A Home Tour

Welcome to my home!

Today's challenge post for blog-tember was to share a tour of one's room or house. I love home tours. One of my favorite activities is visiting show homes. I am excited to see everyone's linked home tour in the blog-tember challenge today. If the blog-tember challenge is new to you click on the blog-tember link at the bottom of the page.

I have already shared a little about my kitchen here. The kitchen is of my favorite spaces in the house, as I was able to plan it in the building process.

Here are some other pictures of our home. Come along as we tour some of the main floor minus the guest room where I had spread out three loads of laundry that need to be folded and the bathrooms that need a good scrub.

Here is the entry way. The builder has yet to have the painter come to paint our front door.  We moved in April. I may have to bust out the paint brush and finish it myself so that I can hang a fall wreath. There is my diaper bag almost always packed & ready to go for quick getaways with J. 

Next up is the living room.

Always toys. I am picking them up always. 

I still need to purchase window treatments & hang artwork in the living room. Also we are on the look out for a child friendly coffee table. 

Here is the laundry room. 

I need to install hooks for my Norwex broom & maybe find some laundry art.

The nursery

The nursery is a work in progress. I have framed artwork to hang yet and I need to sew & hang curtains.

And our master bedroom. I want to purchase bedding for our bed yet. We also want to hang artwork and get window treatments. 

In our last house we had fun Hawaii travel artwork I found on etsy and orange bedding from Anthro. I am thinking of something different for this bedroom. 

If you would like to see a home tour of our last home click here.

Thanks for popping by! 

Kitchen Reveal

 

 

 

 

I love my kitchen in our new build. I think it hits all the boxes in terms of how I imagined & planned it would all look. I shared these photos on Instagram but I thought I'd share them here too. I adore the lights above the island & how large the island is. 

We decided to go with a hex tile for our backsplash last minute also rather than the penny tile as mentioned earlier since it was closer to what I had hoped for- it just took us visiting a number of tile stores to find the right ones & purchasing ourselves rather than having the local supplier the builder contracted provide. They are made by Tierra Sol. 

I am so glad we decided to add the large window beside the dining room table even if there would be another house built beside us. I love windows & light spaces. As it turns out right where the window meets the next house is where their deck is so we will get great light still. It's a little awkward to be eating breakfast and look up & see builders or the new home owners on their deck but in time I will add in some shears or some kind of window treatment. I have yet to decide on window treatments &/or make new drapes. Also we are yet waiting on the microwave/trim kit for the oven wall combo. It was back ordered but should arrive this month sometime. 

I had envisioned a more industrial bar stool/chair but these are very comfortable and were a fraction of the price.

Here are some links back to the planning process:

Lights

Kitchen Configuration

Show Home Kitchen Inspiration

O Tannenbaum

O Tannenbaum may be the only song I ever learned to play on the piano when I was younger. As a middle child I missed out on piano lessons. My oldest and youngest brother both had piano lessons. But oh how I could plunk out O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum is a German Christmas carol about a fir tree I think.

In the spirit of Christmas I turned on the fireplace or channel 165, had myself some eggnog and decorated the tannenbaum or plastic tree.

I realize it is December 16th which is really late to be decorating a tree but this is not the first time I have decorated the tree this year. 

In November we rented a basement suite in an apartment that had been converted from a church built in 1953. We moved in November 8th. I set up the tree as per tradition on November 11th after the Remembrance Day Ceremony. L was unable to sleep as there was no sound proofing between the units. L is both a sensitive sleeper and needs to sleep during the day on occasion when he works a 12 hr night shift. As a result his anxiety levels over his ability to function at work were through the roof. So before the month was out we were on the move once again. We have been in our new rental unit almost three weeks now. Moving is really exhausting. 

I almost didn't put up the tree again. 

This makes me recall another year when we "tried out" having a puppy. Oscar was his name. He was really adorable when he was sleeping otherwise he was a terror, biting, chewing, peeing. L was trying to study for his finals when we brought Oscar home. L in a fit of exasperation one night when I was out for the evening packed up the tree after corraling Oscar in his kennel. Oscar had discovered the tree and thought it was fun to dive bomb it and knock several ornaments off and then chase them around the room. L eventually moved out to his parents place to study in peace and quiet and I was left with caring for Oscar and trying to teach him to stop biting and generally destroying our home. We eventually admitted to ourselves that Oscar was not a great fit for us and thankfully the breeder whom we had purchased Oscar from had given us a trial period and let us know that there were other families interested in taking on Oscar. That year I did not put the tree up again.

I may revise my traditional November 11th tree decorating timeline in favor of mid December.

Decorating the tannenbaum goes like this:

 First I mention to my husband L that we should put up the tree. The tree is put up, but L gets a great idea that we should go out so we never get to the decorating. A week goes by because I think it would be fun to decorate together but there never seems to be a good time to do it together. 

Then because L is the expert at light placement I drop hints about putting lights on the tree. He does not take the hint. So I haul out the lights and start winding them around the tree. L can't help but notice that I have placed them in a haphazard way and so comes to my assistance. Plus I can never reach the top. This is last years pictures but do you see how seriously he takes lighting the tree?

When I was younger it was tradition that we all decorated the tree together. My dad would put the music on and bring out the eggnog, cookies and Christmas oranges. My mom would pop some popcorn. Granted it was usually Christmas eve before we started decorating the tree and we had an odd assortment of home made, and mismatched "Charlie Brown type" decorations. In L's family by contrast his mom was the only one to put up and decorate the tree. 

How do you build new traditions and yet retain aspects of traditions you loved when you were younger? As it goes L might join me in decorating the tree if I plead but usually he would rather not. I used to request he would saying it would be fun to do together. But for him it is not usually fun and he gets distracted. How about you? Do you decorate the tree by yourself or with someone else? Is decorating a tree more of a "girl" thing to do? (My three brothers when I was younger always joined in but was that because we were kids?) 

So today I decided to finally decorate the tannenbaum. 

Last year I found new ornaments on clearance for 75% off so I was excited to try a new colour scheme than my usual gold, silver, red and green. I still utilized the green.

I like natural elements like wood string balls and pinecones. I hope to find some more or make some so if you have seen some natural decorations or have a great diy tutorial let me know!

I like to sort all the decorations first. And then put one sorted type of decorations on at a time.

And voila!

Some pretty details...

I bought these glass humming birds the first year we were married. A few have since broken but I love the few I have left.

I love these brass decorations. They sometimes get lost in the tree as the colour is not very vibrant. I purchased these along with the glass stars below when I was living and working in Dawson Creek.

It feels so festive in here!

Walls, Window Upgrades & Hiccups

The walls are up!

It was really exciting to see the walls were built the last time I was by the house.

This is the south view.

 West side with two bedroom windows.

This is the north view including the walkout basement, jut-out is the master bedroom window, window to the right is the bathroom, window and door to the left is the kitchen and door to deck.

This is the east side. When I first saw this I was a little shocked that the windows were only 2 feet by 2 feet and the window in the kitchen 2 feet by 6 feet. How did I miss this on the plans earlier? We emailed the builder to ask about enlarging the kitchen window to 6 feet by 6 feet. It will be an additional $2000. Crazy! 

Every change is thousands of dollars! Is it worth it? I am divided since there will be a house directly across from this one. Perhaps all we need is the natural light from this window and to forget having a large window here since there likely will not be a view. But I also love windows. Why are windows so expensive! 

In other news we had a hiccup yesterday as far as where we will live while this house is being built. 

We had planned to house sit for a lovely couple while they went to the United States for the winter to Mesa, Arizona. Unfortunately I got a call in the early morning that she had had a heartattack and was in the hospital. I was concerned for her health but it really did leave us in a lurch. It had been such an ideal situation. We would be renting their place for $750 a month plus $150 for snow removal. It included a garage, all utilities plus netflix/cable/internet, furnishings, dishes etc. 

I am trying to not be stressed out about this all and take it in stride. I left a deposit with her of $750 which has been cashed plus paid for all the snow removal on Saturday at $600 and left post-dated checks until April so I hope we will be able to recover this money. 

Luckily I was able to secure a new place yesterday thanks to connections that her husband had and so now we will be living in a renovated church. It costs a little more at $1100 plus utilities per month. I also needed to leave a security deposit of $1100. Unfortunately it is unfurnished so I am trying to figure out if we should move our furniture currently in our basement here for the cost of $3071 or buy some used items on kijiji that we can later re-sell or make the trip and try to move some of the items ourselves with L's dad's pick-up truck. 

Lots to think about as I likely shouldn't be lifting heavy items being 29 weeks pregnant. Plus L is working day in and day out it seems. He has worked 50+ days now with only 2 days off.  I am not even sure if he will be available to help me with moving at the end of the month. Our condo lease runs out at the end of this month so I do not have a lot of time to ponder this hiccup. 

Home Tour

Welcome to my home!

I have been busy getting my home ready for sale including taking pictures for our listing and so thought I would share here some of my extra photos plus commentary by me.  Also you are welcome to make an offer on my home.

From the front entrance you can go up to the main floor or down to the basement. 

This is the start of my globe collection. I love to travel.

Oh hey! there's a picture of L and I kissing.

                                     

I love to soak up the sun here and here on a sunny morning with a big cup of coffee.

I found these shoes in Bulgaria. And the vessel pot is from an artist when I worked as a project manager in an art gallery.

Main floor powder bath and laundry. The washer and dryer was the first purchase L and I made for this home. 

I painted this for L when we were dating. 

I love my kitchen. When we first moved in these walls were chocolate brown. I painted them Manhattan Mist by Behr. If I were to live here longer I may replace the tile backsplash. I sewed the curtains from table cloths from Target. 

Our bedroom is very large. That is a king size bed. I realize we are spoiled now when I think of buying another home because I do not know if our bedroom set will fit in most of the master bedrooms of typical homes. Our bedroom set we purchased from Costco. I purchased the retro poster prints of Hawaii on etsy. I wanted the room to have a tropical getaway feel but still be elegant.

We have a walk in closet and ensuite bath. If this were to be our forever home I would want to renovate the bathroom to make it a shower instead of a tub and replace the standard tile to something that was lighter in color. 

And that is the main floor home tour! Above the garage there are two bedrooms, a large linen closet, and full size bathroom. 

This bedroom I made into an office. I would have liked to have added shelving and maybe a cute pink chair.

Oh hey! It's one of my paintings I did of me as a little girl. And a plant pot that needs a plant.

I love to sew. Someday I would like to get back into sewing clothes. For now I just sew drapes and other small crafts. I made the drapes in this room.

This was intended to be the baby room. Someday we will have a baby either through infertility treatments or through adoption. I was always waiting to buy a crib until I had either passed week 12 of pregnancy or until we had a proposal through adoption. My parents painted these bedrooms for me on separate visits. I realized I really like white or cream painted rooms. 

I love this cabinet. I bought it at a local antique type store. I purchased the rabbit buggie from a seller from Norway on etsy. 

These rag dolls I purchased when in Montreal. The sad bear was purchased when I first learned I was pregnant but before I had the miscarriage.

L purchased these Asian paper cut-outs at a flee market when he was younger and I framed them but did not commit to hang them until I had a crib. The chair I found at a yard sale for $10.

And that is the end of the upstairs tour. Now for the basement. Here L spends most of his time when he is off work and home gaming or we watch movies. There are also two bedrooms for guests, a full bathroom and storage room. 

I may or may not have too many books. 

The colours in the basement are original. I have not painted down here yet. Again if we were to stay longer I would likely repaint and replace the tiles in the bathroom and by the bar sink.

And that is our home tour! Thanks for visiting!