Post by room - Living Room

I decided to do a series of posts by room in our house since we moved in just over a month ago.  I am going to add pictures of each room to show what we have done and talk about what we still need to do to the room. 

The first room is our living room!  This is probably the most fun room in the house for me because literally almost everything in this room is new.  We had to to buy the couch, love seat, area rug, coffee table, end tables, lamps and are still planning on buying pictures for the wall and possibly a small table/decorative shelf for the empty wall.  Oh, and curtains.

We aren't sure what to do with pictures yet.  We are looking around but I don't want to pick one out fast just to have the room complete and then not like it, so I would rather take a little more time and have the room unfinished for a little while.

In our old house, we also had a living room and family room but we never had either set up just how I would have liked and the living room was never very formal.  I am so excited about this room because it is so pretty and clean.  We will leave it as a more formal room that we don't use a lot so it stays nice.  We have our tv down in the family room so that is where we hang out most of the time plus Xander's toys are all down there too.

Here are the few pictures of it that I took:

(Notice the little boy in some of these).  :)

Sorry about the red rug over to the side.  We are trying to find a new entry rug to match.

Since the tables had no storage, I went and got baskets to put under the coffee table and end tables.

The only thing left is one other lamp, some wall art and curtains.  I am already surprised we have this much done with the living room.  I feel like we will have it completely done within a month or two.

I love this room and can't wait until it is completely done!  I've never had a room this pretty!

A mama dilemma

My life is a constant dilemma.  What is the best way to spend my time, my money, my life??

I always think, should I let the house work go to crap and spend all of my extra time with my kiddo?  That is a constant thought in my mind as a working mom.  I hate working.  I completely admit it.  I love the paycheck and not feeling like we are drowning every single month but I hate being away from my kid so much.  I hate it with a passion.  I feel guilty and wonder if he would be a much better kid if I was always home with him.  I feel like I could stay on top of discipline better if I was with him everyday.  I also realize at this age, it is good for him to interact with other kids to learn to share and play nicely. 

I especially struggle with this dilemma right now as we moved into our new house a month ago and we still have a lot or piles of stuff sitting around and I want to work on them so bad but I feel like when I do, I am ignoring my son.  I try to get as much stuff done during his naps as possible but they seem to go so fast and he is up before I know it every time! 

It's ok though.  Life is never perfect and I know despite my wanting it to be, our house will never be perfect either.  I can learn to accept that, even when it is hard.  I won't say this house is my 'dream house' but it is a lot closer to it than our last house and I had such high expectations for it.  So far it has almost lived up to my expectations but I need to let go of the 'ideal'  in my mind about what I want my house to be.  For one thing, it would take a whole lot more money for this house to be ideal and that is something we don't have and may not for a while.

Anyway, for now I will just do my best everyday to get stuff done and slowly get our house into order.  It may take a few more months for it to be fully organized as I continue to spend most of my extra time with the kiddo.  He's worth it!

A very productive day!

I am so excited that it is only 1 pm on Saturday afternoon and the hubs and I have already gotten so much done!  Todd rented a rug doctor and has done almost our whole house's carpet as well as the couch and love seat.  We also partially cleaned out our bathroom and are going to finish it up today.  I have worked on the office a ton and gotten rid of about 6 boxes.  I still need to organize a lot of stuff but already feel accomplished!

We still have so much of the day left and that rocks!  I am going to get our bedroom done and cleaned out once and for all today so there are no more piles on the floor!  Also, my sons room in completely organized so that is a good feeling.  I still need to work on moving more stuff to the basement to get it out of the way but it is amazing how much you get done when you start working first thing in the morning.  Maybe it was that McDonald's iced coffee that helped??!!  Yummy!

Anyway, later we are headed back to the furniture store to pick out an area rug, end tables and a coffee table to finish up the living room and we may pick out a lamp or two also.  I need to go to Lowe's or Home Depot too and get some hooks for my closet.  I figured out I can easily hang all of my scarves in the back of the closet on the wall as it is just wasted space back there.  We also need to get a little cabinet for the extra bathroom on the main level as well as for our bathroom.

I am feeling so good!  We moved into our house almost a whole month ago and still aren't settled but are doing small projects here and there that have taken up a lot of our time.  I think if we get the house to about 95% this weekend I will feel great!

We are having two sets of guests in the next month so I am more motivated to get stuff done.  Todd's parents are coming and so is Todd's friend Gary.  We need to make sure to have everything nice and ready to go by then.  We still need to do some more actual cleaning too, not just organizing.  It's not super dirty in here but I wouldn't mind having it even cleaner. 

Also, I really, really want a new dishwasher!  Our handle on ours is basically worthless right now and it doesn't clean worth a darn either plus part of the plastic racks are rusted.  I think we are going to look around for one when we are out today. 

Overall though, we are happy with the progress we have made.  Can't wait to see what the house will look like tomorrow night when we have worked another full day on it.  It may just end up looking how I hoped it would.  Wouldn't that be nice?