Hello there friends, thanks for stopping by my home tour! Come on in, make yourself comfortable and let me show you around a bit! If you’d like to learn more about me and my crazy family, please hop over and read about us here.
My family moved into our builder boring / potential dream home at the end of 2012. We have spent countless hours (and dollars – haha) turning it into the perfect home for us. It has been a long, slow labor of love, but the results have encouraged us to continue through the failures and setbacks and to make this house our forever home.
Front and Entrance
Living in a new subdivision neighborhood means that all front yards are basically the same. Our builder has kindly planted trees and shrubs in the exact same place in each yard. To set ours apart just a bit my hubby built retaining walls around our trees that I use as flower beds each spring. We have also tried to bring some color to the shrubs by planting a few flowering plants as well.
Living Room
This is where my family spends the majority of our time. It is truly the hub of the house, causing you to pass through on your way to the kitchen or to head upstairs. We love not having a TV in here (we have one in the family room and kitchen) and choose to have music playing often. When the radio isn’t on, the kids are playing the keyboard and having a dance party. Being a military family, we tend to travel often and bring souvenirs back that we love to display. Our eclectic mix of decor, from the Australian didgeridoo to the masks from the Bahamas and the sand from the Virgin Islands, to the Lapus Lazuli from Afghanistan all serve to remind us of where we have been and future travels that we are currently dreaming up.
Master Bedroom
Although I try to keep a good balance between masculine and feminine in the master bedroom, I have been incorporating bright colors to convey the lively and exciting couple that I think the hubs and I are. The apple green and cerulean blue make me oh so happy and add a whole new dimension to the decor. The heavy, dark furniture balances the floral duvet and tied back curtains nicely. This is my retreat and I feel calm the moment that I walk through the doorway.
Grace’s Bedroom
After Clint and I went surfing in Barbados, Grace decided that she was obsessed with surfing and was ready to redecorate her room. Of course she has never actually been surfing, but I suppose after spending as much time in Cocoa Beach, FL and Virginia Beach, VA as she has it’s only natural. Grace is most definitely an outdoor girl and she tends to gravitate towards the sea. She and I found a surfboard on Craigslist that we painted, hung some fun lanterns around the bed that her dad built and sewed a canopy for the bed to give it a bohemian look. You may also remember the DIY window valances from this post. I love that Grace’s personality shines through in this space.
Barrett’s Bedroom
Bear has a love of all things pirate. He is our crazy guy who would swing from his rope ladder and jump from the top bunk all day if we let him. And for the most part we do. He has yet to make a sister walk the plank, but I am just waiting for that day. You can read more about Bear’s room and the pieces I made for it here and here.
Emmalynn’s Room
Emmalynn turned two years old a week after we moved in, and yet her room was the very first that I decorated. As the baby of the family she tends to get hand me downs, both toys and sometimes clothes. I felt that she needed to have a space of her own that was unique to her. She has always loved owls, so we chose to decorate her room loosely around that, knowing that she is still young and very likely to change her mind. I painted the tree with the help of a projector that I found on Craigslist and added some shelves to display her owl and bird collection. Emma is now four and still has a thing for owls, purple is still her favorite color and she still adores her room.
Kitchen
This might as well be my bedroom with as much time as I spend in here. It is rare to find me anywhere but here, sometimes working, mostly cooking and baking. The kids even set up and do their homework here and it seems to serve as a catchall for everything from bug catchers to last month’s homework. Because of my die hard football addiction, we put a TV in here right when we moved in (it was the middle of the season!) so that I can make dinner and not miss the game…okay, and maybe catch up on Scandal and Grey’s…you caught me. It may throw some people off, but it works for us. My love for this room is unparalleled.
Patio (Pictures coming soon)
My kids adore dining al fresco and beg to do it at every opportunity. Clint designed (and did all the prep work!) for our patio and built the pergola himself to separate the dining area from the relaxing space. We strung lights on the pergola and have a couple of table top fire pits to light up the night. The patio is bordered with white rock and lit by rope lights. This is the space to be in if you love to entertain on warm summer evenings. BBQs and beers go hand in hand with our patio space.
There you have it, my home in a nutshell. I hope that you have enjoyed taking a peek in. Please know that if you ever truly drop by it will not look like this…it will look as though a category five hurricane has blown through. This is a busy house that is filled with five people, a dog, more toys than I care to admit and is bursting at the seams with love and goofiness, but it is all ours and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
