My Favorite Bedroom

Everett's orange and blue bedroom is my favorite...

I love the colors in his new bedding...

Front Yard & New Fence

Front yard is done!  Well, except for getting all the landscaping a bit more mature and painting our address on the fascia above the porch.  We just got our new fence installed yesterday, and I love love love how the front yard turned out!

First, here is the "before" photo...

And "after"...

Finally, lots of space to run and play!

One of my very favorite parts of our house- my adorable Dutch door- I love it!  We have it open all.the.time.  Even Gary said he loves having the door open. :)  Here it is closed:

And open...

And another front elevation feature I adore, our new Carriage style garage doors.  I'm not sure about the color because it was supposed to be almost black navy, but it's pretty true navy depending on the light hitting it so I'm thinking of repainting a much darker navy or white...can't decide...

Sorry! A Little Teaser? (Coffee Table)

I've been getting yelled at pretty much on a daily basis for not updating this blog...I'm sorry!  I know I owe the "after" pictures, but I do have excuses...we've been so busy on top of the fact that I want to take the final photos with our DSLR, which Ella drop and SHATTERED.  But, we finally sucked it up and bought a new one so I promise to take photos soon.  Plus, I'd like to do everything at once, and our backyard landscaping starts tomorrow, and our garage doors arrive at the end of this month, and our family room chairs STILL haven't arrived (don't get me started on that- it's been over 3 months).  When I have a minute, I'll try to take some interior photos and post those.

But I am really excited about our coffee table.  I could not find anything I liked anywhere- seriously, I spent hours searching online.  So I decided I'd have to create what I want and bought this one that I didn't love, but liked enough...

I finally finished staining it, and now I love it!  I don't know how the screen will show the color, but it's kind of a weathered grey tone stain- I think it looks so Cape Cod beach house! :)

See, you'll notice we have blankets over the couches (because I want to wait for the chairs to arrive so everything gets equally destroyed at once!), and the kids' PB chairs are serving as our family room chairs for now.  haha!

Playroom

We are sloooooowly getting things together...and I mean, SLOWLY.  The one room I am almost done with is the playroom...

This is the craft table...

This is the reading corner...

Ella's dress up closet...

Mantel and Built-in

Want to see a horrible photo of the most beautiful built-in ever? ;)

They turned out perfectly.  Now I need to figure out how to fill the shelves!

The Almost Done Pantry

We were going to do the pantry ourselves because the over-budget-ness (is that a word?) of this remodel is out of control.  However, we just don't have the time.  Gary is doing both of our closets, and we aren't even done with those.  So, I told our custom cabinet guy that I wanted the most simple and cheap pantry ever...which they begun installing today.

But apparently, simple and cheap is not in his vocabulary because this is what it looks like so far, and it's not even done!

That does not look simple and cheap to me...it looks awesome and fancy!  Notice the crown moulding in the second photo that matches the crown on our kitchen cabinets.  I mean, whaaaaat?!  The cabinet with drawers (which obviously doesn't have the drawer fronts yet) is going to have a carrera marble counter on it!

My only concern is that when we discussed the plan, I said I wanted the shelves to go all the way to the wall (so there would be shelves over the cabinet), which he didn't do.  He kept saying it would look ugly, and in his opinion it needs to be open, blah, blah.  I really just have to laugh because I do find it endearing that he takes such huge pride in his work and cares so much about aesthetics, even in a pantry. :)  I think I'm just going to put open shelving above to put my cookbooks on...maybe. 

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

The kids' bathroom really is the most beautiful bathroom I've ever seen.  I sort of want to sleep in there...

For awhile, I was a little worried about how the entryway was going to turn out since it was my number one top priority, but I had no reason to worry- it is absolutely stunning...

California room ceiling with light and a breeze...

The back of the house lights were installed, and I love them!  The small size...

The large size...

I organized my baking center today...

The inside of the master bathroom shower is all tiled (but not grouted yet), including the ceiling!

Gary's closet is getting done...

The playroom pocket doors are on (but still need hardware)...

And finally, our cabinet guy brought the skeleton of our fireplace built-in and mantle sample for approval today...it's going to look so great!