decorating

We’ve been getting a lot of requests to see the new house. Mostly, I’m sure, folks want to pick apart our design aesthetic and say things like, “hmmm, isn’t that rug from Ikea?” To which I say, “HA! We’re not done yet.”

And which has been the main reason I haven’t wanted to post pictures yet. We’re not done. Things are very much still a work in progress. But, we think it really is coming along nicely, and since so many people have asked, and we’re really quite house proud, I thought I’d post some photos. Hopefully, we can use them later on as ‘before’ photos. Without further ado or qualifiers:

This is immediately inside the door. We’re actually looking for something to replace that entry way table. Maybe something with a little height? Also: artwork needed throughout the house.

This is on the entryway table. It’s a painting of our house that I commissioned as a housewarming gift for XFE. It was a bit of a frustrating experience dealing with the artist (was supposed to be 7-10 days, received it a full month later), but still worth it.

The living room. That glass console table needs a lot. Books, artwork, just everything.

Another view of the living room. The cream leather couch is new (XFE;s perch), as are the cocktail tables, rug and entertainment center. We have actually ordered the Blake chaise from West Elm in dark gray for my seating area (to replace the old couch in the bottom of the frame) but it’s still about six weeks out. I believe very slow children with small fingers are making it. Or something.

Another view of the rug, the travertine topped cocktail tables and the entertainment center. We’re pretty obsessed with all three of these items. We plan to have the television mounted on the wall and then we’ll paint the entire living room a nice, medium gray tone. And get much brighter pillows to brighten things up.

The dining area and into the kitchen. We’re looking for a new rug to go under the dining room table after moving the gray ikea rug upstairs for Petunia (you’ll see later).

The kitchen. Forgive my lighting. I did this photo shoot early in the morning, five minutes before leaving for work. This place is really, really bright in the morning.

Another kitchen view.

View from the sink of the backyard. This is very much a construction zone right now. We’re having a shed built and in fact, you can see the materials under a tarp on the left hand side. I’ll take pictures of that, and the backyard, when all that’s done.

The hallway towards our bedroom (and our crooked comforter). The washer and dryer are behind those doors on the right.

We bought that duvet cover in Ireland and we’re thinking it might be time to replace it with something else. But I like that it’s silk and therefore, Petunia hair slides right off it. Also, the black and white photos on the wall were all taken by XFE and come from each of our trips. We obviously have more to hang. We’ll get around to it.

My overstuffed closet. My shoes are in the narrow closet between mine and XFE’s. See Toons photobombing AGAIN? She tried to get in every photo. I’m pretty sure that’s why this photo is blurry. I probably was trying to shoo her away.

My bathroom. Still in love with it. I love everything about it.

This is the second bedroom, basically the Petunia room. it’s pretty small and we have the two closets packed with stuff from our old shed (the wine fridge, luggage, golf stuff, winter clothes). That’s the old Ikea rug that used to be under our dining table. Since we want to paint the walls gray in the dining/living area, we thought it was too much gray, so we’re looking for maybe a turquoise or some other blue rug to go in the dining area. Let me know if you have any good suggestions (modern, geometric design preferred).

XFE’s bathroom. The walls are actually more brown than this picture suggests, and it’s a really big bathroom, but since it doesn’t have a sparkly glass sink, obviously, I took the other one.

He does have this very spacious and incredibly cool pebbly shower. In fact, it’s so spacious, he’s ordered a teak bench to sit in there. We also added the glass doors, which it did not come with. He also wants to paint the walls, maybe some kind of blue. He says “something more spa-like.”

So that’s our house! Still a work in progress, like I said. We’re still moving things around, buying things, hanging things.  But we have a lot of ideas and we’ll keep posting photos as we go. Let me know if there’s anything you want to see more of and I’ll post it!