Home is Where the Heart is...

I'm a homebody. Not in an agoraphobic sense...I just love being at home and taking time to make our surroundings here cozy and pretty. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am in love with our current residence...which is a great thing, since we will probably live out our lives here unless the real estate market takes an incredible turn anytime soon!

As most people do, I always use a part of my weekend for household chores. Yesterday, however, I spent a whopping 8 hours giving some serious TLC to and connecting intimately with my home - we're talking mopping, waxing and polishing hardwood floors. I don't know what came over me, but for the 5 minutes that it stood in its pristine state (before I allowed the dogs back inside), I was reminded of why I fell in love with this space at first sight. In honor of its potential, and because I know that at least someone (cough, Kristal, cough) has commented about seeing more, I'm dedicating this post to my house...well, the first floor of it, at least. Other than some painting, we really haven't done too much on this floor. The next house post will focus on the second floor and will feature some of our projects :)

First things first: the front of the house. I have no idea how this is possible, but we don't have a single pic of it before we re-landscaped last spring. This is the photo from the MLS listing. I know it's small, but notice the overgrown plantings on either side of the house and massive thatch of ivy covering the ground around the tree at left:

This is a picture from last summer. I took one yesterday, but the hostas and other plants haven't completely grown in yet, so this gives a better idea of how it looks when everything is at its best. Anyway, we ripped out all of that ivy and dug out a bed all along the front sidewalk that Matt outlined with stone pavers:
Next up we have the living room, which I know I've posted about before. The fact that there is no transitional space like a foyer or entryway is one minor thing that I would change about our house. The front door opens right into this room:

Here is a view from the halfway up the staircase at the far end of the room:

Looking into the dining room:

It's not a formal dining room, and opens right onto the deck. While I like the very open floor plan of our house, I personally prefer actual dining rooms...I like entertaining :) We've talked about putting French doors in the archway between the living room and this room, but the price tag associated with custom French doors is a little too much to handle these days. Oh well:

Moving on...the kitchen, a.k.a. my true love!

This is the room that sold the house for me. It's a galley-style, but most I've seen are extremely narrow. This kitchen was built as an addition by the previous owner, and is huge! There's a large breakfast bar, but there is even room to add an island in the middle for additional storage and seating. I am obsessed with the Brazilian cherry wood floors...

...the double sink and concrete countertops (although they stain easily)...

and the custom cabinetry, stainless range hood and slate backplash:

When it's perfectly clean, I could spend all day in the kitchen. However, now that it's nice out and we do have a cool deck, that is a fun place, too! Door leading out from the dining room:

Good view of our awesome patio furniture, which was a wedding gift from my in-laws:

This part of the deck wraps around the side of the house:

Finally, I'm including some backyard landscaping pictures. These first two are from last spring. Previously, there was this stone walkway up to the deck and the area along the fence was covered in more ivy and literally hundreds of bulb-based weeds. We dug all of it up, and started from scratch:

After: this is late summer, but you can see the newly-stained fence, all of the new plants that we added to the empty beds, and the wall of stone pavers that Matt painstakingly installed:

Where the stone walkway was, we took them up and evened out the surface with sand and gravel, added a bed of river rock and outlined the area with more pavers before replacing the stepping stones. Sorry that I didn't remove the dogs' blue poo bucket before taking this...too lazy :)

And here is a view of the deck and back of the house from the yard:

Now, as I started this post by saying, I love my house. However, I was driving around the neighborhood this weekend and found one that I've never noticed before. And ohhh how I want it!! Naturally, I immediately came home and asked Matt to look it up for me on the MLS. If I can ever afford the $1.2 million-ish price tag, $11k a year in taxes, and heating/cooling a 4500 square foot house, it's sayonara to my current casa and this baby is MINE: