on how stuff can feel heavy. But also a constant reminder of the temptation of wanting more things. It is a continual work in progress - to live more minimally and mindful. One I am practicing on repeat.
I find it fun to see all of our stuff in new places used in different ways. I am grateful that we were able to invest in some versatile pieces while living in Virginia. We were able to use most of our loved pieces, let go of a couple of things we had only because we had the room before, and a few pieces stored away in case we have more room one day.
I find that we have less surfaces for things which has made decorating rather easy. Most tables hold either books, vases with flowers, lamps, or photos.
I've been decorating with family photos for years. I have yet to get sick of them. They continue to bring life and joy to our home.
One big project I tackled was painting our kitchen cabinets white. What a difference a little paint makes! I still have a few places to touch up and the insides to finish, but having a bright kitchen again is life giving!
I shared in our pre-move in post that our daughter's room did not have a wall. We finally got most of the wall up a few months ago.
As you can see, the wall still needs to be completed. But we at least have the privacy and sound barrier we needed. I am looking forward to having another wall to decorate when it is complete!
And we also got a new door for the room. Our only white door in the house (for now!) and I LOVE IT. We also are planning to switch the handle for a gold one.
The following pictures are a series of real life unstaged photos I shared in a little tour on Instagram. It will give a better glimpse of the house as a whole. I am not sure if this will work, but here is a video/stories tour as well.
Real life kitchen and a dark morning.
We love our Birth Posters in the living room. I also doubled the curtains on each side in the living room and our master bedroom. With how big the windows are, doubling up added some weight (and we had extra curtains from the Virginia house).
We switched out the hallway lights on both floors with ones from Ikea.
Here is our master bath. We tore down the cabinets on the wall - hence the weird paint job. One of these days we will repaint but until then it didn't keep me from decorating! And we plan to replace the vanities in both bathrooms.
We have an extra piece of our couch that we had ordered because our sectional didn't fit in our living room in Virginia. We plan to keep it to be able to configure the couch either way. So for now it is in our bedroom. It doesn't get a lot of use here but it looks nice! Our son has also slept on it when we had visitors staying in his room. And if you read my last tour post, you can see I use the mirror to cover up the breaker box!
We are currently working on switching out the ceiling lights in the kid's rooms with ceiling fans as we don't have air conditioning upstairs.
We brought the train table upstairs after I felt like the kids weren't playing with it enough (it competed with the coffee table) and it took up a lot of living room space. It sticks out just a tiny bit from the wall but seems to work perfectly. We did buy extension legs for it to be used as a craft table when the kids are bigger.
This was pre-wall installation so you can see how we used the closet doors to build a temporary wall! It was definitely a little sketchy but worked for the short term.
It feels like home and it is good to be settled. I am so glad we were able to get to this place right before the coronavirus hit. Having a place that is comfortable and cozy has been a great gift as we continue to spend our days at home.
