Week 26: I’m HOME!

I can’t tell you how excited and relieved I am that moving day is over.  Really, I think I almost killed my moving guys.  It was a long, long, long day.  Like 13 hours worth of moving long.  We were ALL exhausted and ready to quit, but those guys hung in there and got it done.  We moved all my heavy wood furniture and about 30 heavy boxes all packed up.  Exhausting, yes it was!

And now, I’m kicking back just a bit and already feeling like this is my home, sweet home.  I really have to pinch myself, now that the renovation is over and my bed and furniture is actually in place and I can really, really live here.  Wow, what a dream come true!  This house is going to be such a haven for me and it already feels so serene and comfortable.  Surrounded by my familiar things, it is extra special.

So, I’ll give a little recap on the moving day.  I didn’t take a lot of pics, it was such a busy, busy day and totally exhausting for all of us.  I’m so happy I hired some moving guys, we could never have done this with just my family.

The big moving truck arrived at 8 a.m. at my sister’s house.  This pic is at my parents house, but we started at my sister’s, since she had some of my furniture pieces at her house that she was keeping for me.  We only filled up about 1/4 of the truck from that stop and then headed to my parents.

Where the big storage house in the backyard has been housing all my stuff for over a year and 1/2.  It was full to the brim and we made a path, so that the movers could get in there and move it all.  I had them move all the furniture and all the packed boxes and some of the other things, I’ll get to later.  It’s amazing how much stuff we can all accumulate and a move will bring that painfully home.  I definitely need to get rid of more “stuff” and I have a feel I’ll be having a big yardsale in the spring.

Of course, I’ll invite all of YOU!

These 2 guys were great and hung in there all day long, getting me moved in.  It was not an easy task with all my heavy furniture.  These guys move commercial offices for a living and they said that moving a home is much harder.

A big truck is very necessary and we arrived at my new house and got all the furniture unloaded.  That was about 5:00 pm and then they had to go back as it was just about to get dark and finish getting all the boxes, which were all stacked in my new garage.  I can go through those one at a time until it all gets unpacked.

So,what the house is looking like right now.  Unpacking boxes and breaking them down.  All the furniture got placed that first day and that’s a big help. Then all the smaller things can be added.  Of course, I haven’t even started the decorating part yet, that will happen slowly, as I place lamps, prints and accessories. That’s when the real fun begins!

I haven’t even gotten all my clothes moved over yet, but I’ll get there soon.

OK, so I know you’re all dying for a peek at the house with furniture inside, right??  I knew you were!  It is absolutely surreal to me now to see all my furniture in here after dreaming about it for 6 months.  Tears of happiness for sure.

Coming in the small foyer and up the stairs, I had room here for my painted foyer table that I had in my old house.  I was so happy it fits well at the top of my stairs, as I still love this piece.   I added my vintage yardsale lamp and things are feeling pretty good already.

It’s as if my furniture was just made for this house, wait til you see it all in place!  God knew what he was doing.

Looking towards the dining room, we’ll get to it in a minute.

Here’s the living room with all my furniture in place.  Do you remember all of this from the Birmingham house?  It looks right at home here too, right?  The new rug was a housewarming gift from Shaw Floors and it’s an HGTV Home rug.  I can’t thank them enough for all they have done to help my house become a home.  I saw this rug at Haven this summer and fell in love with it.  It’s the perfect accent for my living room and I’ll be bringing more of this color in here.

Looking from the top of the stairs, the living room is looking good now.  I’ll have lots more to add in this room and will most likely look for a stylish sofa table to go behind the sofa on the wall and I just might bring back a gallery wall on that wall opposite the fireplace.  I’ll be getting a rustic mantel eventually for the fireplace too.

Moving to the dining room, my pretty table and chairs look right at home in here too.  The Ballards lantern is perfection over this table and I just love it.

I chose another seagrass rug for this space and this one’s from Overstock (I have found many rugs from them).  This one is bordered in brown and it’s 8’ square which fits my room perfectly.  It was very affordable and didn’t break the bank at around $150.

I will have fun adding some things to the sideboard in this house and adding some artwork above the board and batten.  Does this bring back memories from my other house?  I still love my traditional furniture and can easily modernize it with new fabrics.  I’m planning to add some simple panels on either side of the sliding glass doors.

My cute corner cabinet that I found a couple years ago fits in this corner.

 

Now, wait til you see the kitchen!  Oh my goodness, am I in love with these shelves!  I know, you just gasped didn’t you?

Me too, when I saw them go up.  My sweet brother-in-law, Bruce, came over with his cordless drill and hung them for me.  We gave Dad a break and he and mom went to the mountains for a few days and he totally deserved a break from renovations.  So, Bruce got these up in about an hour and I can’t tell you how much I love them. They make the kitchen!

I bought these shelves 2 years ago from Southern Accents in Cullman, AL (shelves and brackets), right before my life blew up and I moved back to Atlanta.  I knew that I’d use them eventually and when I began designing this kitchen, this wall was the perfect spot for them.  They are 4 feet long and both are the same size.  It will be so much fun to accessorize them and they are full of wormholes, so authentic and rustic.

I may wax them a bit with some clear wax to help protect the raw wood, but if you’re wondering, no I’m not going to stain them darker to go with my floor.  I thought about doing that, but decided I love the streaked rustic finish that they are  now and want the contrast of  lighter and darker in here.

One of my dear friends, Judy, came over and helped me unpack some of my kitchen boxes and we found my white plates, glasses, and lots of my green dishes.  I was grinning from ear to ear as these came out of the boxes again.

So, I’ll show you how Bruce put those shelves up.  My dad had made a template with a skinny board before we put the tile up, marking spots on the board where the studs are located in this wall.  That was a must to hang these shelves on studs and it just so happened that they fell at a really good spot for the brackets.  I showed Bruce where the template was and we began deciding what height to hang the shelves.

We marked the holes on the brackets with a Sharpie and Bruce began drilling with his cordless drill and a tile drill bit, which is supposed to keep the tile from breaking.  It worked!  No broken tiles.  I was biting my nails around this point, hoping that all would go well.

We even put some Frogtape over the marks to make sure it didn’t break (I had seen that done somewhere), but that wasn’t necessary.  He drilled the rest of them with no tape.

The hole is very small after drilling.  I was still super nervous about all of this, but Bruce is really handy and I trust him.  I am glad he did it and my dad didn’t have to deal with this situation.  He will be very happy to hear it’s all done when he gets home this week.

He actually drilled the first hole, put the bracket up and started the first screw and then to be sure it was absolutely correctly placed, drilled through the other holes while the bracket was on the wall.  That worked perfectly.  The holes are not evenly spaced and he wanted to be sure they were straight and even and he trusted the holes more than the marks.

See how pretty those brackets are, with the birds on them?  Love!  If you are in the market for architectural salvage and you are in Alabama, I urge you to head to Southern Accents.  They are one of my newest sponsors and I have loved working with them.  Fantastic one of a kind things!  I wrote a post about them 2 years ago and was blown away by all they have.

Several of you have asked about the bird brackets. I did get them from Southern Accents 2 years ago and hopefully they can still order them.  Click over to Southern Accents from the link and send an email and they will respond to you about any orders that you might have.  Here’s the email address: [email protected]

You can tell them I sent you and ask them about the bird brackets.  The brackets are new and the shelves are salvaged wood!

So, back to installing those shelves.  I did add some clear rubber discs on the back of the brackets too. That just seemed like a good thing to do with them resting on the tile.  Those rustic shelves made from reclaimed wood are heavy and we wanted to be sure they are anchored in studs.

Bruce got all of them installed one by one and then we screwed the shelves in place from underneath, so they aren’t going anywhere.

And now my kitchen is complete.  I am SO in love with my new kitchen! It truly came out exactly as I had hoped in my head.

You might remember this island from my old laundry room.  It didn’t fit in my old kitchen, but I do think it just might work in this one. I’m going to live with it in here for awhile and make sure I like it in here, but so far so good.  Since the window wall is not really useful space, I moved the island all the way down near the windows to free up as much floor space as possible.  I can still open the fridge with no problems and those drawers on the bank of lower cabinets to the right all fully open too, so I think the island would be handy for prep work and moving things back and forth to the fridge.  This island was custom built and I had it in my first house in Georgia.  Cute, isn’t it?  I will probably change out the tile on top for a solid black granite slab at some point.

The rug was ordered from Ballard Designs in one of their online rug sales and was just over $50.  I love the gray chevron pattern in here.

Moving on upstairs, this is the guestroom, my decorating holding area.  I moved all my breakables in here and this is the room I’ll shop from. Won’t that be fun? I still have a ton of boxes to unpack and then I’ll decide what goes where.

I mentioned that I’m getting a roommate, right??  Her name is Rhonda and she’s a good friend of mine who has been living in Denver for a few years.  We are both divorced and this will be good for both of us. And she has a dog!  I love dogs and am sure I’ll fall in love with her furball, Cody.  He’s a Bishon mix and looks adorable.  The fact that he doesn’t shed is a big plus to me letting a dog in the house.  We are both excited and she is moving back here right after Thanksgiving, so I’ll have time to get her room all cleared out.

My office space is coming alive too with my desk in place and I added the black console table behind it. My Ballards shelves will go above the console table and I will have some fun with this office.  So happy to have a fully functioning office space in this house.

The blue slipcovered chair will be nice in here too, when I have company over. Just washed the slipcover and it’s not back on yet and I still have to hang the Ikea drapes in here too.

I brought in the pretty bookcase I found at a yardsale in Birmingham and it will be great in here for storage.  I’m also doing a fun Ikea storage unit inside the turquoise closet soon too.

Moving down the hall to my master bedroom, you’ve seen the sneak peek of my gingham painted wall treatment. I promise I’ll do a complete tutorial on that this week too. It was really easy and a fun treatment to do. I love it in here and everyone who’s seen it loves it too.

I’m just in love with my big master bedroom.  All my furniture fits in here so well and it’s not crowded at all.  This is just bare bones, so it will be changing when I bring in all the accessories and fun things.  Not to mention hang my blinds and get my panels up there.

Notice my ever so stylish window treatments?  Yep, those cardboard boxes come in handy for all sorts of things.  I’ll get those blinds up this week! There is SO much to do, but I’m already enjoying sitting in my white chair and ottoman when I get a chance to sit down and rest.

I did hang my new shower curtain (found at TJ Maxx) and I love the crisp white and green stripes.

Lots of unpacking to do to get organized again.

My sweet vintage vanity fits just perfectly in this nook. I had already measured it, but it sure was nice to see it slide into place. I haven’t gotten the mirror back on it yet, but this will be my spot for putting on makeup.  I’ve got to change the fabric on my bench and would you believe, I have never figured out how to get the seat off this thing. I’ve looked and looked and can’t spot it, but I have to change this fabric.

I’ve brought over most of my clothes and can’t wait to get this closet organized. Still  haven’t painted the bi-fold doors dark brown yet, but it’s on the list.

There’s a good shot of those snazzy window treatments of mine. Don’t you want some just like them?

Loving the Dash and Albert rug I got from Wayfair.  Thank you, Wayfair!

Downstairs in the den, it’s coming along too.  We’ve been working on changing out the ceiling tiles in here and it looks SO much better. I’ll do a whole post on that soon too.  Changing those out was a bit of a pain, but totally worth it.  We still have a few more to change out.   This is one corner of the den, where I put all my extras for now.

And this is the main area of the den, where I’ll be watching TV for the most part.  That rug came from Rugs USA on one of their big sales.  I loved the colors and thought it would really pull my furniture together down here and I love it.

Looking back towards the stairs.  You can see a few ceiling tiles still missing. We’ll be working on that soon too, the light fixtures and vents still have to be fixed.  The white ceiling looks so much better already though.

My pretty antique piece will land here as the new entertainment center. We’ll put a flat screen TV on top and it will be perfect.

So, that’s a tour of the in progress new home.  I can hardly believe I’m in here now, it’s been such a long and tiring journey.  I am so, so thankful to have this house and it is one that I will embrace and love for so many years to come.  Getting to make this house my new home is just the best!  God has truly blessed me beyond my dreams and I’m soooooo thankful for his grace and gifts.

I’ll leave you with one more pic. You’ll get a kick out of this story.

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you might remember that I had this shabby cabinet hanging in one of my bathrooms.  I bought it from a lady in my old subdivision’s yardsale and she had bought it at Lakewood Antiques here in Atlanta.  I loved it and paid $25 for it. My sister has been using it at her house and really wanted to keep it, but I told her I definitely had plans for it in my new house.  I went over one day and got it from her house after telling my dad I had a cabinet that is going in my master bathroom that we need to hang.

He asked me about it and I told him, “oh you won’t like it. You will wonder why I want to hang this up.”  I brought it home in my trunk and he asked me if I had it. I said yes and he insisted on going out to take a peek.  I lifted the lid of my trunk and as it opened and he gazed inside at this shabby beauty, the words that came out were, “Oh, my Lord!”

See, I said, I knew you would hate it.  We had to take a pic of both of our votes on the shabby cabinet.

Thumbs UP from me! 

Here’s another heads up on a Twitter party I’m co-hosting this Thursday night (the 25th) at 8 pm EST.  We’ve got some great prizes happening, so I hope to see you there.

Sponsored by Homes.com, the chat will be lively and inspiring for Fall.  And you could win some great giftcards too!

Homes.com is an inspiring and exciting partner, providing options, assistance and a helping hand to ease the stress of shopping for a home and living in your abode; an enjoyable experience for users to write their ʻhome storyʼ and achieve the American Dream. They want to help you turn your house into a home with resources on their blog. So if you’re looking to move, or just want to drool over some million dollar homes {cause let’s be honest, we all love doing that}, head over to Homes.com. 

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