Elements of Home

Where to begin??

2010-05-27T13:24:00.006-06:00

When faced with trying to turn a house into a home, it's a pretty daunting task. Hanging pictures and placing furniture in an effort to decorate a home is a bit like throwing drops of water on a fire attempting to put it out. Small changes get lost in a sea of blah. I had lots of ideas but no real direction, and I knew I would need to make some big changes in order to make this house feel like home.

One day as I was folding laundry in my guest room, I had a light bulb moment. A friend had given us her bed, including the mattress, box spring, down comforter, bed skirt and bed frame, when she moved in with her soon-to-be husband. We just plunked the bed in one of our two guest rooms and called it a day. I didn't really need the bedding she gave us, but took it because she was in full-scale purge mode and just needed to get the stuff she had accumulated out of her house. Here is the bed as it sat in our future nursery (aka: guest room) for months:

Nothing particularly inspiring in this room......unless you look closely at the bed skirt. I liked the color and I liked the pattern, but I didn't have any of the other bedding that matched the bed skirt. I knew the bed skirt had come from Crate & Barrel, but the set had long since been sold out. I first contemplated using a white duvet, but quickly decided that would be too bland. I needed more color. So, I randomly decided to search ebay and was lucky enough to find the matching duvet cover and pillow shams. Score! Finally the direction I needed!!

Once the duvet cover and shams arrived in the mail, I set out to decorate the first room in our home.....the guest bedroom. I invite you back to see how the room evolved from bland and boring to welcoming and cozy.

Adorable Bird Botanical Prints

2010-05-27T09:15:00.004-06:00

Benita over at Chez Larsson recently blogged about an adorable print of Manhattan which she purchased from Three Potato Four. I headed over to have a look and I am in love!! I'm not much into antiques in my home, but everything in the Three Potato Four shop is just so charming. I especially love these little bird botanical prints! So cute!!

Unfortunately it looks like three of the four prints are sold out. Bummer!! I may still purchase the one print available and stash it away until I find just the right place to hang it in my home.

The home tour continues...

2010-04-30T08:32:00.012-06:00

Now that you know what the main floor of my home looks like, lets go upstairs and have a look around.

The second floor of our home is much more open than the main floor. From the top of the stairs, its one big open space. From this vantage point you can see the nursery (first door on the left), linen closet and bathroom (straight ahead), loft space (to the right of the bathroom), and you can barely see the door to the laundry room on the right. The guest room is at the end of the hall on the left (difficult to see). The picture was taken from the doorway of the master bedroom.

Our master bedroom is a pretty descent size. Since moving in, we have upgraded to a king size bed so the room no longer seems as large. I'll hopefully show you soon what the room currently looks like....but I can't say the room is complete yet. It's still very much a work in progress.

Our master bath needs a complete remodel. I don't know what the architect and/or builder was thinking when they designed and built this house, but the bathroom has so much wasted space! The room itself is large, but there is very little storage, a dinky shower, and overall very oddly configured. I do love having a large soaking tub!! ....but the CARPET has got to go!

The laundry room is right outside the master bedroom. I love having the laundry room on the second floor. It makes doing laundry so convenient!!

We have three bedrooms in our home. When we first moved in, we had two guest rooms. This is how the first guest room originally looked. It has now been converted into a nursery for our son.

This is the second guest room. This room has been completely revamped and is now my favorite room in the house. I'll show pictures of the new room very soon!

Guest bathroom.

This is our loft which overlooks the entry. I love having this space which serves as a second tv room and our office space. I'm embarrassed to show the next picture, but this is what the space looked like shortly after we moved in.

Sadly, this space has not improved much over the last three years. It now serves as not only an office, and a tv room, but also as a play room for our son. We need to figure out a way to ORGANIZE!! Not my strong suit.

So now that you know where we started, stick around as I share all my decorating and organizing adventures!

Welcome to my home!

2010-04-30T07:00:00.001-06:00

We've lived in our home for three years now and we've slowly been making changes. Key word here is, slowly. Come along with me and I'll give you a quick tour of how the main floor of our house looked in the very beginning...

This is our entry way (aka Foyer if you'd like to be fancy). I love that the front door does not open directly into the living room! The view isn't all that appealing, but it will get better over time.

We don't necessarily need a formal living room, but if you're going to have one, it might as well be functional. We looked at many homes that had living rooms that were barely big enough for a sofa....and not much else. Our family room is large and I love the hardwood floors!

Our dining room isn't particularly large (it's a bit more narrow than the living room) but I love the archway between the living room and the dining room, and I again love the hardwood floors.

The kitchen was one of the things that sold me on the house. We looked at a ton of homes that had builder grade oak cabinets and white appliances. I loved that the kitchen had dark cabinets and stainless steel appliances. The countertops left much to be desired, but we knew we could change that easily enough. I also liked that the kitchen had tile rather than linoleum.

The family room is right off the kitchen which we really liked. I wish this room was a little larger, but we'll take what we can get. As you can see, my husband's man-couch does not fit in the room but we eventually did a switcheroo with the furniture in the living room. Loving the floors!

Rounding out the main floor is a powder room, the stairs to the basement and a coat closet (not pictured) which is just out of view, to the left. The flow of the floor plan is nice because it's basically one big circle with each room flowing into the next. This little hallway connects the entryway with the basement and the family room.

Thanks for visiting! You'll have to check back soon to see what the upstairs looks like!

Home Sweet Suburban Home

2010-04-29T09:48:00.001-06:00

For about the first year of married life, my husband and I lived in his two bedroom, two bathroom, 1,100ish square foot townhome in downtown Denver. We loved living there and enjoyed the great access to all that downtown living had to offer. Close to work for me (bonus!), close to many of our friends, close to all the bars and restaurants that we loved, and close to all the best shopping!! But we soon began to feel cramped in the small space and I longed for a home that felt like ours, rather than my husband's bachelor pad. We knew that looking for a larger home would mean a heftier mortgage so we began the delicate balance of finding a home that was larger....but in a location that we could live with and with a price that we could manage on one income (planning for the future!). We decided to move closer to my husband's job to cut down on his almost 2-hour commute per day; although that put us further away from my job (in the city). We knew that one day I would become a stay-at-home mom and I was willing to live with a longer commute in the short term.....so off to the burbs we headed. It took us approximately three months to find the house that we eventually purchased. We looked at many many many homes that were AWFUL, so when I came across the listing in the MLS for this home, I just knew it was the one.

What caught my eye was the brick facade on the front of the house. I felt it gave the house a bit of character in the otherwise unattractive homes of the suburban communities surrounding Denver. I never was a fan of the garage being the first thing you see on a house, but when you move out of the city and start looking at new(er) builds, your choices are severely limited. So I had to accept the fact that we were going to end up in a plain-jane suburban home and find something about the house that I loved. Unfortunately, although the brick on the home looked appealing in pictures, in person it wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. I love the look of red brick (the kind of brick you find on older homes in the city), but the brick on this house is a blond color........just like every other house on the street. Here I thought the brick would set our house apart, but apparently the builder got a deal on brick that day and slapped it up on all the homes in the neighborhood. Wa-wa-waaa. Even if the brick wasn't all that I'd hoped for, the house did have other redeeming features, and I could visualize us living here and creating a home together.

A bit about me

2010-04-27T20:50:00.003-06:00

Hellooooo blog world! My name is Shauna and I'm a wife and a stay-at-home mom to my beautiful little boy. My husband is an amazing father and a wonderful man that makes me laugh every single day. My dream was always to raise my kids without putting them in daycare and I adore my husband for making that dream my reality (among other things). Eventually I would like to sell real estate, but that will have to wait until there is a bit more routine to my life; it would be too hard to get started now with a baby that deserves my full attention.

I have been a blog addict for a couple of years now. I follow many blogs on a daily basis and I'm always on the hunt for new blogs that inspire me. I've been thinking about starting my own blog for awhile, but have procrastinated. However, on a daily basis I think of topics I'd like to blog about so I finally pulled the trigger.

Initially I was most drawn to blogs geared toward home improvement and decorating. Since becoming a mom just a few months ago, I've starting searching out blogs of other moms. I love reading about their life experiences as they raise their children - since I'm now raising a beautiful little boy of my own.

I anticipate that my own blog will be a haphazard mix of topics including home decorating, my experiences as a mother, the adventures of cooking for this non-cook, and other ramblings. In any case, I'm excited to finally get blogging! Welcome to my world!!