Our New House - The Grand Tour

So, you've already had the sneak peek of our new house, but now it's time for me to give you the grand tour and tell you way more than you wanted to know about our new house. 

Our new house is in the sleepy, teeny town that I grew up in. My parents live about four blocks away. I'm still a little in shock. How exactly did I get back here again? I'm a city girl, right? Aren't I? In any case, here we are, and our girls have settled in so amazingly fast that it's almost like we have never lived anywhere else. When I think of them growing up here, going to school here, and living in this house, I feel completely at peace and I know that this is where we are supposed to be right now. 

Here's what my pretty new house looked like yesterday. The weather looks a little dismal and overcast in the picture, but it really was a lovely day. And no, our front door doesn't really have some weird white rectangle on it, that is just my attempt to keep my house number from being broadcast to the whole internet. 

Do you see these trees at the side of the house? There are six fruit trees right here. Six! We are calling this section of the yard "the orchard," for obvious reasons. Along the concrete wall to the right of the orchard is a row of thornless raspberry bushes. 

Right up next to the house is a long strip of strawberries. Look at all these strawberries!

Back behind the orchard is the garden, going almost all the way up to the neighbor's house. It is gigantic. In that garden are more fruit trees, I think seven more? Seven! I could be wrong, I can't remember how many the previous owners said and I don't know enough about trees (yet!) to tell the fruit trees from the boring trees. But if it is seven, that makes thirteen fruit trees, tons of raspberries, bushels of strawberries, plus a gigantic garden. 

The real food crusader inside of me is way beyond excited at the thought of all this fresh, home grown food. I've been ordering seed catalogs like crazy and have been having a grand time planning out my beautiful garden. The black-thumbed girl in me who has killed almost everything she has tried to grow (except that one summer I was pregnant and my sweet neighbor took care of my side of the garden because she was super nice to me), well that girl is scared, and intimidated! I have signed up for a gardening class, so we'll see how this goes. I can't wait to at least try!

After you admire my amazing garden/orchard for a little while, then you can step inside our very bare living room. 

I have so many plans for this room, but for now it is just blankness. I can't wait to get in here and make it adorable and cozy!

Downstairs we have our new toy room/office. This is where we spend most of our days with the girls playing while I put in my time on the laptop. The girls have enjoyed having all their toys out of boxes again, and I've enjoyed having a room in the basement where we can hide it all. 

One of my favorite things about this house? This picture was taken with no lights on in the house at all. The whole house is so bright that we have no need to turn any lights on all day, even in the basement. 

I'm not going to repeat any of the pictures I showed in the preview, so you'll either have to click over to those pictures, or just remember. One thing I really like is that the former owners painted the house in colors that we very likely would have also chosen ourselves. The walls in our bedroom actually match our bedding really well. The girls' room was already painted with pink trim, which they of course love. The former owners also left some princess decals on the walls in that bedroom. They look easy to peel off but we have left them because our girls think they are amazing, and because we are just plain lazy. 

There are three rooms that you don't get to see today because they are still totally full of boxes. CG's room has turned into the "what the heck do we do with this?" room. I'm hoping to get that cleared out this weekend. 

The laundry room is actually also a second kitchen. There are cupboards and a sink in there and it is already wired for a second oven with room for a fridge. I know there are a lot of people in the world who don't use the one kitchen they have, but if anyone needs a second kitchen, of course it is us! Marquis has big plans for a snack fridge and cooking options in there for when we are hanging out in the downstairs family room. Not that it is far at all to head up the stairs to the regular kitchen, but he loves the idea of a second food prep area just for snacking. 

I also don't have any pictures of the downstairs family room, because I'm lazy, and because there is still a big pile of boxes. It is cozy, though, and we love hanging out down there. Down here, actually, that is where I'm sitting as I type this. 

I am going to show an updated picture of the kitchen. I kept meaning to take pictures of the kitchen when it was completely clean and not in use, but then I decided to quit waiting for what was never going to happen and just take the picture. At least all the boxes are now unpacked!

This kitchen is old. The cupboards are probably the original ones, and the countertop is white with gold flecks in it, also probably original. That being said, we actually could unpack all of our kitchen stuff and it fits in these cupboards! If you know the way that Marquis and I cook and all the wacky gadgets we own, that is saying a lot. I never thought I would like the kind of kitchen that has the table right in the middle, but somehow it makes it more homey, and the girls love to sit there and play with Play-Doh while I make dinner. The oven and I are still getting used to each other, but it gets better every day. 

And do you see that window above the sink? The first night in our new house when all the lights were off, I came out of my bedroom to get a drink and glanced out of that window. The lights from the next town over could be seen in the distance and it is the prettiest view! I have seen some of the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets out of that window already, and the mountains that are just right there are gorgeous too. The other window looks back behind the house, and from it I can see a trellis that maybe has grapes growing on it? Because thirteen fruit trees, a million raspberries, buckets of strawberries and a whole huge garden just might not be enough, so why not throw in a few grapes, too? 

The day we moved in, the little girls went to hang with my mom while I got everything settled. Marquis went to pick them up and when he pulled into the driveway Sweetheart said, "Oh, our home is so beautiful!" The next day we went to church and when we pulled up she said, "Oh, sweet home! You know, like home sweet home?"

Home sweet home indeed.