fancy a tour?

We did it! We signed, and signed, and signed some more, and they tell us we own a house now! Papers were being faxed from the stupid selling bank up to the minute, but they got it all in, and we were able to settle on time; praise the Lord! After that, we dashed over to our new home for a nutritious quick dinner, then I had to run off to work that evening, haha. Longest night at the store EVER! Now that I can fill, organize, and decorate a house of my own, I just can't wait.

So, at long last, here is a tour of the Hallead Home.

Here I am in front of our townhouse!

Here's what you see when you walk through the front door. (And yes, I get to come home to this studly gentleman every day.)

To your right is a coat closet and a half-bath.

This is the lovely half-bath. The wall paper will come down shortly. (You kind of get dizzy while you're sitting in there.)

To your left is the mudroom that leads into our garage. (So nice to have a mudroom. We are shoe-taker-offer people.)

Then a little further to the right is the stairwell and the laundry room. (No more creepy basements for laundry!)

And the left opens up to the living room.

Moving along, you've got your dining room... (There's slider to the back patio, those awful blinds are coming down immediately.)

... and the kitchen! Yay!

Alright, moving upstairs. First, on the landing, there is a "lovely" wood inlay.

I mean, I wouldn't choose it, but I'm not gonna rip it out. There might be a nice little rug going over that baby.

Here's the landing from over the top of the stairs. Two bedrooms to the right, a shared bathroom in the center, the master suite to the left. I don't know if you can tell, but there's a big space in the landing area (if you follow the line of the wood you can tell). That'll be a nice family computer or toy storage area.

Bedroom #1 (future future baby room)

Bedroom #2 (guest room)

Guest/"kid's" bathroom

Into the master bedroom. Closet on right, bathroom on left.

Isn't she a beauty? I've never had a walk-in closet.

The lovely lavender bathroom. This will be painted shortly. Oh, and there was a dragonfly border. That's already been peeled off.

And the rest of the room. It's a touch small, but we won't need a lot of dressers cause we have the whole closet. Oh yeah, and a whole house. ; )

Hope you enjoyed that! I'd much rather show people around in person, but for my far-away friends, this will have to do. More updates later on painting and moving!

tomorrow we sign

We're buying a house tomorrow. Aaaaaaagh! So nervous. If everything goes well, I should I have pictures by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, here's something I picked up for a fun project in the new house.

Curious? I'll have the full story later. Right now I have to get a certified check for A WHOLE LOT OF MONEY for tomorrow. But it'll be worth it. We're very excited.

nothing to see here

So, since my last post over a month ago virtually NOTHING NEW HAS HAPPENED WITH THE HOUSE. We're still waiting here for things beyond our control to happen. I've been completely fried, and it's affected every part of my life. But, today, I've decided that we will move when it's the right time to move, no sooner. So there's  no use going crazy over it. Thankfully we have wonderful landlords who are very understanding and are fine with us staying as long as we need to. But each day in this apartment draws me closer to the brink of insanity....

So, we're not going to think about that now. We're going to look at pretty old pictures! Here are some more fun finds from my grandma's stash:

These are my great-grandparents on one of their many trips with friends.

 Here they are feeding bears (?!?)

 Here's a classy one of my great-grandfather

This one makes me laugh

Alright, let's change gears. here are some fun pics of Mimi and Pappap. My mom's parents:

That's mom in the picture!

This one's kind of romantic somehow.

And then there's just Mom and her siblings and cousins being silly:

How cute is that?

the frustration of buying a bank-owned house and what i'm doing in the meantime

Aaaagh! I'd love to give an update on our housing process, but there is NOTHING to share. Everyone told us not to hear back from the bank when we made our offer, and they ended up accepting it right away which was great. But now they're dragging their feet on every little thing. We were supposed to get our inspection done in the five days after the offer went through, and it's been over two weeks now because the bank's agent still hasn't turned on the utilities! I'm fairly certain that that's a simple phone call to the electric and water companies. Very frustrating. Also, our contract stated that the seller would provide us with the by-laws to the townhome community within three days of a ratified contract. Still haven't seen them. Our (amazing) realtor has emailed the selling agents every day, and they're still just plodding along. Double frustrating!

So, in the meantime I have been getting well acquainted with the world of decorating blogs. I guess I thought I decorated at the apartment, but now that I'm realizing all of the opportunities and potential in a house that I own, my brain is starting to go crazy. Crazy with joy!

I've been checking Apartment Therapy almost daily. They put up multiple posts a day with fab new furniture, before and after projects, and the best... house tours. Love those. (My favorite part of going to people's houses has always been "the tour" after dinner.) Here are some fun inspiration pics I've collected from AT.

Apartment Therapy

Luurve this settee. I would love to find some funky fabric like this and upholster an old chair.

Apartment Therapy

I love the mix of patterns and the framed scarf on the wall. I could frame a scarf. Also, check out that sweet wallpaper in the back room. (More on my rapidly changing feelings towards wall paper later.)

Apartment Therapy

We love books and would love to do some sort of library wall in our new place. If you look closely through these shelves you can see that they're the cheap kind with the cardboard-ish backing. We already have two of these from Walmart that were $35 each. Nice to know that swanky Apartment Therapy peeps do it too!

Apartment Therapy

Ikat print and a ceramic garden stool? No cake for me, this is my dessert. 

Apartment Therapy

I could seriously drool over this closet. But look! See how those shoes are stored on a bookshelf? Totally doing that in our new closet. Then I get to see all my pretty patent pals all the time.

Can you tell I'm excited to get started in our new place? Ha! Now if only the stupid bank agent would turn on the stupid utilities!!! Grrr.

~ Wearing: Awesome new patterned tunic from Ross (We're getting a Ross in Hanover soon, plus a Target! Woohoo!) I paired it with gray tights and boots for church this morning then with skinnies in the pm. Love tunics. Eating: We made awesome omelets for Sunday brunch today. Listening to: Not listening to anything cause I should really be in bed. 1:30am, yikes!