Our Pretty House - a Tour

Over the weekend, we had a photographer come take family pictures in our home. She came at 11, which means that I was frantically cleaning from 8am to 10:45am and by 10:50, our house looked the best that it's ever looked! I was excited, so in the ten minutes that we waited for her to come, I ran around and took pictures of each room in the house.
I'm excited to give you guys a house tour (Uh, yes. It includes THIRTY pictures. Hope that's cool.)
As this is our first house, we've been working really hard to make it feel like us. We've painted the walls, restained the floors, hung up a lot of pictures and slowly been accumulating furniture that we love.
Some areas of the house, like the basement, are not even close to being finished. (Notice, I didn't include any pictures of the bathroom or laundry room downstairs. That's because it's basically stained sheetrock and open ceilings still!)
But other areas of the house, like my bedroom and the upstairs living room, feel really good. I love them and feel so at home and happy there. I'm not constantly wincing or saying "We need a new lap there and should really replace the desk, soon."
Also, I included a few pictures of our house from Instagram (#littlepitcherhomestead) because there are a few good shots that you didn't get to see in this tour, like the outside view, or our pretty new desk, or those lovely black and white pictures of my grandmothers above the kitchen table.



Here we go! This is the view when you walk in the front door. Straight ahead is the hallway to the bedrooms, and to the left is the kitchen.

Here is our kitchen. I actually really dislike most of the kitchen. It's so dark and brown, which - as you can probably tell from the rest of the house- is not really our style. We are hoping to put hardwood floors in here soon, and lighten up the cabinets. But in the meantime, I just make myself feel better with pretty pictures and a big sunshiney window.

Our cute next door neighbor is a little old German man, and he actually built our cabinets for us when the last owners remodeled the kitchen in the sixties.

 It helps me feel better about life to have a few herbs in the sink, and these cute salt and pepper shakers- which belonged to my great-grandma! (You may notice, I have a lot of her things. :) I love having little, useful things around the house that remind me of my heritage.)

Aaaand, here's the boys' room. They all sleep together, and hopefully we'll get them another loft bed soon, so Micah can stop sleeping on a baby mattress on the floor. But, yes. It's his favorite bed and he begs to sleep there. Weirdo!

See that pretty dollhouse that my Grandpa Roger built for August this Christmas? We love it!

 Lookit that bookshelf. I BUILT IT. I'm still very proud.

And some art by me (wall-hanging) and some art by Grey (Valentine's Day Fox.)

Then the bathroom. (This is all very exciting, right?)

This amazing print (below) was created for me by my dear bosom friend, Lana, and hangs in our hallway. She read through the Little House books to gather all these Ma Ingall's quotes. I bet you can guess my favorite.
Little pitchers have big ears!

But I try to use them all regularly. Like, "Hunger is the best sauce," and "All together with a will," and "Least said, soonest mended."
I think it would annoy my children if they didn't assume that all Moms speak like that.



And here's my pretty room, with my pretty quilt on the bed (my proudest accomplishment besides my children), and my pretty cradle in the corner (another of my Grandpa Roger's creations.)

Oh, and he made that airplane, too. Aaaand, the cradle is full of quilts made by me and my grandma's.

 A close up of our pictures, because I love them. Especially the kid-art.

And now the basement, which is basically used as a tv/play room.

 That carpet is soft and squishy like a fuzzy trampoline.

 Oh, and there are all our books! Were you wondering where they got off to?

I like to call this room (below) "The Library," because it's fun to pretend that we have a library.
It looks like we have school here, but its an illusion. We usually do school in the living room or in my bed! (Beds are the best place to snuggle, and I consider snuggling and reading to be an important part of school.)

Then around the corner, is this little secret room. It's full of toys! And everything that I hate. Like the keyboard, and toy food, and little tiny puffballs. Who invented playrooms? They were so smart!

The last room in the house is the guest/ sewing room. I agree. It needs a bookshelf. And some lamps. And more pictures!
But at least it has this amazing quilt in it:

 The quilt on the bed was made by my Grandma Marcie for my wedding, and the crocheted one was made by my grandma Mary. I love all my crafty and talented family members. They make my home so lovely.
And on the other side of the room, is my sewing table.

 Including this pretty little dresser, which belonged to my great-grandma- and this stuffed loon (which was also hers.) Loons are the Minnesota state bird, and  I love them. It seems like such a Minnesotan thing to have, especially since people almost always ask "Why do you have a ... weird stuffed duck?"
Ha! It's a loon! You non-Minnesotans are so silly.

 And that's my house! I'd say more stuff, but my kids apparently "need me."
 Next time you come over, pretend my house is always this clean! And if you never come over, my house IS always this clean! BELIEVE ME. And it smells like baking bread, and it is very quiet, except for when we are singing beautifully like the Von Trapps.
This is all real.


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Home Sweet Home

Do you guys want to hear more about the new house?
Good, because it's all that I think about, all day long, and cleaning, rearranging, and decorating it is all that I do, all day long.

Every time that I shift the couch a few inches, or hang up another picture, or unpack some more books, I go and stand by the front door and survey the room.
I can't help it.
I stand there and think, "If this were my first view of the Pitcher's house, what would I think of it, and what would I think of them?"
"If I were Travis, coming home from a long day at work, would I be stressed out by the clutter and unwelcomed by the chaos, or is my home calm, welcoming, and cozy?"
"If I were my children, coming home from a rough day out in the mean world, would I feel happy and safe here?"
"If I were myself, would I enter this door and feel angry that I have to come home to this, or would I feel rested and grateful to be here?"

That's a lot to cram into your front room.
And I try to cram it into every room of my house.

I want people to come in my door, and feel like it's a place where they can laugh and be happy.
I want them to see the cozy handmade quilts and shelves of brightly colored books, and want to snuggle up with a cup of cocoa and stay for a while.
I want them to see the family pictures, and feel a connection to myself, my husband, and children - and understand how much love and happiness we have, and want to share in it.
I want them to see the pictures of Christ, the prophet, and the temple, and know that we believe in God and try very hard to be good people.
I want our home to be clean, orderly, uncluttered; and yet full to bursting with warmth, happiness, welcome, and love.
I want it to feel cozy and old-fashioned; while also being stylish, beautiful, and a even bit modern.

One of the nicest compliments that I ever received was from a friend about to get married. I didn't have children yet (so my house was a lot tidier, and my dinners more impressive), but she said, "You're a really wonderful homemaker. I want to try to be as good a wife as you."

I think about that all the time. That's what I want to be. I want to make this a home. I want to be a really good Home-Maker. 
I want every one who comes in our front door, to feel as if they were home, too.  Happy, safe, welcome, warm, full, loved.

And I'm curious about you other home-makers (whether or not that's your job title), what do you want your home to be? How do you try to foster those feelings and attitudes in your house?

Do you want to come and visit me? I will feed you some of the warm chocolate chip cookies that I'm going to go bake in a minute, and we can chat and knit and watch our kids run around like little maniacs and destroy the calm that I'm trying to achieve.

And please vote for Baby Making! We like to stay on the front page, it brings so many new visitors to the blog!

 

Unpacking

I HATE living in a packed house. It feels like being in a storage unit: all our stuff is here, but it's not quite a home.
For that reason, I put off packing for a long time. I didn't want to take down our pictures and have to face bare walls. I didn't want to box up our food and cereal, even things I wasn't using like hot cocoa, because I often cook three meals a day and I want my whole kitchen available to me.
I certainly didn't want to pack my books and clothes. I NEED them. I need them, I say!
What that means is: I started packing on Tuesday (but mostly Wednesday), and we loaded up the truck on Friday. (I packed for two and half days: POWER PACKING!) and now that we are here, I have been unpacking like a maniac.

Kitchen: Unpacked.
Boys' Room: Unpacked.
Bathroom: Unpacked.
Living Room: About 50% done. It took us a long time to decide where couches and bookcases went, and we didn't want to fill up the cases and then have to move them.
Our Bedroom: Almost finished.

And with every box that I unpack, I fall more in love with our new place. IT IS AWESOME.
The kitchen is beyond adorable. It has so much more room and space than our last kitchen. There are big windows, cupboards, a bar countertop, even room for a dining table! It's only flaw is that it has no dishwasher.
(Also, despite being "unpacked" the house is still a mess, so forgive the messes in the following pictures!)



The living room is spacious and bright. It has a floor-to-ceiling, entire-wall window that lets in light all day. It has hardwood floors, and is twice as big as our last living room. I want to spend all day in it.  We just ordered {this} rug, and I can't wait for it to get here! It will be completely perfect!



The boys' bedroom is absurdly huge. HUGE, I tell you! The giant bookcase that was once in the sewing room, has been relocated to the only place with the space for it: their room.   The boys have already taken to their space, and love it. We play in there, and they run in there when they're ready for naps or looking for bottles. I keep finding more boxes of things that I have to store in there, because there's so much space in their room.


The bathroom is great, it has lots of cupboards and drawers and space. The only problem is, the bathroom is all BRIGHT PINK. Which wouldn't bother me so much, except that it makes it hard to take good bathtub pictures of the boys...

Our backyard is HEAVEN. There's a great big yard, with a fence around it. It has a huge shady tree (hammock included), a sandbox, a garden full of the neighbor's herbs, veggies, and flowers, and a picnic table and fire pit to boot! Hello, perfect yard. We will spend all day with you.


The boys wake up in the morning and run straight to the back door. When I open the door they head down to the yard, where they climb into the sandbox and play for hours at a time. Sometimes they get out and run around the yard, or sit in the little cars that Grandma and Grandpa bought them last week. I was worried because our house is at the top of a hill, and the parks are all at the bottom of the hill (and when I say hill, I mean mountain.), but I don't think we'll ever need to go to the park again. We have everything we need right here!



Our bedroom is also big, but doesn't quite fit our furniture. I think we might have to find a new dresser and get rid of our current bedroom set. That's why you don't get any pictures of the room, except that one of the closet. I can't bear to share pictures of it at this stage. It's too manic in there!


Over the next few weeks and months, I'll probably be sharing finished room pictures. But not yet. This is still the "before"stage.  I didn't even bother to clear the boxes off the couches before I took these pictures....