Come on in!

You may have noticed that my blog got a facelift. I hope you like it! I missed the red bike so it's back.

I've been going on and on for months about our new house. Thanks to all of you who have suffered through pre-construction talks, realtor problems, construction, closing, and my inability to get everything organized. Well, I told you that while Lauren and I were in Cleveland, Marty pretty much finished organizing the house. Of course, I have been home for a few days now and some of his work has been undone! LOL! But this is about as good as it gets at the England house so, as promised, here are some inside shots. I'll just do the downstairs today. The floor plan is below. However, our house is just a bit different than this because we have a third car garage and our patio is extended a little. But the rooms are all correct so come on in for the tour! (If you want to see any of the pictures larger, just click on them.)

Of course, you walk in where it says entry. If you look straight ahead, you will see the staircase and the living room through the foyer. I gave you a close-up of the plant thing in the nook. Why??? Well, because I made it and I'm proud of it!! LOL! I'm not very crafty so this is about as good as it gets. The vase was like $100 bucks but it had a little chip in it so we got it for $8. And then we found the sticks and marbles at Michaels. So the total cost was under $20.

We're still standing at the front doorway. If you look to your right, you will see the messiest room of the house ... our office. I'm a little embarrassed. I thought of cleaning it for the picture but why even try. This is just what it always looks like. In our old house, we could just close the doors. But now we have French doors. We didn't think that through very well! Now look to your left and you will see the formal living room. This is one of my favorite rooms. I have lots of old family pictures on the walls. The couch and chair are Marty's grandparent's furniture. And the rocking chair was a gift to me from Marty when we had Nicholas. You can't see very well but the table has a bunch of old photo albums on it. A couple of them belonged to my great grandmother. And inside the table, I have some old books, family bibles and other memorabilia.

Finally, you get to move out of the front doorway ... but not far! If you walk into the formal living room, you will see that it is connected to the formal dining room. There is a hallway that goes past the butler's pantry and into the kitchen but we will come back to that.

Now you need to go back in the foyer and walk straight ahead and you will see the living room. We decided not to have a television downstairs (except in our room) so this is mainly just a sitting/reading room. The walls still need more stuff on them. And if you look on the fireplace mantle, you will see stuff that needs to be moved. Somehow that picture of me and Marty just landed there and I need to hang it up at some point. My mom loves the picture frame because it just has some random family in it ... you know how picture frames come with pictures already in them?

Are you keeping up with me? Now we are walking out of the living room. If you look up, you can see the walkway upstairs and if you look straight ahead, you will see the foyer, staircase and formal living/dining rooms.

Now turn to your right and there's the kitchen. I love the kitchen! I'm not sure why because I don't cook much but it is a really nice kitchen. The island is huge! All of the countertops are granite and there's a nice tiled backsplash. If you look at the picture below right, you will see both of the most controversial items of the house!! LOL! I NEEDED the double oven and a larger sink (you know ... for when I'm soaking the pans I don't cook with!). Marty didn't think we needed either one. Well, as you can see, I got both of these things but I did have to compromise a little. I'll show you where in just a second.

Here's the compromise! I wanted ceramic tile all through the living room. But Marty wanted carpet. As you can see, he got the carpet and I got the double oven and big sink. Now back to the tour. You are now looking at the breakfast nook and just past that is a little computer desk. It currently has Marty's REALLY old laptop on it. Sometimes it will connect to the Internet and sometimes it won't. I never use it but the kids do sometimes.

We've been in the kitchen too long. Let's walk past the refrigerator and you will come to the little hallway that connects the kitchen to the formal dining room. To the left is the butler's pantry. I had to look that up online. Apparently you use a butler's pantry to keep your fine china for dinner parties and stuff. Whatever. We use it for storage and booze! You can see Lauren is eyeballing it already. I suppose we will have to have a locking butler's pantry before long! And to the right, we have our pantry. You can't really tell from this picture but this is the biggest pantry I have ever seen!!! From the door to the back wall, it's almost 9 feet! Crazy big but very nice for holding lots of snacks for the kids.

Now we're going to go past the living room and down the hallway. You will pass the coat closet and a powder bath. And then when you get to the end of the hallway, we will turn right. Now we're in the room I spend the second most time in ... the laundry room! Pretty exciting! We're going to get another refrigerator for this room but right now, it just has the washer and dryer, a cabinet and the litter box. Let's get out of here! Turn around and go straight ahead. You can see my bedroom.

But before you get in my room, turn right into my bathroom. This is a pretty cool room. It's like a big hotel bathroom. Marty decided he wanted slate all on the floor and in the shower. It turned out really nice. I couldn't get a very good picture but Marty and I each have separate sinks (not a double sink ... totally separate vanities). And the bathtub is nice but I haven't used it yet. It's really just a glorified drinking fountain for the cat! If you walk all the way into the bathroom, you will come to some sliding mirrored doors. If you open them, you are in the closet. It's big but it's a mess. It holds our clothes as well as Marty's baseball card collection.

And that concludes your tour of the downstairs of my house. I know I didn't show you my bedroom but the bed isn't made and there's nothing on the walls yet. Very boring. It's just a regular room with 3 windows and a door out to the patio.

Thanks for coming along. I'll try to get the pictures of the upstairs this weekend and take you on that tour although I can't promise clean kids' rooms or playroom!

My music selection today was easy. The radio station the kids listen to must play this every third song. I like the song but I'm hearing it a bit too much. It's Chris Daughtry: Home. And I'm playing this because I finally feel like we are home. Marty and I will celebrate our 12th anniversary next month and the whole time we have been in transition, knowing that we would be moving in just a couple of years. We plan to stay in this house until all of the kids are gone ... and maybe even longer than that.

Good night! I'm off to enjoy my evening. Marty took Austin to Arkansas with him this weekend so the house will be more quiet than normal. I'm planning to go scrapping with some friends tomorrow night if I can talk Mom into babysitting (what do you say, Mom??!!).