New House Tour: {Downstairs}

We have finally finished most of our unpacking and organizing in the new house. It only took a month and a half :). Moving is one of the most stressful things in life, although I have learned to become used to it as a military wife, but I love knowing that this is our long-term home and that we will not have to move again for a long, long, LONG time! 

We decided to build a home in a large community that we fell in love with, and so far we feel like we made the perfect choice to do so. The whole place just felt like home when we first drove through. We really like the house plan that we picked, and we feel good about the amenities that we chose to upgrade in the design center, as well as the things that we chose to DIY. If you've ever used a builder before, you know that every little "extra" can be expensive, so we tried to allocate the budget mostly in the kitchen and in the master bathroom. There were a few things I had to have, and there were some things that I was willing to wait on and take the gamble of seeing if Alex could DIY it. Turns out I am married to a totally competent, unbelievably amazing  handy man that I never even knew was underneath that fighter pilot exterior. 

And here I'm going to humble-brag about how all organized every drawer in the house is! It's a new house, a new me.

I realize that I am not an interior designer and that I, in no way, believe that I am. Just letting you know that I know that in advance. My house is half nice furniture and half IKEA, and I'm fine with that, because I do not have a show home. I have a lived-in home. 

If I had to give one piece of advice for building a home, it would be to choose the cheapest, most builder-grade light fixtures that they offer and then replace them later with your own that you have picked out from wherever you want. Lighting makes a house a home, I think. That's what we did, and it was a good choice. I loved picking out all of our light fixtures at my leisure, and they are completely me. I don't know if I have a decorating "style" at all because I like everything. I like rustic, modern, contemporary, farmhouse, mid-century modern, traditional, etc. I just like it all. And so I tend to kind of pick everything I like and throw it all at the wall and see what sticks. I guess you'd call that eclectic? 

We will go with that. 

I'm posting this because I want to show my friends and family how the house has turned out, and also, I really enjoy looking at other peoples' decor and style. I know my decor isn't for everyone, but it's for me! I love seeing how other people choose to decorate their homes, so here's a peek into ours so far. We aren't completely finished, but this is where we are. I'm also showing some "before" pictures so you can see what it looked like when we moved in. I think you'll be able to tell which is which.

I knew from the get-go that I wanted a white house. I didn't really care about the style of house so much as I cared that it was white. I don't know what my fetish is with white houses, but i am obsessed. So I was excited to get a white house with a black front door. Alex just hung the new porch swing, and I am still trying to figure out what in the hell to do with my garden and what to put in the planters. 

#blackthumb 

door knocker // lanterns

But luckily my sweet neighbor across the street loves gardening, so she is going to help me. I can't wait to learn to garden, because that's what Southern women are supposed to do, and I feel like I'm failing at Southernness until I learn this magical trade. 

The first room that you walk by is our dining room. I knew I wanted this room to have picture frame molding on the walls, and I knew I wanted it stark white. And my darling husband made it happen all by himself. I've literally never been more attracted to him than I was while watching him at Home Depot with a full beard doing math trying to calculate exactly how much molding he needed. Gimme all the handymen. 

Aside from those things, I didn't exactly know what direction this room was headed. I have a vintage dining table which has been passed down in my family that I knew was going into the space, but other than that, things were pretty open. And then I decided to paint a cow out of nowhere, so the room started taking on a midcentury modern/farmhouse vibe. I added in my beloved rooster paintings for another pop of color, and then hung some emerald green curtains on the walls. I found the perfect midcentury modern buffet table at HomeGoods, and then popped these lamps atop them. And finally, just to keep things kind of weird, I spray painted my sputnik chandelier gold. It's an odd little room, and it's maybe my favorite room in the entire house. I do plan on recovering the dining chairs, but I haven't decided on a fabric yet. Suggestions are welcome!

sputnik chandelier // marble and brass lamps // green curtains

I knew that I wanted to put a table in the entry hallway, but I was concerned about sizing. It's not an especially wide hallway, so I needed a really slim table that measured no more than 8" and would be nearly impossible to find. Meanwhile, Alex was really concerned about where we should store our shoes when we come in the door. So all that was on my mind when I was trying to figure out what to do with this space. And then I found the IKEA Hemnes shoe cabinet, which is the most genius piece of furniture I have ever seen in my life, and I was able to kill two birds with one stone. 

rug // shoe cabinet // salt lamp // honeycomb pendant light

The depth is exactly 8 inches, so it is the perfect size, plus there are cubbies for each person to store shoes. The kids love putting their shoes in their cubbies every day. This really may be my favorite piece of furniture in the entire house. At first I was going to put these stunning geode knobs from Anthropologie on it, but then I decided that having those + the salt lamp on the same piece of furniture may send out the message that I have an unhealthy fetish with stones (which I guess I do. Geology rocks!). So I decided to keep the original knobs, although I may switch them out one day. The shoe cubby was a bitch to put together, as anything from IKEA is, but it was 100% worth it to watch Alex put it together. 

galvanized initial (usually can find at Hobby Lobby or HomeGoods for significantly cheaper)

Next came the powder room. Now, I know y'all probably think I'm insane for painting 84,000 spots in such a small space, but I go to the bathroom a lot, and I like to have something to look at. Just mostly kidding. I am a firm believer that a powder room is the one place you can get away with anything and do the craziest thing you want. So I went for it. It took me about a week to finish hand painting those damn dots, but I love the way it turned out. I may get sick of it in a while, and if so, I'll just paint over it. 

mirror // print // light fixture // initial hook // hand towel

I really like the open concept floor plan of our kitchen/breakfast nook/living room. It's nice to be able to see everybody and every thing while I'm in the kitchen. I debated between plain white subway tile-which I do love because of its clean look-- and this funky pearl mosaic tile; and then I went for it with the pearl. I love the undertones of blue that it gives, and it even looks iridescent when light shines on it. Choosing all of these little details can be stressful when building or renovating a space; you think it will look good, but you just don't know until it's all put together. I'm so glad that I went with my gut and consulted some of my best friends, too, because I am really pleased with the way the kitchen ended up coming together. 

barstools //black and gold pendant lights //  table // wood chairs // rug // white pendant light

We didn't have two dining spaces in our previous home, so we needed to buy a breakfast table. An affordable breakfast table. And I love this white tulip table from IKEA. It was inexpensive, practical, and totally my style. So we went with it and called it a day. 

Placing the turquoise piano was a huge stressor for me. As in, it literally kept me up at night (along with peeing 67 times). I love this piano, and it's a big..uh..statement piece. But I didn't know if it was going to fit in our living room. I originally wanted it to go behind the sofa, but our living room is deep yet narrow, and--since we added the fireplace--it just wouldn't fit. I really didn't want to put it in the middle of the room at first, but it began to grow on me after we kept it there temporarily for a few days, and now I couldn't imagine it anywhere else. 

And yes, I did spray paint every $10 curtain rod in this joint gold.

As I mentioned before, the living room isn't especially wide, so we had to sell one of our older sofas and buy a new, smaller one. Again, we went with the IKEA Ektorp sofa, which I read lots of good reviews on. I know it seems counterintuitive to buy a white sofa with two little kids, but the cover is completely removable and bleach-able. I love bleach. It's the best thing since sliced bread spray paint duct tape. I'll bleach the shit out of anything that'll stand still. So for now, until the kids are older, this little sofa is working out just fine. 

candle holders // garland // rug // sofa // curtains // ceiling fan

We also had to buy a smaller coffee table, since our other one is so big (and we put it in the playroom upstairs anyway). Again, IKEA. I got the $25 Lack coffee table, but it did look just a little too IKEA-ish for me. So I ordered some super cheap midcentury tapered legs, spray painted them, and attached those to the bottom instead. Okay, Alex did do the drilling. But it was a super easy DIY that completely changed the look of a really cheap coffee table. That could be a great project for a college apartment! This isn't a coffee table that we are going to have forever-ever, but it works for now while the kids are little destructive. 

 coffee table // record player // striped blanket // watercolor pillow cover // graphic pillow cover

We still have a few projects going on in some places downstairs, so I will show you those later. And I have about a thousand little things I want to do to customize the house a little more, like paint the inside of the front door black, buy another set of the emerald green curtain panels for the dining rom windows, and paint or re-tile the tile in the fireplace, among other things. One day, I am Alex is going to remove the carpet from the stairs and put in hardwood stairs. 

Alex is in the process of completely renovating the builder-grade laundry room and has built me a custom laundry area with lots of cabinets. We are just waiting to install the countertops and then possibly put up some sort of backsplash/wallpaper/or handpainted mural. I'll let y'all know when that project gets finished. I'm sure you'll just be waiting on the edge of your seats. 

That's it for now. Our master bedroom is also downstairs, but I decided to save that for a separate post. We are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for finishing this new house, and it feels so good to feel like we finally live here!

Thanks for checking it out; stay tuned for the next part!

XO