State of the Haus Address - 2 YEARS!

March 8, 2014 we moved into the Haus. So even though I've been lacking in posts lately [is it too late to blame the baby?] I got my shit together and took some current photos for the two year tour!
Admittedly, we did a lot more visible/noticeable changes in year one.  Not to say that we didn't do anything in year two, it's just the bigger things we did do [new driveway, carpet, tree removal, basement waterproofing] weren't very exciting and noticeable, and really boring for the blog.  Plus, I was preoccupied by eating a lot and/or freaking out about impending motherhood.  That impending motherhood also kept me from stuff like painting and refinishing stuff.  What with the baby's brain cells forming and all.  So honestly, the two year tour is really similar to the one year tour, with the exception of a few rooms that benefited from a last minute bout of nesting.
So!  On with the tour!
When we bought the house the kitchen looked like this:

One week after moving in, it looked like this:

And here's the kitchen now!  The main changes are a new refrigerator, and a brand spankin' new sliding door.  We have a screen that actually functions!  So the door is open and letting the sweet spring air in.  It's unfinished at the moment, ready for me to stain and seal.....hopefully someday soon. Another little change - the adorable vintage high chair that both myself and my sister used as babies, patiently waiting for Bea :)

On to the next room!
One week in:

One year in: [shaping up nicely]

Two years in:
The biggest change is the addition of a large rug and the omission of the live-edge walnut table, a.k.a. 'child death trap.'  In the coming months, those cabinets will be cleared of their random crap, ready to contain ALL THE TOYS and Bea will have a nice soft rug to sit and play with stuff, all in eyesight of the kitchen.

When we bought the house:

One year in:

Two years in: [still a ways to go, but getting there!  ....thinking the built ins need to be black.... and the little breakable stuff moved up to the higher shelves.]

View to the living room [or, honestly, how I watch TV while cooking] One week in:

One year in:

Two years in:

Living room!
One week in:

One year in:

Two years in: Changes here include the new upholstery on the armchair, smaller/lighter coffee table [so there's more room for child-holding things], a baby show on Netflix, and a baby.

One week in:

One year in:

Two years in:  Apparently last year I had time/energy to clean up the clutter before taking the photo.

One week:

One year:

Two years: [she was seriously loving the show.  So I let her watch it while I was running around taking photos.  #momoftheyear]

One week: [hi, beagle!]

One year:

Two years: Nothing really changed, except for the plant I've chosen to winter in this spot.  I did move the giant pack n' play out of the shot, though.  Not really keeping it 100, but it's almost ready to be packed away anyway.

Dining room!  One of my favorite rooms :)
One week:

One year:

Two years:  ...exactly the same.  Except there's a leaf in the table we put there at Thanksgiving that never got taken back out.  And we actually got a new window on the left, but visually you literally cannot tell.  Future plans: taking off the shades that are at the top of the windows [one was taken out when the new window got put in, and seeing as we haven't rolled down the shades in two years, they can go.  New art above the buffet.  And [much more ambitious, and much later down the line] I'd like to strip and refinish the table, chairs and buffet.  The blonde finish is definitely showing its age.

Hall bathroom:
One week:

Two years:  I painted the walls white, changed out the shower curtain, and now there's a bin of baby towels and washcloths.  And that's it, until we feel like spending 5 digits on a newer, prettier configuration [one day! This war ain't over, beige tile.]

Office!  This room was one to benefit from my nesting phase of pregnancy.  Working from home is really nice in that I can spend a lot of time with the baby, but I knew that she would need space in my office so we can hang out in the same spot.
One week in:

One year:  Looks really inviting for a baby to hang out, right?  Last year the office got the least attention.  I spent the spring doing everything for the other spaces, then work got super busy, and all the time I spent in there was spent, you know, working.

Two years in:  See?!  It's clean and open!  And the boxes of crap have been replaced by baby things.

One week:

Two years: I actually like sitting at my desk now!  I have art on the walls, and I've been better about keeping my desk clear.

Another view that I've never shown on the blog, for good reason [it pretty much was just that giant pile of boxes and crap from the 'one year' photo]  Thanks, IKEA!

Brandon's Office, One week:

One year:

Two years:  It's now turned into the guest room, since the previous guest room had a big change last year.  It's still super messy, but everyone's got that 'one room' that is the holding room for things that have no place, right?

Master Bedroom:
One week:

One year: [I was excited last year that the elliptical went away]

Two years: [but now it's been replaced by a treadmill.  Oh well.  Fitness is easiest when it's convenient.  For me, anyway.]
Changes: new carpet!

One week:

One year:

Two years:  The most exciting change is the gorgeous Brasilia dresser I scored from Future Ancestor!  I ADORE this thing.  We didn't want to cheapen it by slapping a monster TV on top, so Brandon mounted it [we have commitment issues when it comes to drilling into the walnut on the wall, but when you're laying in bed, a TV that high seems right!]  Now I can have fun with hanging some art on that wall, maybe some lamps, and some pretty-yet-unfunctional stuff!  So fun!!

Master Bath:
One week:

Two Years:  Yeah, exactly the same.  In my previous post I laid out some short term plans for it, but it's yet to come to fruition.  Some days I'm all "I CAN DO ALL THE THINGS!" but then most days I can barely keep Bea and myself fed and clean.  So I'll get to it sometime. 

Guest room:
6 months in [I didn't even take pics of it at one week, it was so unremarkable]

Two years:  full post here!  The only changes from that post are a clock [because reaching for my phone doesn't happen that easily all the time] and a mesh bumper on the crib.  At 8 weeks she started getting her foot stuck between the slats, so I had to put something up to keep her from breaking her tiny ankle.  Weirdo.

Laundry room:
One week:

One year:  This was another room that housed all the things that didn't have home.

Two years:  Nothing crazy beautiful, but this room also benefited from a healthy amount of nesting.  It's clean, [mostly] organized, and open.  I'll take it!

Dog bathroom, one week and now: [post on the bathroom changes, and why it's called the dog bathroom, here]

Exterior, one week in:

Exterior now:  Obviously the house changed color, and last summer we got the driveway paved.  Oh, and there's one less [large, expensive] tree, but you can't tell.  Exciting, right?

So that's the State of the Haus!  There are a few things brewing on the horizon, and as soon as I get to them, you'll be the first to know. 
Thanks for reading!!

the Battle of the Beige continues...

House projects took a break while our little Bea was cooking [with exception of getting her nursery together, of course, and a few rooms that benefited from the week of nesting that took over me right before she arrived.  I'll blog those tiny updates soon!] But she's two months old today, and I'm itching to get back to making our house look like 'us.'  Specifically with our master bathroom.  The layout is pretty good, with the exception of a few things, but it's still very, very beige.  If you remember, every single room in this house was painted beige, so I've been waging the Battle of the Beige for almost two full years now, slowly painting over it [and in the case of the kitchen, getting the miles of ugly beige tile ripped out].  How many times can a blog have the word 'beige' in it?  I'm probably at a couple hundred by now...
Anyhoo, our bathroom is the last beige room of the house, and one of the worst offenders, which is why I'm ready to GET. TO. IT. 
Now, I'd really really love to rip out everything, get all new fixtures, a sleek vanity, and install a ton of tile in a pretty shape/color/texture, and make it new while keeping with the Mid Century Modern feel of the house.  Something like this:

found here. 

 And while you're clicking links, check out my bathroom Pin board to see lots of pretty bathroom inspirations

_____________

BUT.  That would mean a major reno, and a lot of dough.  So it's pretty far down the list of areas to spend on, as we have a few big projects coming up, and we have 4 large sliding doors that need replaced.  Especially considering that the bathroom layout works pretty well, and its only downfall it the fact that it's very ugly.  So I'm going to do what I do best - paint it to make it prettier!

Here's what we're starting with [this is from a week after we moved in, in March 2014.  And it still pretty much looks the same - just a different rug, and I moved the laundry basket]

While trying to decide what to paint and what color, I thought maybe a nice olive green on the walls, since that's what is painted in the master bedroom [you can see a pic of it in the 'One Year' post.  Which, now that I dug back to find the link, I found a pic of the bathroom with the new rug and without the laundry basket.  Oops.]  The room gets basically no light - you have to turn on the lights at all times of the day anyway - so I'm embracing it and going dark and moody.

I fell in love with olive walls when I saw this bathroom:

[from one of my favorite blogs, Little Green Notebook - go add her to your feed now!]

So I took to Photoshop to add in the changes I know I'm going to make, and added in a muted olive wall:

I like it, but I'm pretty sure I really like the LGN olive bath because it's paired with black, white and grey.  It's so clean and pretty!  Since I'm going to keep my miles of beige tile [for now] it doesn't quite have the same effect.  

So I think I'm going to use my go-to color - grey.  In particular, a nice *slightly* warm charcoal. 

Better!

Because gifs are fun, and because it's crazy to see how little changes make such a huge difference [even making the cabinets black changed the look completely], here's a gif!

After watching the gif over and over [I can't get enough, haha] I think I maybe don't want big statement art in color.  Maybe black and white?  [most likely a photo, since I have a lot of those already, and as much as I'd love to paint something, there's just no time.  I can barely just keep the house at a passable level of cleanliness while making sure we all eat.  Ordering a print is very doable.]

So I made the quickly-and-crappily-rendered art black and white:

And I think that's it!  

It's not clean-lined or MCM by any means, but it's not beige.  I won't cringe every time I go in there, and we can put off the $10k reno for a few years.  Pretty soon I'll set to work on painting! [and I'm oddly excited]  I think I'll have $100 in the paint and hardware for the cabinets - not too shabby!  I'll decide on something for the light fixture [but I'll probably just paint that too, because I pretty much hate all fixtures of this type, and I'm not going to spend any money on something that I still don't like] and when it's all finished I'll blog the reveal and how much [or, actually, how little] I spent!

Tis the season for everything to be sparkly!

My last post [which was over a month ago, sorry about that...] showed the finished nursery for my soon-to-be baby girl. Well, two days after that post, she arrived! Isn't she cute?!

So life has been hectic in a completely new and unfamiliar way, to say the least.  But I still have to put up Christmas decor! Maybe not to the extent that I did last year [or every previous year since hubs and I have had our own place], and maybe with a lot of help from my mom, but it's up!  And sparkly and gold.
This year I just decorated the living room.  No extra wreaths and glass ornaments around the fireplace off the kitchen, no kitschy banner in the dining room [though I do love that thing...maybe I'll go dig it out], and no wreaths on the front door.  Just the room that matters most, the one that I spend most of my time in these days.  Because that's all that matters - for a warm Christmas-y feeling, I just want the glow of the lights on the tree at night, when I'm nodding off on the couch at 8pm.

This year I added a faux pine garland around the fireplace [which I bought for about $12 total from Joann's last January.  And when I pulled it out of the decorations box, it took me about half an hour to remember why I bought it and where it was supposed to go.  I should really write these kinds of things down.] AND - the teeny tiny little stocking!  It was only $5 at Target, so I had to get it to match our others :)  It's just so. damn. cute!

Definitely going to be the last year I put these blown glass thingies on the hearth, since next Christmas we'll have a toddler.  An idea is brewing on how to make it sparkly and festive AND toddler-friendly though!  [excuse me while I go write that down so I don't forget...]  Stay tuned next December!

I didn't put near as much stuff on the hearth this year [a combination of not a ton of time to style it, and the fact that I was just plain tired.]  All I really did was add a few silver glass things and a coupla reindeer to the stuff that was already there.  Still festive, but won't take as much time to put away ;)

And the tree!  Still smitten with my gold tree, btw.  And she got a new topper this year!  It's hard to see because the extra 5 minutes I stole to take these photos happened to be during the day, but it's made of capiz shell and it's lovely [and only $29 from Lowe's]
Another addition this year is Bea's first ornament, a 50s-looking ceramic reindeer [which, eventually, I'll paint her name and '2015' on it.  Some day.]

And keeping with the woodland theme I established last year, a new little squirrel, fox and hedgehog [Target pretty much kills it every year, right?]

TIME TO GET REAL.  Bloggers often portray a super-perfect existence that's far from reality [and even though I'm far from perfect, I still would clean up and move clutter, arrange books and plants, and hide cords before photographing the Haus for posts].  However, I appreciate when things are true, and when bloggers get real, and you can see that everyone has to *live* in their house, not just photograph it.  So while this shot here looks pretty good [except for the remotes, notebook & pen, and iphone on the coffee table].....

Pan out a bit, and this is how it really looks: 

[hello, baby gear.  I never thought I'd buy you, much less let you hang out in my living room every day for all to see]

And this shot here:

Was zoomed in just enough to hide this view:

[Hello, little one!  Hope you're enjoying your snooze!]

So!  If you're still reading, thank you for hanging in there during my sporadic posts and long breaks!  I hope you enjoyed this little update!