GRATEFUL!

I am extremely grateful that I have a beautiful new house! :) Closing went great last Friday and we even got the keys early, the sellers are wonderful and so fanastic to work with! It is such a blessed time, crazy time, but so fun to be a homeowner! So here is what I am grateful for:





Josh...if it wasn't for him I wouldn't have been able to afford such a wonderful house by myself. I am so happy to share this new experience with him.







Griffin!! He absolutely adores the house, he runs in and outside and around all the rooms. He is still trying to manage the wood floors, but luckily is able to manage them when it comes to bed time..hmm.

My parents and Josh's ( I don't have a picture of them digitally!)...my parents have helped us move, my mom lined every drawer in my kitchen (never something I would do) she has taken days off work to just help empty boxes, bought us all new bathroom ware! My dad has given us blinds, paintings and restoring our dining room table. Josh's mom bought us an awesome housewarming gift of a new flatscreen! Yes, I will finally be able to see the scores! :)

I am grateful for very many things in life and over the past week with things at work and the house I realized I need to really count my blessings! :)

Laundry Room

Never thought I would blog about my laundry room but here goes nothing.

We have a laundry room in the basement where the sellers are leaving their 2 year old washer and dryer (SCORE!). The rest of the room is currently just used as storage but Josh is turning this large open area into his 'man cave' with storage for our yes count 'em 5 pairs of skis and 4 bikes. (I account for 1 of each!) We have a laundry chute which is right outside our bedroom and bathroom which goes right into the laundry room and there is a little inlet on the side so when I saw this little extra space Josh was so kind to give up some of his 'man cave' space for a proper laundry room.

I have been searching and searching trying to figure out what I want for this look nook area. I have searched the internet over and over and I found some great pictures, but none of them depict exactly what I am looking for. So guess what I did? I sketched something up. Anyone that knows me well I am sure is going to laugh at this chicken scratch of a drawing, but hey I have the perfect image in my mind! :)

Here are some pictures of what I like in the laundry rooms:

I really like this little unit- I want a rod which can hold drying clothes, a folding table and a spring board iron. I don't need to have closed cabinets or drawers so I like the lower shelving unit below to hold baskets, detergent,etc

I like this option for around the laundry unit- however less ceiling to floor shelves. I am tall and I really don't want to be placing baskets, etc on bottom shelves.
Last, but certainly not least a spring board ironing board. I can tell you why I don't iron right now- I HATE taking out the ironing board and setting it up for 5 minutes of use. This little baby will solve all my problems! Now spring board ironing boards are actually pretty expensive - around $200 dollars- so we are going to design our own. I figure a business major and engineering major can figure something out?!

Now to the awesome picture you have all been waiting for, my own drawing. Now please don't compliment me too much on the level of detail. I spent a good 5 minutes of work time on this. Look at that beauty- obviously W and D stand for washer and dryer. There are Josh's shirts hanging up on the rod above the folding table. I couple of shelves above the units for extra stuff and below the folding table.

Josh has seen this sketch and is ready for the challenge! This will probably be a winter project, but I will update with how it all comes along :)

Open Shelving

Back in college I lived in a beautiful castle which was built almost 100 years ago. The artitecture was amazing from the spiral staircase to our inside baloncy. There were rooms we called 'vanity row' that had these awesome built ins for each room- which comprised of the closet, a vanity with shelving and cabinets. So when I saw our house had the same features I was incredibly excited because it reminded me of my beloved Sorority.

After the ohh and aww wears off, I got to thinking what am I going to put in these open shelves and cases? I love what the current owners have in there now- dishwear! I have never been a tidy person....but here's to trying. I saw this post from The Newlywed Diaries on open shelving units. While I am not in love with any of the pictures of these open shelves I was inspired by some of these pictures I found.

Our shelving is white, our linen curtains are white (I will have a fun filled post about curtains...), the walls are a wheat color and the crown molding is white. So I thought these plates could be a nice pop of color to the room. Now, I definitely don't like going too crazy with color, but we found some very inexpensive plates to add that punch. We choose:

So once we have everything set up I will take pictures of the final project, but the idea that I have in mind for this open shelving seems like a good plan! :)