Moving is a lot of work!

We have been in the house now for just over two weeks.  I feel satisfied with the work we have done.  I've been painting a little more this week and I had contemplated painting Piperleigh's room and even bought the paint but when I woke up this morning I decided I was painted out and would do her room next weekend.  A few people have expressed surprise that we have gotten so focused on painting and projects already but when you move every three years I think your mindset is a little different.  Three years really isn't very long and I don't want to wait until we are about to move to get the house how I want it to be.  There are many rooms and projects that will just need to wait until later but I want to do what I can for now.  Piper's room is a dark blue with one wall being a dark navy blue.  The craft room will need to wait for awhile but it is a dark brown.  The boys room is flat paint so that has be be painted eventually and also my room is flat paint and a yucky peach color so that will be painted at a later date as well.  

I took some pictures of our house--the parts that are coming together already.  They all got posted out of order and I'm too lazy to fix it so hopefully you can put all the pieces together.  I've got my living room, family room and kitchen to show.

Kitchen:  

I have this fun island that has a long pull out drawer.  I already had cutting boards somewhere else so I decided to use it for my large spices.  I have a cupboard spot for the small spices but this worked perfectly for the larger ones.

 Random picture that got posted in the wrong spot:  It's fun that Will can cook himself eggs for breakfast.  He looks so old to me standing there at the stove.

 This picture is perhaps silly but this is the first time we have had a fridge with an ice maker.  It makes us feel spoiled and also increases the cup dishes I wash because the boys are always getting drinks now.

 We also have a round about thingy.  That's fun too.

 Another random picture from the morning:  Isaac got a remote control spider for his birthday and we only just bought some batteries for it.  It has been freaking Piper out and she screams when it gets close but she seems happy to watch it from a distance.  It's the little black blob on the floor.

 Isaac let her use the controller.

 We converted the dining room to a reading/music room.  This morning it was filled with books and this evening it is almost all cleared.  We bought a piano and it is coming on Tuesday and then I'll post some other pictures.  in the meantime, here is a preview.  I'm not sure how I like the layout of the pictures but here is my Laila wall.  I had some of them hanging on a wall in Colorado but I've added some.  I printed off pictures that we have taken of what we feel are little messages from Laila--the heart potato, heart rock, heart from the water at the sprinkler park, the heart leaf, and the rainbow we saw two years ago when we visited the grave on the anniversary of Laila's death.  I have another heart picture stuck on my phone but I can't get it off.

 I had all these flowers from Laila's funeral and I wasn't sure what to do with them or if I should even save them.  I finally decided to buy this shadow box.  I had other plans for them but couldn't make it work so I eventually just put them all in the shadow box.  I'm not sure how I feel about this either but I had no other really good option.  I hung this on the wall as well.

 Living Room:  This room used to be dark red.  I'm not much of a red person so I painted it gray with the help of my brother and his wife.

 Entry way:

 Family Room:  I've never had built-ins and I'm not very good at decorating them.  I've got to find some good pieces to go in there.  This is what I've got so far.  I love the cupboards below the built-ins.

 I made the gallery wall and I was worried about it because I'm a minimalist when it comes to decorating (at least I consider myself to be) and I worried my black frames would make it all just look cluttered to me with the built-ins.  I like the wall and I like the built-ins and I'm not sure if I like them all together.  What do you think?  Too much to distract your eye?

 This empty spot in the corner is the only place that provides space for a bulletin board and calendar.  I'm worried about it getting messy but I'm not sure where else to put it.

 Back to the kitchen:  We don't have fancy counters but I don't mind that!  I've never had fancy counters and I hated the tiles we had in Colorado.

 This spot on the back of the island is going to be a problem.  Piper keeps pulling the cookbooks down to read them.  I think it might drive me crazy before too long.  The metal board on the right of the skinny pantry is our gratitude board.  I need to hang up our paper.  We had it in our house in Colorado upstairs in the hallway but it was just enough out of the way to make us forget to write things down so I hoped having it right here where we can see it regularly we will be better at writing all the things we are grateful for down.

 The house did not have a microwave (I think I mentioned that in the last post) so Mike installed it last week.  It's nice to have one again!

 Garage space:  Mike put up hooks for the boys to put backpacks and jackets but the door.

 He also put up the shelves.  It isn't very organized  yet but it has made a world of difference to have the stuff up off the floor so we have room to get in and out.

 More kitchen:  This is our pantry.  It seems tiny to me after my last pantry.  I have this one, the long skinny cupboard, and the round about.  It is plenty of space but I really liked having the large pantry where I could put all my things together in the same place instead of in three different places around the kitchen.  I like the black door though!

 Living room:  I need to get another landscape picture to put in the middle frame.

Well, that's it for now.  I'm amazed we have so much done downstairs!  The upstairs still needs a lot of work but most of the boxes are empty and put away.  It's feeling good to be in a livable space again instead of living around piles and boxes and such.