October 25, 2007

A Tour of my Palace- the good and the ugly

Candy has so inspired me to let you all see our home. I am so blessed to live in this large and spacious home- truly a miracle in the happening. My house is not perfectly organized and there is a good bit of clutter, but I thought I'd still show it anyways. Maybe you can give me some ideas about organizing.

So, here is what you see at the front door in the living room. Our couch and loveseat are the same color as the recliner, but I found this sage green blanket slipcover to change things up a bit. And to the right...

(Sorry for the blurry pictures...don't know what happened there. Look at all the shelf space and cabinet space! So far there isn't a lot in those cabinets, but it's not organized either.

Here's the kitchen and dining area, to your left of the front door.
Our table, which was the same table my parents, sister and I used. Good memories of eating around that table...



I finally have a window over my kitchen sink.

Many of the cabinets in this area are empty! I can't believe that...still need to organize and utilize the space...

To the right of the sink is my coffeemaker, toaster, fruit bowl and then stove.

This is my 'pantry', or at least where I keep all baking supplies and non-perishable foods.

My spice/tea cupboard...


Next is the oven, fridge, and a set of huge cupboards, which would be great as a pantry, but they are so far from the counters, stove etc. I decided to use them for other things.

Now go around the corner by the large cupboards and you enter the 'other room'. We don't know what to do with this room yet, so it's just the everything room. Gym, office, playroom , sewing room.


You can't see it, but on the far left is our desk/sewing machine and a large armoir cabinet that has our desktop computer in it, then some shelves which hold sewing supplies and some toys.

Let's veer to the right, into the laundry room. This is one of the biggest laundry rooms I've seen. It is a great blessing- look at all the cabinets! Yes, many are empty.
Sometimes a certain person in our family likes to use this room as a 'catch all' for large things such as :

Extra seats for our SUV and the dog pen. Oh well, it's out of the way :)

Here's the ugliest picture of all- the scary room! This room actually looked better before the garage sale! I don't know what happened...

AAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!


The girls' new tent was in their bedroom, but it got moved in here yesterday. Cute huh? There are little butterflies hanging in the top.

Ok, here's the first part of the hallway. To the right is a great storage area. What's in there? Linens, art supplies, games and puzzles, old cds... It is organized though.



Ok, here is the next ugly picture...the old hallway. This house has two front doors. The one we use is where the previous owners closed in their garage. For some reason they left the old door and entry way. There is a closet that we keep coats and such in, and the rest of this stuff is leftover from the garage sale and toys to be rotated.

The first room on the left is Leiah and Alexa's room. We don't have many toys in there because they would rather been with me playing than in their room.
The mural is still coming along...
The rest of the hallway, which ends in our room. The trash can in the hall holds Sarah's cloth diapers- the used ones.

To the right is the bathroom- mostly the girls use this one. There is a wall of cabinets facing the toilet, which you can see in the reflection of the mirror.


Then the second room on the left is Sarah's bedroom.


She has a nice sized closet in here the same as the other room. This room is very roomy, not as big as the other one, but still a good size.

At the end of the hall is my bedroom. This room really bothered me when we first moved in- the paint on the wall reminds me of the wiggly dash marks from Saved By the Bell. It may not make sense, but that's what it makes me think of.



Notice all the extra furniture in this room. Matt's mom brought a suit of furniture after we moved in, and we just never got around to re-arranging the room and getting rid of some of it.

Here is my closet, which actually isn't that bad.
If you turn to the right and walk towards the entrance, to the left is our bathroom. It's got a shower-no tub. It's pretty small, but still nice to have a bathroom in our bedroom.


And then behind the door of our bedroom is this:

To the right of the entrance is Matt's closet and our dirty laundry basket.

And that's that, back to the front door.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, you weren't kidding - your place is HUGE! It looks so open and nice. :-)

Whitney Brents said...

Lovely! I saw Candy's earlier and was thinking that I wanted to do it too. We'll see. Thanks for the "visit" into your home. ;)

Shannon said...

WOW! What a cozy home! You have such an abundance of wonderful cabinets/storage space.

Jamee said...

It was nice to see your house tour! I got here from your comment on Candy's blog.

LOL! I did the same as you. The AAAAKKKKK! room! LOL!

Feel free to stop by & check it out! :)

http://simplemommy.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Great post! You have a lovely home!!!

Blessings,
Tiany

Rachel said...

THOSE ARE NICE SIZE ROOMS! HOW MANY SQ FEET DO YOU HAVE? LOVE ALL THE WOOD :)

Anneatheart said...

I have to say, that the house was overwhelming at first. The house we lived in before this one was a double wide trailer, and wasn't really small, but not like this house.

It's still overwhelming to me because of the size and layout- it doesn't feel like 'my' home. My dh's parents bought the house right out, and we're living in it until they decide to move back here. We would never have been able to afford to buy or rent a home this large and in this area. A huge blessing!

Oh, I don't know how many square feet the house is, and yes the wood is pretty, just feels like too much sometimes, but that's just me.

Blended in Texas said...

Wow! You have plenty of space to roam! I'm just excited Tim and I are getting out of an apartment next month! Wa-ho! =) Very lovely...

Anonymous said...

Beautiful home! LOVE the honey colored wood and lots of windows!
For a fun thing, try putting your master bed in the corner to the right, you know, on an angle. I had a bedroom like yours once, and I did that and it looked so romantic. We even hung some mosquito netting in the corner behind the headboard, then switched it to a nice standing lamp good for reading when our kitten decided to climb the netting. You might have to shift one of your dressers from the right to the other side under the window, where your bed used to be instead. How fun!!

Beautiful home!!
Thanks for sharing.
KH

gentlebreeze said...

love the wood walls! And you know the scary room and all...I bet it would take maybe a couple of hours and it all would be organized!!! Post pics if you do it! So yeah don't feel bad cause it is not that bad at all:) just wanted to let you know I am back to public blogging if you wanna stop by:)

Anonymous said...

You have a very nice home. It's been fun looking at all these blog home tours. We are truly blessed to have the homes we have.
Maybe I'll get around to doing a tour of my home.

jesnicole said...

LOVE THE PICTURES! HAVE A GREAT DAY!

jesnicole said...

ME AGAIN, SORRY! I JUST READ YOUR PREVIOUS POST. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'RE STILL EVEN WANTING INPUT, BUT HERE'S MINE IF YOU ARE! IF NOT, JUST IGNORE! :)
YOU WILL DO THE RIGHT THING. AS MUCH AS I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING,AND HAVE ALL MY GOOD REASONS TO(WE WILL HOMESCHOOL ALL OF OURS UNTIL AROUND 5-6 GRADE...AS OF NOW, ANYWAY! THERE ARE ALSO CONS WITH H.S., AS WITH ANYTHING. AND THERE ARE ALSO GOOD REASONS TO SEND YOUR CHILDREN TO SCHOOL-SOME SCHOOL SYSTEMS ARE VERY GOOD! YOU JUST HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU, PERSONALLY. MY SISTER HAS FOUR CHILDREN, AND THEY ALL GO TO A PRIVATE SCHOOL. THIS IS WHAT WORKS FOR THEM. I FULLY BELIEVE HOMESCHOOLING IS NOT FOR EVERY FAMILY!! SOME MOMMA'S WOULDN'T LOVE DOING IT, AND THAT RIGHT THERE WOULD BE A HUGE REASON NOT TO! SOME MOMMAS ALSO MAY DO THIS FOR THE WRONG REASONS, LIKE JUST PLAIN OVER-BEARING. (I WAS LIKE THIS FOR A FEW DAYS A LONG TIME AGO) JUST KEEP ASKING, PRAYING, AND THINKING...YOU'LL DECIDE WHAT'S RIGHT FOR YOU GUYS. MOMMA'S ALWAYS HAVE A WAY OF DOING THAT! HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY! SORRY THIS WAS SO INCREDIBLY LONG! :)

Whitney Brents said...

I posted the pictures of my home if you would like to look. :)

Pondering paths along the way said...

I love your home, it is beautiful and very well kept indeed.

You hve an awesome blog too and I look forward to visiting often.
Blessings
Page

Anonymous said...

YOUR HOME IS SPACIOUS! WHAT A BLESSING! sorry for the caps lol
i really enjoyed my tour!

Lydia said...

Good morning , Jessica, you asked me for some ideas about the living room walls without painting. I have an idea I think both you and your husband could live with since he does not want to paint the pannelling. We painted ours but it was cheap panelling and was already about 40 years old. Somehow, pannelling comes across as "sacred" and no one dares paint it, thinking it is "natural" wood. Actually, inside a tree, it is not that color. The stain is put on it to make it look like maple or birch or whatever. But that aside, what I would suggest you do is this:

Put up white eyelet curtains.Make them all the same.
Use a white chenille bedspread and cover the couch, or get a slipcover in white. If that is not possible, just put lots of white cushions on the couches and chairs.

Add white accessories like table runners, doilies, lampshades....or if it is possible, paint the lamps white if they aren't valuable. Otherwise, just gather a piece of white fabric and make a white lampshade to put over the old ones.

Spray paint a white grape vine wreath and hang it on the door. Decorate it with pale things and increase the lightness of it.

Paint your frames white. Inside the bookshelves, but all the white accessories you can find: vases, frames, books, knicknacks, etc. and cover the edges with white doilies just dripping slightly over each shelf.

Get a white "flokati" or fluffy white throw rug.

Paint only the mantel piece on the fireplace, white if you like. It can always be stripped off if someone else doesn't like it, and it is a small enough area to paint that it won't ruin anything if you have doubts.

In the dining room use a white table cloth and put a medium grade clear plastic about 1 and a half yards, from the fabric section at walmart, over it. It will be easier to keep on the table. The plastic is on long poles on a stand there in the fabric section. Or, get a white plastic table cloth, lace, if possible.

Change all curtains to white valances. It won't be expensive if you use old sheets or eyelet and make the rod pocket yourself.

With pannelling, everything in a house is too dark, I find, and white can brighten it up.

Paint old pieces like end tables and dressers, white, but do a thorough job and give it a couple of coats and use good quality paint called "cabinet paint" from WalMart, because it doesn't chip or peel as easily and takes wear and tear and lasts longer.I see a double decker end table in someone's room, there at the end, that could be painted white and look great in the living room. But if you can't, put a white piece of fabric on it or a doily.

Some my ideas will really brighten it up so that you will hardly notice it after awhile.This is what we experienced in a dark pannelled house, ourselves. Those light touches made us feel so content and distracted the eye to the white things.

Your house is certainly in much better condition than the one I live in. One reason I've had to decorate is to cover the flaws in a broken down house.

By just lightening up with your own accessories, your husband will still have the advantage of having the wood panelling and the heavy furniture and the fireplace, etc. By the way, put light accessories on the fireplace and any shelves you have. They are easy to find and you probably have them already. Look in your dishes and toys, etc. I found a white teddy bear and a doll and a few bowls that make a nice light accent.


Lydia

Lydia said...

I noticed you have two large book shelves. Without spending money, you can lighten those by folding up quilts and baby blankets, which are usually pastel, and intersperse the books and frames with various objects, from toys to vases, which you might already own. An alternative to that would be to put plants, either real or artificial, that have white pots and light colored leaves or flowers in them. As one person suggested on my blog, taking pictures can reveal to you whether or not some arrangement or decorating element works for your your home.

~Bren~ said...

I don't see alot of clutter. Your home is very organized and beautiful.