Lemme tell ya about our new house finally!

For those of you who were readers of Hearth and Home, you might remember me mentioning a very special house we found online a while back. If not, here is a little recap: We were having some small problems with our current landlord and current house that were beginning to add up to enough to get me looking about online ... just to peek. I found a very unique house that was directly next to one of our family's favorite parks and after some details working out marvelously and quite smoothly, it looks like our dream will be coming true this upcoming weekend!

I have been hesitant to write about it because of my insanely juvenile fear of jinxing it all, and because I have wanted to include pictures and yet have not gotten around to taking any yet!

I am hoping with all of my heart that this fresh start symbolizes the end of this incredibly, intensely upsetting 8 months and the beginning of our new life as a close knit homeschooling family who is committed to simplicity, love, and the outdoors. We get the keys tonight and hope to paint a little before we totally move in this weekend.

The boys are getting a 3 boy room again, with Casey and Mickey sharing a bunkbed and Charlie remaining in his crib. The color theme they picked was Orange and Lime green (Mickey), Yellow (Casey), and Red (Charlie). This might sound insane or hectic, but I think it will turn out nicely. I got Mickey orange sheets and a white and lime green bedding set. Charlie already had red sheets and a big red quilt, and Casey has a yellow blanket but we havent had much luck finding yellow sheets yet. I am hoping to paint the room a warm cream color. I got adorable fabric from IKEA to make them curtains with, lime green and white abstract animals. We are taking off all of the ugly dangerous folding wooden doors from all the closets and hanging fabric in front of them on sliding wires. The fabric I got for their closet is off white semi sheer, also from IKEA.
We are hoping that their room is used as a playspace. Not in a mean way like go to your room you are banished, but in a realistic way due to the fact that this is a very very little house. With a crawling baby who eats legos and dominos! So we are doing the bunk beds to save floor space and we are also trying something rather novel (for us): we are not using dressers. They take up too much space and the ones we have been schlepping around for all these years are so ugly and broken that we are just not bringing them. My idea is this: We are using a five shelf bookshelf, anchored to the wall for safety/climbing boys in the closet as a clothes holder. We have greatly pared down our possession over the past month which has been a wonderful family project--no body fussed about any of it and yet noone was left out so there could be no future accusations that we "threw out" any favorites. I think that five shelves is enough for 3 little boys' shirts pants and undies. Especially with Charlie and Casey sharing all clothes now (Charlie is a gigantic 3 year old and Casey is a very average sized 5 1/2 year old) It should be fine. With this plan in place, I would like to use the playtable in their room, but if they just play on the floor thats fine, too. We have a green and an orange hanging paper shade lights in our house currently that just so happen to match the color theme so they will go in there. I am also hoping to put our green recliner in there for cozy story times but I might be delusional about the space. We'll see!

Greta will be having her own room that will eventually be a 2-girls room. She wants Black, White and Red and so we got a few items to make that look come cheaply! The biggest one is that we are giving her our black bed. We got her a black+white quilt duvet thing and a few 3$ red throw pillows. We also are building her a red table/shelf out of 2 red shelves and black wall brackets, all from Ikea. (yes we had a little ikea shopping spree but we paid cash and we have never ever gotten new stuff so it was really thrilling and wonderful and needed. Theres thrify and theres this-bed-is-going-to-kill-someone....we were there.) she also got some black sheer fabric for her closet curtain and 2 little circle rugs that were supposedly bathroom rugs that she is going to have on the floor as accents. She is going to be using a 3 shelf bookcase in the closet for her clothes and also wants the fish tank in her room.

Steve and I will be using our regular old familiar hodge podge of blankets and have no idea what to paint our room if at all. We hope to have cozy lighting and a good chair and books in our room. No fabric on the closet yet and no idea if we could do the no dresser thing, but we want to.

The bathroom is a normal boring lame bathroom so i thought id do it up super cool with like a deeeeeep purple-y blue paintjob and a homemade shower curtain with some gorgeous Ikea fabric that was not cheap. But its so coooooool, I whined! It is black with these weird amazing birds on it...you'll see, i promise to do lots of pictures, very before and after style. (I just couldnt do it when we moved here, i was so depressed and pregnant and it just wasnt what was going on) But I am hoping this bathroom re-do will be quite dramatic and under 50 bucks (and thats with 20 dollars for the fabric!) We wanted black rugs but settled on white. We looked for toothbrush holders but none were cool so we are using tin polka dot canisters and velvet bags as stuff holders. You'll see!

the kitchen is VERY nice. It is an eat-in kitchen which is long and rectangular and is begging and beseeching me for a crazy paintjob like raspberry hot pink gloss or something....There is one of those fancy glass top stoves (!) and a built in dishwasher and a whatever fridge (no fun ice maker or water thingy but that gets bad with kids anyways) and a bar stlye area that looks into the living room where i hope to do computing on my darling little computer (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and cut veggies and write lists and all that kind of nice stuff. there is a double sink with a window in front of it and even a little skylight! The back of the kitchen has a pretty glass door that goes to the backyard and we are going to definitely turn into one of those families that uses the backdoor when we come and go. for mud, etc.

The front room is pretty open, with a big window facing THE PARK and we are not quite sure whats going to go in there yet. I also want to paint but dont know what to do yet. It is carpeted (ARGGGG) so we will be back to those worries, no food, no shoes...but it is cozy for the baby and it is a very clean and nice looking carpet, so, oh well. (We've had wood floors for a few years now and with 5 kids, ummm have you ever vacuumed cottage cheese, pasta, poster paint or poo? Yes. Wood is better. thankfully our kitchen is hardfloored-whatever kitcheny tile of some sort) and thats the whole house! I told you it was little!

The back yard is large and there is a garage with an attached sunroom that seems really cute. I picture sitting in there nursing the baby in some wicker rocking chair sipping on Limeade...or maybe putting up little curtains and changing in there for our pool we plan to set up....there is also a wooden playscape with alot of hooks for our swings we already own, and a little fire-pit behind the garage. Seems like we dont even need a yardwith that park in our face but it will still be nice to have!

There is a huge tree out front that I am pretty sure is a beloved Oak but we'll see. Its trunk is irregular and I couldnt identify it which is odd since I am tree-Girl. Speaking of oaks, the park is almost all oaks and that is my fave of all time and i cannot WAIT to show you all pictures and videos of this whole scene! even though we will have this woodsy view, we will be exactly one mile from the hottest metropolitan downtown around, with every cool store and tiny shop and ethnic restaurant you could imagine, and lots more kid friendly stuff lately too like a arts studio a popcorn "restaurant", the farmers market that we already go to,a noodles only restaurant (Mickey! Only eats pasta it seems!) and stuff like ice cream and oh yes how could I forget--the library is a GREATone! We checked it out (har har) last week and liked it so much we went back 2 more times in 5 days. everything is parking meters which we ar not that used to, so we will have to start keeping change in the car.

All of this is only 4 miles from where we currently reside so we dont have to learn new stores or leave our friends or family or anything. It is also closer to Steves work so he can ride his bike again even though he wont have to due to us having 2 vehicles YAY he still loved it and obviously it is good for him and the Earth to bike.

Well, thats the story of our new house! Sorry I took so long to tell it! Pictures ASAP....
love ya
MamaJoy