Making a House a Home

We have been in Texas for about 7 weeks now and I am happy to say that most of the boxes are unpacked and I am starting to recognize our house from the outside (but not totally, I usually look for the neighbors cars because our house still looks like everybody else's to me). I have not done a ton to really make the house feel like home...its mostly just home because we're here. I'm not sure how much energy I will put into making this space feel like it is mine because...well...we may not be here more than the next 17 months and I have limited time and energy...so I don't know how much will be spent on that.

I did need to make one space feel much more mine. That is the front room. Originally it was kind of a brown color. When we walked in the first day, Chancho said, "Nice pink walls." And indeed, they were quite pink. I tried to pretend they were fine...but they started to feel very oppressive. One morning, after getting the kids off to school, I dropped onto my bed and began to cry because the walls in the stairway and front room were...MAUVE. I guess they weren't really mauve. Just tan with a bit of red undertone, but I just hated it for some reason. I decided I would have to paint, despite our lease agreement (and luckily the homeowners said they were actually fine with it).

Then I bought some crazy Willy-Wonka couches off of Craig's List (more on them later) that I thought were just a nice neutral khaki but against the mauve walls, everything just looked like puke. So I decided I absolutely had to paint and it had to be blue. After using some of Catherine's left over paint and 3 trips to Home Depot for paint samples, I had 5 blue patches on my walls and made a decision. Now it is done and I am so happy. I love blue. And green. Some are afraid of these colors on walls. Chancho would prefer a nice cream. Perhaps a tiny hint of blue. But I need color. Colors affect me so much. And this blue makes me feel peaceful and happy. The change is pretty dramatic, but was quite simple. I painted, hung some linen drapes, made some pillows, recovered the piano bench, and hung up some of our stuff and now I have a room that I really like.

So, here are some pics.

Pillows went from this:

To this:
And this:To this (much to Deedle's dismay. She asked, of the hotpink pillow, "Mom, WHY why WHY would you buy such a beautiful pillow and then just destroy it?"):

And, because my sisters say that want to be able to "picture" what the rest of our space looks like, here are some more photos. If you look out the front door, you will see this street (the Morphis's live 3rd house on right) and if you are super lucky, you may be able to see Deedle painting her toenails: Or, Finn pushing around this old car that Aarison let him use (and which he adores): Turn to your right (west) and you will see this:Turn to the left (east) and you will see this: Turn back into the doorway and look to your right and you will see this: Turn to your left and you will see this: Walk straight back and you will come into the kitchen and another living area (more photos later). Turn back around to see the front room again:
Then go up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, turn right and you'll go to the master bedroom (sorry no pics). Turn left and you will come to a hall that first has this room:

Then this one:Then this one:

So...this is our place. I hope you enjoyed the little tour. We would not say this is our dream house, but at the same time, we are very happy and have so much more than we could need, so what is not dreamy about that?