Home Sweet Home

My family keeps asking for pictures of our new home. I thought about not posting any pictures and telling them they'd all just have to come visit if they wanted to get a glimpse of where we're living. But the chances of cross-country visitors are slim, so here we go...

We live in the student housing community for Dartmouth graduate students. It's a great little neighborhood and we really love it. Our unit is a duplex and we are on the right half of the house. (We lucked out with super neighbors on the other side of the duplex! Well, and great neighbors all over, for that matter.)

We'll start with the top floor. Here's our bedroom.

By the way, this is definitely not supposed to be a fancy "home tour". Don't judge my lack of decorating skills or my hand-me-down furniture :)

One great thing about our place is there is a lot more storage and closet space than we're used to. Mya uses my closet as her napping quarters if Bryn's being silly in their room during Mya's nap time.

P.S. We grabbed that little dresser from the side of the dumpster at our old apartment complex....so maybe it once belonged to one of my California friends! Maybe you recognize this? You might not recognize it without all the Dora stickers that used to cover it :)

There are three bedrooms upstairs, but the girls share a room because siblings are supposed to share rooms, right? Bryn's little toddler bed looks so tiny next to Mya's crib.

I love a good sewing project, so most of the girls' room stuff is homemade.

Bryn's coral quilt

Mya's yellow quilt

Crib skirt

Garland

My friend Emily made the "I am a child of God" print for me, the globe was thrifted for $3.00, the shelf is a hand-me-down, and I found the coral bucket at Target clearance. 

I just made these two pillows with some of the same fabrics as the garland.

  I need to update those pictures with a picture of Mya and a current picture of Bryn, but I'll get to that later.

This is the upstairs bathroom. Kind of embarrassing that it doesn't even have a shower curtain hung, but our old shower curtain got misplaced somewhere in the move and I need to find it or replace it I guess. 

 We refer to the third bedroom as "Grandma's room" since that's where my mom slept on an air mattress when she was here in August. This room is mostly empty, but we also keep some exercise stuff and a table set up for Josh to study or me to paint or sew. The closet in that room is packed with all my craft stuff and paint supplies. It feels like such a luxury to be able to work in a private room, rather than taking over the kitchen table every time I work on a project! And that's the last room upstairs.

Downstairs we've got the living room.

 That lamp (which I scored at a thrift store for under $10.00) isn't meant to stay on the ground permanently. I've been looking for a little side table at thrift stores/craigslist, but haven't found anything yet.

 The bench was thrifted in California for five dolla' and has been lots of different colors. I just painted it bright green, emphasis on the bright! It's a little too bold, but I don't have the energy to repaint it again. The chair was a project-gone-wrong...(horrible idea to attempt sewing a slipcover myself. Lesson learned!)...so that's why we've tried to hide it in the corner.

There's a tiny laundry room off of the kitchen. It's our first time having our own washer/dryer and it is such a luxury!!! With an infant who is famous for her blow-outs, it is a dream come true to not have to use a communal laundry room! When my (clever) mom was here she hung that bar above the dryer and it's great for hanging wet clothes or things that need to be ironed.

We also store lots of random stuff in the laundry room.

Downstairs bathroom. Nothing fancy.

There's also a "den" off the dining room that we use at a playroom for Bryn. It's nice not having any toys in her bedroom except for books. And when friends come over they can just play in this room instead of going all the way upstairs to Bryn's bedroom. 

Bryn was going a little crazy covering the fridge with drawings, so a few days ago we hung up some twine and made a "clothes line" to hang her drawings. I love, love, love coming in here and looking at her silly little drawings.

 Bryn's still getting good use out of her little homemade purse rack and play kitchen.

This is the dining room. Our kitchen table is so mini that we also use the dining room for our computer desk and Bryn's table that Josh built.

The garland isn't permanent, but it's still up from Josh's birthday.

The door on the right is Bryn's play room and the other door is the bathroom.

Kitchen

One last look :)

The back door opens up to a tiny strip of grass and then forest!

 This picture is out of order, but it's the front door.

And that's our new home. Rent is a lot cheaper than Huntington Beach, so this duplex feels huge compared to our last apartment! And if we move back to Orange County then we'll probably be going back to tiny-apartment living, so we'll enjoy this bigger place while we can :)