Our house!!!

So while we were 6,000 miles away, Chris and I searched, found, and purchased our very first home! It was tricky, but thankfully Chris's parents helped us out a lot. They drove the 3.5 hours to Maryland a few times to look at some of the houses we were interested in. The house we ended up buying we looked at a number of times, but we had concerns that the living space was too small and we didn't know the basement was actually partially finished to provide a second living space. After Chris's parents checked it out, we got a lot more information. Once we realized we couldn't get what we wanted a little closer to Chris's work, we decided to jump on this house. Oh, how glad we are that we did! While we were still in Korea, Chris's dad even did all of the signing for us with a power of attorney. When I saw the house for the first time, I loved it even more than the listing pictures, and the video and pictures Chris's parents took. There are little details you don't notice until walking through the house.

Despite that, I will share some pictures of our wonderful house! It basically had EVERYTHING on our wish list except a garage, and like I said, it was a little further out from Chris's work than we were hoping. Not too bad as first time home buyers in this expensive market. We are even on a quiet little cul de sac which is great with little ones (especially ones who go running off and you end up calling 911 trying to find her!!!) So here's a little tour of our house!

Front foyer

Living room. We got new leather reclining furniture soon after we moved in. It's soooo comfy. :) The nice area rugs came with the house.

I had fun adding a few vinyl decals to the house. :)

A picture collage like this is something I've wanted for a while. While it's simple, I'm really happy how it turned out. I'm excited to get some new updated pictures next month!

Living room. It's a perfect nook for my piano which leaves a nice nook for the kid piano too. Oh, I should mention all the window treatments came with the house too. :)

Our roomy dining room. I love the hard wood floors.

We have a nice deck off the dining room patio doors.

Dining Room

Kitchen. This kitchen is so roomy and much larger than most of the kitchens we saw in our price range. We LOVE cooking in our kitchen. An added bonus is that the pantry and pan cupboards have the pull out shelves. Love it!

Decal over the sink.

Awesome herb window over the sink. (If only I could keep those things alive! I sadly have a brown thumb. This picture was taken a while ago.)

Another kitchen view

Half bath off the kitchen

Now to the basement. Without this awesome space, I don't think we would have bought the house. It was finished when we bought it, but we added super cushy carpet.

One thing I love about this house is the amount of storage. It's so helpful!

Our cozy movie watching area. In the back corner is a play area. (We originally wanted the blue couch that matches this chair to go in the basement and the futon to go in Chris's office to act as a guest room. The movers couldn't get the overstuffed couch in the basement though, so we ended up with this arrangement.)

Toy corner

Storage area/ Chris's workbench he made a while ago.

Nice food storage shelves in the storage area. We have more shelves like these. They house our emergency food storage including our home made goodies like applesauce, apple butter, pickles (4 varieties), relish, green tomato relish, and peaches.

Laundry room. There is more awesome storage here including nice shelves, a stand alone closet for extra blankets, an under-the-stairs closet for our suitcases, and our nice new huge freezer where we house massive amounts of organic chicken, grass-fed beef, home made freezer jam, leftovers, etc.

My craft area. (Sorry it's so messy. I need to clean this up so I can do my home made Christmas projects.) We had to turn the craft bins around so Maddie wouldn't get into them. She found that much more fun than playing in the toy corner. Ugh.

Next, we'll go upstairs to the second floor. We have four bedrooms in this house. Chris painted 3 of them before all of our furniture came. The poor man hates to paint, but since I was pregnant, he did it anyway.

The nursery. I originally was going to paint this green and do a jungle theme, but the wall color was so pretty and the room even came with Tinkerbell valances and light switch cover - perfect for a little girl. I figured babies don't really care anyway, so I spared Chris the hassle. He bought me the glider for mother's day. I love to sit and feed Amelia in it. So comfy! The dresser was a great craigslist find - $30 for a $150 Ikea dresser if purchased new. Score!

Built in bookshelves.

Chris's office. This room was originally white. Chris picked this awesome color green and I found an old world map border.

I love his desk.

Kids' bathroom. They even have a jetted tub!

The girls' room before...

The girls' room after. Claire requested a pink room with purple butterflies. We got a butterfly border for the top, and I used a butterfly stencil and purple paint to add to their walls.

Maddie could have kept the crib longer, but she kept getting out, so she sleeps in the pack and play and Amelia gets the crib now.

More decals. :) Oh, and another thing I love about this house are the built in closet organizers in all of the bedrooms.

Master bedroom before...

Master bedroom after. We chose to paint it the same color as the accent color of our bedspread. We found a border that says Laugh often, Live well, Love much that matched perfectly. I added the Always and Forever decal which is something I've always said to Chris.

Master bathroom. It's a little small, but I'm just so grateful I have a master bathroom, that I don't mind. :) (That thing on the left is our funky rounded corner shower door.)

Finally, I'll share our back yard. It is awesome to have a fenced in back yard where the kids can safely play. Of course, Maddie has figured out how to crawl under the iron fence to get out front, but thankfully, Claire lets us know right away if we aren't outside with them. Oy, that child. Chris worked really hard this summer to plant lots of flowers and veggies. He bought a raised bed, then made two more himself. He planted tomatoes, various peppers, cucumbers, and a few other things that didn't work out so well. It was a scorching summer.

A fun place for the kids to play! Chris has a nice shed too with a workbench, and other manly tooly things. :)

Chris has wanted a fire pit for a long time. We used it quite a few times this summer roasting hot dogs and s'mores. Maddie is sitting on one of the two swings. Oh, and Chris got a composter to help with his gardening.

They liked the s'mores.  Can you tell?

This was actually in October as we still had some 90 degree days. You can see one of the raised beds in the corner. Claire loved when I'd water the plants and she'd run through the hose water. :)

I took this one today, hence all of the leaves. This is the swing the kids most like to swing and play on. It's so cozy all sitting together enjoying the weather and the outdoors. You can see the corner of my hammock on the right. It's amazing how much more comfortable that thing is when you aren't pregnant!

Maddie playing on the swing.

  So there you have it. We LOVE our new house, and we love where we live. We feel very blessed. :)