House Progress Update

So I've been terrible with the blog updating lately! Once we moved into our new house, our weekends and free time have been filled with home improvement projects. We are just now winding down and I'm happy to say that it's beginning to truly feel like home. After our bumpy first night in the house, it's been extra important to turn our house into a safe, comfortable and homey place for us...probably more from my perspective. Ryan would be happy with a blow-up couch and a tv. But he knows who he married :)

Being a perfectionist, I've held back on wanting to post pictures of what the house looks like right now. I'll keep pushing it off until it's "officially" finished--i.e. things are on the wall, every piece is in it's place, all the gaps are filled, etc. But part of owning a home and making it your home is that decorating in particular, is a gradual process. I can't make it look just like my Pinterest inspiration overnight and I'm not on an HGTV show that has a turnaround time of 3 days. Nor do we have the finances to do it either! Here are some peeks at some of our rooms:

The living room, so far, is my favorite room. We spend the most time in here and we just got this big fluffy couch that we love. Ryan has "claimed" the chaise part of the couch already. Obviously, something is going to go on the wall behind the couch. I think I'm pretty set on doing a gallery wall...it's just a matter of collecting everything we're going to hang and then arranging it. My dad is building a mantle for the fireplace so we can hide the cords to the tv/cable and put our sound bar in a more practical place (right now it's sitting below our gas fireplace which won't work in the winter time).

The kitchen was completely redone by the previous owners (thank goodness). The massive island has already been great for entertaining. People just naturally stand around it eating whatever is out. Apparently I'm spoiled with a double oven, although I've never actually used both at the same time. Because I'm a terrible cooker/baker, it hasn't gotten it's best use. We'd love to replace the white and older appliances with stainless sometime down the road. The guest bedroom is probably our most colorful room so far. I'm trying to break my habit of being color shy! We're going to hang a big round mirror above the bed. We still need to find a dresser of some sort and some curtains, but the room has already been functioning as a guest bed.

Luckily, we bought a house that didn't need a lot of work. A lot of what we have changed/replaced were simple, quick fixes. For example, we replaced most of the outdated, ugly, gold and shiny doorknobs, light switch plates/outlets and a light fixture. A simple change, but with an obvious impact. I felt like we shaved off years from the house because of it. Granted, we still have work to do...our bathrooms are still the ugliest rooms in the house thanks to yellow linoleum flooring and contractor-style vanities. One of these days we'll get around to completely revamping.

We also just booked our 1 year anniversary trip! We're deferring to celebrate in November, since we'll be in the OBX the week before our REAL anniversary, by going on another cruise-- this time in the Caribbean! We'll be leaving from San Juan, Puerto Rico and "island hopping" in the Caribbean. We're so excited! As soon as we got married, we started saving for our next vacation. One of our favorite things to do together is to experience new countries and to travel. But when you're not making big money and have important things to pay for (um, like maybe a house?!), saving becomes even more important. We're so excited!