Our House

Two years ago today, Zac and I got the keys to our first house. For three years we had been living in an apartment two blocks away from what would soon be our home. When we first started the search for a house we had no idea that it we would be lucky enough to find the perfect one so close by.

Since Zac and I moved in, we've made some changes; things that have made us love our home even more.

One of the first changes we made was to the coat closet in the foyer. When we moved in, it had an accordian style door, two shelves, and a hanging rod. That particular wall was painted green.

I saw a picture online of a mudroom style closet that I loved, so Zac and I started to revamp the coat closet. Zac removed the door, the shelves, and the hanging rod. We painted the inside of the closet a light shade of green while the walls got a few coats of a warm tan color. Zac built a padded bench to take the place of the lower shelf. We purchased three pillows and Zac made three more to be placed on the bench. After adding six hooks along a strip of trim, we finished the closet by adding a wall decal that reads "Breathe, you're home."

Another closet change took place in our office. We decided to transform our third bedroom into an office and since the room had more than one closet we decided to turn one of them into a large built in book case. This is what it looked like when we first moved in:

And this is how it looked after we removed the two sliding doors and added four shelves:

When we first moved in and people saw pictures of our formal sitting room, they thought that we were crazy. It was true, the room needed a lot of help. For starters each wall was a different color. The longest wall was tan, the smalled wall was red, and the third wall was a medium shade of green. What really threw the look of the room off was the dark black color of the fireplace.

Zac and I saw the potential and got to work picking out paint colors to fix the problem. We ended up with a rich, warm tan color. With all the walls sharing a color the room already felt bigger and more inviting. The room really lightened up with the final coats of white paint on the fireplace. After the wedding we plan to finish furnishing our larger living room space and this smaller room will become a sitting room.

The biggest change came in our kitchen. When we moved in the kitchen felt a little cave-ish. The stain on the cabinets was dark and the walls were painted a dark red. The only touches of light color were the white appliances.

You'll see from the photo below that we painted all of our cabinets white to lighten up the space. We also removed the cabinet hanging above the counter. Though we eliminated four cabinet spaces to place dishes it was well worth it to open up the room and create a nice flow from kitchen to informal dining and living spaces. (We repurposed the kitchen cabinets by hanging them in the garage and giving Zac more space to organize his tools.)

From a different point of view you can really see how that red color (and the green color on the larger living room wall in the background). The contrast of the red against the brown tile and dark cabinets really made the space feel small.

Though we don't love the brown tile countertops (which can also be found in all of our bathrooms) it hasn't been high on our priority list of changes to make. Eventually we'll change it out but for now we're working to highlight what we've got. Our new paint color really works with it rather than against it. The tan color of our walls compliments the tile well which makes the tile stick out less.

In the picture above you can see that the trim around the lighting is white. When we first moved in the trim was the same dark stain as the cabinets. (You can kind of see it in the photo below.) We gave the ceiling a fresh coat of white paint and then decided to paint the trim white, too. It did a lot to make the lighting less of a focal point and it no longer felt like the ceiling was going to close in on us.

Compared to the photo above our new kitchen (pictured below) is a much lighter, brighter space. That's not just because the photo is taken in the day with the blinds open. (I realize it's not the fairest of comparisons.)

The white paint on our fireplace, trim, kitchen ceiling, and cabinets have all done wonders to lighten up our space. We're really happy with the changes that we've made to the house, especially to the kitchen.

These pictures were all taken last summer. Since then we've made several more changes to the house including changing out the light fixtures downstairs, hanging up family pictures, and other decor changes. One of these days I'll have to post a video tour to show all of the fun things we've done.