Our New Little Home: A Home Tour

Well certain people have been bugging me to show them the in and outs of our new place so after many camera slip ups I finally have a home tour to post.  Everything is still a work in progress, but we enjoy living in it right now.  Cole calls it our new little house, and it is a cute little house for our cute little family.

The front of the house still needs a lot of work, new landscaping, power washing, driveway sealed, etc.

The living room: featuring pillows made by me, tables painted by me, and of course the laminate floors Charles put in.

Haven't got a lot up on the walls yet.  That Valentino sign will soon move and a  photo gallery will replace it.

View into the dining room.  The sliding glass door leads to the sunroom which is  the playroom right now.

Charles wasn't really happy that I took this picture of him eating.

At least he got to smile for this one.

I made that "tree with birds in it" picture by the way.  That is its official name.

Here's the view into the kitchen.

If you like the curtains I made them.  If not...er...I don't know where they came from.

Faux granite countertops...painted by me.

Charles put that pantry together for me, it has been a lifesaver and makes the kitchen a lot more functional.

Made that thing too.

Sunroom/Playroom/not usually this clean.

Here is part of the huge deck, which badly needs to be restained.

The back yard.

The back of the house.

The TV room/computer room.  This is a few steps down from the main  floor  that has the living room, dining room and kitchen.  The curtained area leads to the unfinished basement of which I did not take a picture.  It's pretty full of boxes right now.  Yes this room has wood paneling that we plan on painting at some point, but right now we are enjoying its retro charm.  Retro...right?  We did pull up some pretty awful carpet down here.  The linoleum was underneath.

This bathroom is also on the same level as the family room.  I have plans for some pretty paint and some other changes in there as well.  The kids like to shower down there because it has a handicap shower with a built in seat.  Cool.

Upstairs from the main living area are bedrooms (it is a four level split).  Here is Cole's place.  He has the hammer because he just helped me hang the COLE letters, not because he is about to hit his sister with it as it appears.

Here is the girls' room.

Vivien is pretending she sleeps in that bed.  She will, but right now she mostly sleeps with me.

Master bedroom.  The bed is against the wall so that Vivien can sleep on the side without falling out.  If she sleeps in the middle she ends up kicking Charles in the head repeatedly.  Not me for some reason.  HeeHee.

The other side of the room not featured includes his and her closets and a large pile of laundry.

The upstairs bathroom which has two doors, one from the hallway and one  from the master.  The bathrooms in this relatively small house are huge.  They seem like they belong in a bigger place, but I'm not complaining.

Had to include this picture even though the lighting is bad.  10 points if you can find Juliet.

 And that is our house.  We are enjoying it!  Thanks for stopping by.

Before and After

Just wanted to post a few before and after pictures showing the different things we have done in our new house.  The before pictures were taken when we were at the house for the inspection.

Living Room/Dining Room Before:

Living Room/Dining Room After:

The main difference other than having our own decor and furniture in the space, are the beautiful laminate floors that Charles put in.  It was his first time doing something like that and he did an awesome job!  We kept the paint color which is a spiced tan color, very warm.  Also, we took down those horrible vertical blinds, I HATE those things.  The pictures are like night and day, because obviously the before pics were taken in the day and the after at night.  Still, a nice change I think.

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen After:

I did a lot of work in here.  The stove and walls had a lot of grease which needed to be scrubbed off.  I painted the walls a wonderful rich green (creamy guacamole).  I redid the old scratched and stained formica countertops with a faux granite kit.  We added brushed nickle hardware to the cabinets and added a pantry along side the fridge.  I also made the curtains and of course added all the accessories.

Upstairs bathroom before:

Upstairs bathroom after:

Cole's room before (sorry about the sideways picture):

Cole's room after:

Girl's room before

Girls' room after:

Juliet chose a great mint green to put in here.

Master bedroom before:

Master bedroom after:

Many more projects to come, but we are having fun decorating, renovating and repairing our new home.

Our Little Vacation

It seems like it has become a tradition with us to take a little vacation each year up to the Sandusky/Port Clinton area next to Lake Erie.  Cedar Point was the main draw this year since both Cole and Juliet are 48 inches tall and can ride many of the roller coasters.

The trip has been a little different every year and we've had fun each time.  On our first year we stayed in Port Clinton, took a ferry trip over to Put In Bay, explored a rather strange dinosaur park (now closed), went to the beach a couple of times, and ran around on the rocks near the lighthouse at Marblehead.

The next year we also stayed in the Port Clinton area, swam a lot at the pool at our hotel, took a raucous and disconcerting trip to the African Safari where animals stick their head into the car to eat from cups of feed (feeding giraffes is pretty cool) and we took our first venture to Cedar Point for a half day, we also hit the lighthouse again.

This year it was all about Cedar Point.  We stayed in a Cedar Point resort hotel, Castaway Bay, which has an indoor water park.  The first day we went to to the water park, the second day we went to Cedar Point, and the third day we went to the water park for a couple of more hours and then headed over to Marblehead to eat at a great pizza place we've gone to three years in a row, Brunos, and to go to the light house again.  It was so relaxing to have everything taken care of for us this year.  The water park, the Cedar Point tickets (including the parking pass), and a wonderful breakfast buffet were all included in our hotel package.  We had fun every year, but this year we felt really pampered.

We like to go the last week that Cedar Point is open during week days.  This year we had to take the kids out of school to do it, but it was worth it to avoid the lines and the crowds.  With Cole's autism this is really the best way for us to do it.

Juliet posing in the wonderful lobby of Castaway Bay.  The kids loved the talking parrots on  the pirate ship.

On the dock behind our hotel.  Trying to keep Vivien from tossing herself into the water.

Could you say no to that face?

I loved this purple car.

We tried to intersperse roller coaster rides with kiddo rides for Vivien.  It was actually nice that way.

Everyone's got to have one of these pictures right?

Ah...the soothing properties of running water.

Juliet was pretty great at posing for pictures.

Vivien is a bit of a climber.

And a sweetheart.

Juliet was a wonderful big sister.