We Have...

A home!

Here's the tour:

Le grande foyer. Okay, my french sucks.
This is the entrance and I wouldn't call it grand but it does the job. Not much to it. It's where you enter and exit the house. You can't tell in this picture but the door needs staining yet.

The view from the entrance into the great room. I took these pictures at the worst time of day, when the light was streaming in, so it's bit overexposed. Things are also a bit messy thanks to my little tornado named Sierra. Seriously, she is a tornado, as I clean up there's a new mess behind me - constantly! Anway, the couches are new - Italian Leather (finger pushing my nose into the air) and we are very happy with them. We went with quality because of how we know they will be treated. They even arrived on the day the store predicted back in December! Shock of all shocks.
The lack of separation between the living room and kitchen is different for me, everything feels close. I certainly am not unhappy with it it's just taking some getting used to.

The eating area.
It is bathed in beautiful morning sunlight which is exactly what I hoped for. The table and chairs don't match the rest of the house but I have one toddler and will likely have more so investing money into an expensive table that matches is probably like throwing money away. We had friends who bought a new dining room set and their toddler proceeded to pound an eating utensil into the top and add his own decoration to the finish.

My kitchen. I absolutely love this kitchen. I love the space, the arrangement, the colour - and the exciting part - all my stuff is neatly put away and I have tons of empty space!! This means I can buy more stuff - right?
The counter to the left is wonderfully large and awesome for cooking, and of course collecting clutter.
See the wine rack on the top left? Only three of those spaces are actually holding wine. It needs to be filled, an empty wine rack simply won't due. So I'm having a house warming party where everyone has to bring a bottle of wine. Is that selfish? I'll even serve crackers and cheese and fruit and attempt to be high class? I think I'll do it no matter if it's selfish or not. You're all invited by the way.
Oh and my grandma, who's become extremly opinionated and outspoken now that she's in her 80's, strongly hates the black appliances. I'm certain she believes anything black is of the devil. (She also hates my cat)


The hallway. By far my favourite part of the house. (Sense sarcasm now.) It shows what the doors are like anyway.

The green room. AKA - office. Trevor has this thing with interesting shades of green for his offices, our past two offices were subjected the same paint fate. But you know, I like it. This particular shade, if accented right, could even pass as a baby's room? (Insert opinion here and NO I'm not pregnant.) We just bought a fabulous desk at Costco but are waiting until Trevor's parents are gone (they arrive later today for six days) to set it up because it will not leave room for the bed. Oh, and do you like the nice pile of paper garbage I left for you all to see?

Our little princess's room. Cribs are ghastly bits of furniture to place in a room and we arranged this room five times before Trevor and I were mutually happy.

Trevor's and my haven. We can scarcely contain ourselves over the excitement of the size of our room. We can actually arrange the furniture in several different ways! Our previous bedrooms were all like jig-saw

puzzles where each furniture piece had only one possible spot and one angle in that spot.

The ensuite air-jet tub. The bubbles that thing produces are incredible! Lay back, hang on, and prepare to get water everywhere. Reading a book is a delicate task with the jets running but what can I say, my tub talents are amazing.
More about our bathroom: to left of the tub is a door and through that is a little room that is exclusively for the toilet. This was an insistence of mine. My toilet activities are private and I wanted the rest of the bathroom usable when such toilet activities are necessary. Hence, toilet house (as we have affectionately termed it). Directly across from the tub is the counter with his and her's sinks, another brilliant luxury. We have no mirrors yet but that's unimportant, who really wants to look at themselves anyway?

Last but not least: the master closet. It's not an easy thing to take a picture of a closet but imagine the left size as big as the right with a 6 level shoe rack behind the door. This closet is a woman's dream! Like the kitchen, everything is neatly put away and there is still tons of room. I sense shopping....who wants to come?

There you have it.
Well, I've not shown you the main bathroom, a bathroom is a bathroom but if you really want to see it let me know, or the basement. The basement is a maze of everything I didn't want upstairs and only at the drywall stage so it's not very exciting either, then again I did take a picture of our hallway didn't I? It's next winter's project.
This is the fruit of six months of stress and hair pulling. I'm lucky I'm not bald after this ordeal. We are truly and extremely happy with our home. It is everything we wanted. There is still lots to do but we're in. I can't wait to add the personal touches like candles (I can hear Trevor jumping up and down with glee at this one), other decorative bits, curtains, photos, and art work. That's the fun stuff and I want to take time and enjoy finding the perfect things.

One question that I know people want to ask me but are too polite to do so is:
"How in the world did you afford that house with you only working two days a week and Trevor only substitute teaching?"

I will answer that one soon.

I'm serious about the house warming party and the wine, it will be in early March we hope. If any of you are in Southern Alberta, Canada - let me know!