Settling In...The Miracle on 134 Ct

Well, like always, I’m more behind than ahead when it comes to blogging. Okay, scratch that. I’m more behind on more than blogging but that will be our little secret, ‘mmmkay? It’s been a whirlwind few months since we've moved and we finally found a house and started the process of settling in to school, work, home. 

There are many moments over the past few months that I've screamed out loud,in my head "What was I THINKING! AAAAHHHHHH!" but in the end I'm hoping it's all working out for the best. Slowly but surely I'm finding a way to make this place our new home. 

Since we finally did find a new house (and moved in) I wanted to take a moment to breathe to show you the new digs. I've taken to calling it The Miracle on 134 Ct. cuz it's a miracle that we even found a house that worked for both me and Luhvah. We both had very specific things we wanted in a house and it was difficult in a tiny little Oklahoma town to find all those things together (without building). 

It isn't my forever home by any means but I still like it and am just grateful to have our own place again (living with other people tries my patience greatly).

Let's start with the outside. It has great curb appeal already and is situated at the end of a cul-de-sac. 

This time around we wanted a single story home. Luhvah wanted something smaller and more manageable so we did some downsizing too.

 

 

I love the front porch area. It's so open and wide which gives me more room to decorate. 

I already started adding pretty things. I'm so glad to come back to colder weather where I get pretty mums:

 

Walking into the home we have an entry. Which again, is nice and big (these are from the inside looking into entry).

 I plan on putting in some hooks for hanging backpacks, etc.similar to this:

 

Going into the living room we have high ceilings and a fireplace! YAY! It's a gas fireplace, not wood, which is kinda a bummer but it's super convenient since all we have to do is flip a light switch and voila! Instant fire! I plan on getting a fire crackling CD and wood burning candles to hopefully recreate the similar ambiance of a wood burning fireplace. Oh, and have I mentioned that every inch of this house has smokers yellow baseboards/crowns/doors/ fireplace moldings? Ugh. Crack open the white paint can.

Oh and this opening above the fireplace?

It's going to be filled in (since we don't use it for tv or anything). I'm thinking of something like this:

From the living we walk into the breakfast nook. This is where part of the downgrade comes- we don't have a formal dining room. We hardly ever used ours before. It's a bummer for holidays to not have a big dining area, but in the end this little space works for us on a day to day basis since it's just the 3 of us.

 

I plan on having a bench built in the nook area for more storage of non-every day items. Like this:

 

Which brings us to the kitchen. Not big. I compare this kitchen to my old one and this is where I am most disappointed in the house. Certainly it's smaller (I equate this kitchen to the size of an apartment kitchen  -which is just wrong when talking about a house). To maximize my space I've had to get inventive with where to put things. Because there is literally only 4 full cabinets. Most average house kitchens have at least 8+ full size cabinets.  Every cabinet you see in these pics (besides the 4) are narrow cabinets, akin to those which are used to store tall, thin cookie sheets etc.

I plan to hang open shelves on the blank wall (more on that to come). And, as I said, I will build a bench in the breakfast nook to acquire extra storage space. To make it feel more spacious I'll be painting the cabinets white as well. Although I'm so glad to see that these cabinets aren't honey oak, I'm still gonna paint them because this kitchen has a low ceiling and feels like a cave. So I need something to make it feel bigger and brighter. And bigger. Oh wait. I already said that. 

Anyhow...Down the hallway it leads to 2 bedrooms and a bath. The bedrooms are much bigger than my previous house which Monkey really loves. My 3rd bedroom (aka guest room), has been doubling as a storage room for all the things that we don't need right this minute. It has condensed 3 rooms from my previous home into 1 (the loft, guest bedroom, and formal dining room). Although I did get rid of many of the large pieces of furniture in Florida there are still tons of things I've kept. I'll probably be having a garage sale for some of this stuff at some point.

Moving back over to the other side of the house we have the master, laundry room, and a small nook/hall between the two.

 

 I really like this nook because it's a place we can throw our keys and stuff when we come in from the garage (which is attached to laundry like most houses). The laundry room is also much bigger than our previous house. Which I like. In the nook I've already found an awesome little secretary desk that my mom was nice enough to give me (for FREE!) that fits perfectly in the area. Eventually I will be painting it (I'm thinking a pretty pop of muted seafoam or aqua).

 

Master Bedroom- a disaster but big. 

 

Master bath- another disaster, average size. I will say the Master bath is the second place I'm a little disappointed in. The layout is all wrong and I really hate having the closests in the bathroom. Some people like that but not me. They are his and her closests which are a pretty good size.

 

I realized when blogging this that I have no pictures of the backyard (what is it with me and not taking pics of a backyard?). But we have a nice porch with deck. The backyard is narrow but long so it's a nice size. Hopefully Monkey and I will be starting a small garden in the spring so we'll see how that goes. I plan on planting a couple of trees as well since I think it's in need of some privacy from the 4 separate homes that abutt us (the downside to living at the end of a cul-de-sac with a large backyard). And there are some other problematic things in the backyard. The back of the house needs a flower bed area to stop water from settling against the home which would also help with aesthetics as well. I also want another fire pit,  which we need to build. I'm hoping to make this into a bit of an oasis. I'll post pics soon of it but with winter coming on not much will be done with it until spring anyway.

And before I leave let me keep it real. Our rooms mostly look like this right now:

Okay, well it's not quite that bad (these were taken 3-4 days in) but even now, a month in, we still have a lot of clutter and boxes. I'm not one of those "get everything outta the boxes and find a place for it within 24 hours" kinda gals. I'm more of the "learn the way the house functions best for you by living in it and then put things where they seem to flow best" kinda gals. So there's still plenty of stuff in boxes or pushed outta the way but needs to find a place to be hung/set, etc.

So, that's it. The Miracle on 134 Ct.
 

By the way, looking back at all these pictures I realize I do an awful job of getting a complete pic. Some of these pics don't even show the full scope of a room in it's entirety.
But stay tuned because I'm going to try and blog more often from now on, now that things are settling down a bit with jobs, life, etc. and you'll be seeing more of it as I go.