we're making progress

All this time I've been thinking that I'd shared more photos of the house, but it turns out those moments only happened in my mind.  My bad.

Despite the house being 100% move in ready, it's impossible for me to live in a place I haven't gotten to add my personal touch to.  While our house was picture perfect before we moved in, there were still some things I wanted to add/change to make it feel more like ours and show a bit more of my personality and style.  Jake thinks I will find any excuse to spend money and go to Home Goods, but that's simply not true, I genuinely take pride in my living space and just have to personalize it.  If you think about it, there isn't a single place I've lived other than my dorm rooms that I didn't paint a wall and purchase space-specific decor and furniture for... it's my nature.

A few things on my list to be addressed immediately were:

1. the mailbox
2. the kitchen (long story and I'm sure you'll disagree)
3. wall color
4. living room
5. gallery wall
6. hallway bathroom
7. front door
8. porch lights
9. paint the window shutters

Surprisingly, I've made a lot of progress but somehow my list hasn't gotten any shorter; for every item I check off, I add two more projects/spaces.  My list currently looks more like this:

1. the mailbox The mailbox and post have been completely replaced, I just need to add house numbers 

2. the kitchen (long story and I'm sure you'll disagree) This is going to stay on here awhile... turns out the tile is going to be much more difficult to remove than I originally thought and since Jake doesn't want to change the kitchen, it looks like I'm on my own.

3. wall color I painted over the cream walls with a tan/grey color in the hallways and dining room and went a shade darker in the living room (same color from my living room in our townhouse).

4. living room This isn't done, but progress has been made.  We replaced a bookshelf I bought my junior year of college (it was under $20 and originally intended for a bathroom) with a tall white cabinet I received as a birthday present and I'm a fan.  I also steam cleaned our couches (although you can barely tell), we added linen curtains, and slowly started hanging artwork.

5. gallery wall Totally done and I'm really proud of how it turned out.  It may have been completed late the night before our housewarming, but at least it was done (and done well) before the masses arrived.

6. hallway bathroom I'm almost there... I bought a new shower curtain, rug, and hand towels to start and painted the walls Turquoise Mist last night.  All I have left is cabinet hardware and hanging something on the wall(s).

7. front door I have always wanted a yellow front door and that's exactly what I got.  Jake painted ours for me the first weekend we moved in while I was out and it made my day!  

8. porch lights Not even close to deciding.

9. paint the window shutters All I have to do is paint them black from brown, but it hasn't fell high on the list of priorities.

10. NEW find art to fit new our walls and hang what we already own sort of started

11. NEW Master bedroom, including getting a king size bed and a ceiling fan I'm not sure if the desire for a bigger bed is actually new (it's been a reoccurring topic) but the focus on decorating the master bedroom in any way definitely is!

12. NEW window treatments throughout the house

13. NEW area rug for living room

14. NEW dining room table

15. NEW buffet/sideboard for dining room I'd love to refinish an older piece but haven't found what I'm looking for yet.

It's coming along (by my standards) slowly but surely!