home tour: little house on the grovestead

Oh goodness. A while back I said I would do a home tour. And I've heard from a few friends saying they've been waiting for that post.

This is a good blogging lesson. Never announce you're going to do a post like this before you get it put together. Because it sort of turns the post into uninspired homework. Like I assigned work to myself. Gross. But because I'm a great student, I will follow through. E for Effort.

A few things before we begin the home tour:
1. I'm trying not to post any pics of the outside of our house.
2. I'm not a stellar photographer.
3. When we first moved in, we got a few things on the walls, bought some curtains and then I ran out of steam in the decorating. And I haven't touched a thing in months. I have hopes and dreams to bedazzle it up a bit, but for now, the downstairs is pretty empty (though full of toys).

We'll begin with our bedroom. It's the smallest in the house, and is the walk through to the nursery. It fits our bed and a hemnes secretary desk and two dressers. It is tight. And when it's not picked up, if feels quite cozy. But it works. That heart on the wall is a favorite. It reads: Together is such a nice place to be. And it is.

We make our bedroom work because we wanted Ivar to have the big room so that it could double as the playroom. Eventually he'll be joined by siblings and there is plenty of room for that. I love Ivar's room. In the afternoon it is full of sunshine and we spend a lot of time playing on the carpet.

Elsie's room can be seen here. But I did want to point out that Elsie's window is the best one to watch the garbage man every Tuesday morning, a highlight of our day, and sometimes our week.

When we first saw this house I was thrilled about all of the carpet and the side by side living rooms. In the day of hard wood floors, this is sort of funny to admit. But I love our carpet so much.

The staircase is the only woodwork original to the house. It is beautiful. The railing is super short...like really super short, but it is perfect for Ivar. And notice the door at the bottom of the stairs. That door at the bottom of the stairs used to be the front door to the house, but the lane was moved when this farmland was subdivided, and then the garage was built on the backside of the house, which is now the front side. Confused? So are we. We have real troubles saying, "in the backyard" or "in the front yard" It's not so clear with our house...

Lately when I am in this room I believe I can hear the walls saying, "paint me! paint me!" So we'll add that to the list of when-the-spirit-moves projects.

Pictured below is sort of a second living room. We think it might have been where the original kitchen was, before the addition. We first used it to house Rory's office, then it held our Christmas tree. Now I use it as a crafting space, but we are super excited to be adding a huge picture window to this room (on the couch side) and front door to our house. Currently everyone enters through our garage. Even the UPS guy. Even the Jehovah's Witness.

There are a few pictures of the kitchen here from the day my aunts came to visit. And this post is omitting the bathrooms and the laundry room because, well, they're what you'd expect.

This concludes the home tour. I appreciate it when bloggers I follow let me into their home...sort of helps set the setting for all of their storytelling. But if you thought this totally self indulgent and weird, it probably was that too.

Have a happy Monday. :)