I am pretty sure that I never ever thought I would blog about towel racks.

Here is the big pile of leaves and mess.  It was tall.

Just as a reminder here is the house the day we bought it.

And here is the house after ignoring the front yard for 5 months and then finally doing something about it.

If you look closely you might notice the new roof.  We had to put that on within 24 hours of closing or else our homeowners insurance was going to drop us.  It was in that bad of shape.  Niiice.

That’s the paint color I chose for Holden’s bathroom.  I went back and forth for a few days in my head between light gray or a darker light gray.  Eventually I just went and got a sample.  I normally love samples but in this case it made me irritated because I really wanted about 10 samples but that would have been ridculous and probably end up costing more than the paint that I eventually choose.  So on Saturday I went to Home Depot and picked up a same tub of Anonymous..which I thought would be my favorite.

I was right.  I love it.  Saturday is paint day and I cannot wait to get the color up on the walls.

Sometimes I worry a lot about “making our house feel like a home” but I really think I am just trying make our house LOOK like a home.  It already feels like home even though most of our stuff is in boxes in the garage.

My point was proven today when Holden and I went outside to play.  The backyard is the reason we bought this house.  It’s gigantic.  Perfect for a boy and his dog.  They both would rather be outside than inside any day.  Today Reilly (the dog) dug a hole and Holden laughed and laughed like it was the best thing ever.  Reilly moved on to another part of the yard and Holden played in the dirt for a good twenty minutes.  Did I let him?  Of course.  He’s a boy, he loves dirt and he was having the time of his life.  Plus we have soap.

It’s not perfect.  There are boxes everywhere and my curtains are still stuffed in the tops of my blinds.  I am going to be going back and forth over fabric choices and paint colors long after these 31 days are over.  Because we are here for awhile.  We intend to live here for at least ten years.  It didn’t really hit me until today but this house will be Holden’s childhood home.  He won’t even remember our old house.  It doesn’t really matter how long it takes or how unorganized it feels right now..because it will get there eventually.  I love this 31 days challenge because it keeps me from being lazy and living with the boxes.  So don’t think I’m saying I won’t continue this..I’m just saying that I need to chill out and realize that it’s okay if it’s not perfect right this second.

Because he won’t remember the paint color of the dining room when he grows up.  I mean I don’t remember the color of mine for sure. He will remember Sunday afternoons digging in the dirt in the backyard with his dog.

Our house was empty for close to a year.  Luckily the agent that was listing our house had her wits about her and knew that a crappy looking yard wasn’t going to sell a house.  So she had someone come and mow the yard and do very simple landscaping every once and awhile.  Still, the house looked like this:

Outta control.

Then in move Dave and Christen.  Not exactly landscapers…not exactly people who like to be outside.  Then it turned into a 100 degree summer and Dave and I promptly ignored the jungle that was our front yard and spent our energy focusing on the inside..kind of.

Today is was a cool 75 degrees, Dave was at work and Holden was playing happily in his “beep beep” out front and I had just bought these pruning shear thingys that I’ve been dying to use so I went crazy.  Pruning.  That big bushy bush in front of the window had grown to cover half of the window.  I cut it all down.  While I was making the bush my bitch I realized it wasn’t looking to..well..pretty.  So I hacked it all off.  I figure if it doesn’t grow back I’ll just rip it out and get another one.

Those green bushes in front of the porch had grown so high you couldn’t even tell we had a porch.  Not anymore..I chopped those down and now you can see our porch.  Those actually look good.

The weirdest thing was we have two evergreens on the side of our house which you can’t see in the picture.  I thought we only had one until today.  Apparently the back evergreen had grown so tall that it shielded the other one from the light so it died and eventually fell over.  However, the edges of the tree fell into the light so they continued to stay green..and grow roots down into the ground.  It was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen.

Tomorrow I’ll show you a picture of the worlds largest pile of yard crap that is out in front of my house.  Luckily our neighborhood has landscaping pick up every Monday.  Woot, woot for HOA fees.

My living room is long and skinny, opposite of this wall is the fireplace.  Our couch doesn’t sit on this wall because it looked so incredibly awkward since the wall and the fireplace were off center.  I’ve spent the past five months looking at it trying to figure out what on earth to do with it.  At the moment I have my very lame attempt at a frame collage.  Five pictures to be exact..which somehow makes the wall look even bigger.  So I’ve been looking on Pinterest for inspiration.

I LOVE this one..unfortunately we don’t have room for a table but I love this collage.  I’d have to build up to this though..I don’t have anywhere near this amount of cool stuff.

from here

There is also this one.  I love the look of the lined up photos but that would require me to buy a lot of the same frame..and..well..I like the more scattered look because..that’s more me.

from here

Either way, I have to figure out which one will best incorporate my moose head.  Truth!

Z Gallerie

Oh, I hope they found what they were looking for.

I considered titling this post, “and the curtains were stuffed into the tops of the blinds with care..”.  I finished my curtains the other day but I lacked curtain rods.  And as apposed to doing what normal people would do (go buy them) I decided it’d be a much awesomer idea to stuff them into the tops of the blinds to see what they would look like.

Go ahead, bask in the awesomeness of that tiny picture.  I seriously think this might become a new trend.  (I’m buying curtain rods on Friday).

In other news, I was giving Holden a cookie for eating all his dinner and he screamed “No, No Oatmeal!!!”  This is clearly not my child.

I leave the house around 6:30 a.m. everyday..a good hour and a half before my husband even begins to *think* about getting out of bed.  If you’re interested you can contact me and I’ll send you his e-mail address to send hate mail.

He’s not really a bed making kind of guy and if he did try he’d probably get frustrated and give up.  So he doesn’t make it.

So on the weekend I really try to make the bed on the weekends because I just LOVE getting into a freshly made bed.  Who doesn’t?

I always wish my bed could look like one of those beds at the Pottery Barn.  Those beds just seem like heaven on a box spring don’t you think?  I recently read this blog post about how to make your bed so it looks like one of the Pottery Barn beds.  But I have a secret.  I have no need for all that extra crap.  Sure it’d be awesome the two days a week that I actually make my bed but those other five days of the week that crap would stay on the floor and my dog would sleep on them and Holden would get his cheese puff covered hands all over them.  So for sanity sake I just leave that stuff off..and today..yes a Tuesday..I did my own version of the perfect bed.

It’s not amazing or anything..and it doesn’t look like a Pottery Barn bed but I did febreeze, fluff and pillow this monster out!

Except now the contents of my car and the weight bench are now added to the collection of crap in my garage.  But progress is progress right?  At least they are in the house now…right?

In our last house we had two bathrooms.  However, since we’d lived in that house awhile before Holden was born it always read more “Guest Bath” than “Kids Bathroom”.

In our new house?  It doesn’t just look like a kids bathroom it practically screams it at you as you walk in the door.

I have good intentions for that shower curtain.  I promise.

In short it’s completely boring and predictable and I have BIG plans for it before Holden’s birthday party on the 29th..in which I am expecting that some people will have to pee.  Just a shot in the dark there though.  I want it to be a bathroom that works for guests but is still kid friendly.

Here is the plan:

•  Paint the walls a lightish dark gray.  I tried to explain this color to Dave and he said “like the road”..no.  A light gray but not so light that it looks white.  It’s a small room so I don’t want too dark.  Also, I think gray is a grown-up color that might be kind of fun mixed in with kids stuff.
• Fix the towel racks.  No joke..the day we moved in almost every towel rack fell down.  Whoever put them up was a crack head.
• Put up a white waffle shower curtain and lower the shower curtain rod.  Seriously, it seems twenty feet high.

Those are the plans for the near future.  Long term plans include:

• Making the mirror look less “builder grade” and more custom.
• Replace the light fixture
• Replace the flooring

But that stuff can wait.