This side nook was one of the first things I told our architect I wanted when we sat down to plan the house.  In our last house our dining table was in between the kitchen and family room.  It was a tight space and we were always bumping into the table and chairs.  I wanted the table off to the side so that it was out of the way of the kitchen/family room traffic flow.

I originally had a banquette here – built-in bench seats but then decided to take them out.  I think they’re so fun!  But I didn’t want everyone to have to slide in and out for one person to get in and once we decided to put french doors on the right side of the nook instead of a window I thought a table and chairs would work better.

I always pictured a round table in this spot, but after we put our old temporary table in we started thinking a rectangle table might work better after all.  I’m excited to find a fun rug for this space to cozy it up!

 I decided to make our kitchen counter and cabinets wrap around and into the nook.  Creates some extra storage and it will be a fun space for a pop of decor.  I adore the three little drawers in the middle.  :)  Perfect for random things like napkins.

This is the butler’s pantry.  It connects my pantry (on the right) and the formal dining room (on the left). I love this space!  I had so many ideas for it that I had a hard time choosing how it should look.  Originally it was just closed glass shelves.  But then I decided to go with open shelving.  And of course in my opinion everything is more fun with some wide planks behind it.  :)  I’m also a huge fan of corbels (they are on the outside of the house too) so I added some under the shelves.

The bottom section is just cupboards and drawers for more storage.  You can see our pantry door to the right.  Pantry is a post for another day!

 Lights inside the shelves!  It looks so pretty at night all lit up.

I will share more details soon!  Most likely in January when the paint work and Christmas are behind us.  SO so excited and grateful for my kitchen.  I know we will enjoy many happy years in this space.  I wish I could have you all over!  It would motivate me to use my new ovens.  

They intimidate me just a bit.

:)

It wasn’t a large space, but it quickly became our favorite room in the house.  

A fun place to lounge on the couch.  A place to store all of the kids’ toys.  

A place to display artwork and pictures.   

 A place to watch the classics.  

And of course… a place to enjoy a nice hot cup of tea.  With a pig and a bear and a bunny.  

And some ice cream on the side.

I took pics of the new playroom a few days before we moved in.  Now we have furniture in the room and toys are EVERYWHERE so I need to clean it up a bit and take some more recent pics.  Or maybe I’ll take some scary pics and show it as is.  Even better.  :)  But first let’s look at a nice clean slate!

But decided on carpet for the playroom.  I wanted it to feel really comfy and inviting.  I chose a grey, short carpet for this space.  I didn’t want anything too shaggy for two reasons.  I want to eventually put a fun, colorful rug in this space (rugs work great on short carpet!) and also because my kids play on the floor so much.  I needed carpet that Thomas the Train wouldn’t get stuck in and that Polly Pockets wouldn’t get lost in.  :)

When you walk in you see another door on the other side of the room (post on that space later) and wainscoting along the wall.

These are actually huge pull out drawers!  I need to take more recent pics.  They have hardware on them now.  More on how I’m utilizing those babies later!

This closet is stuffed to the brim now but it was nice for a few days to enjoy some empty shelves.

Our powder bathroom is the main bathroom on our main floor.  It’s close to the kitchen/living area and the bathroom that everyone will use.  This room is in the shape of a rectangle so it was a little tricky to photograph!  The picture above is the only shot I have of the whole space (as much as I could photograph at one time) and the lighting is a little off.  The rest of the pics I took with the ceiling light turned off and they are spot on with how this space really looks.

I love the Carrara marble countertops!  This has been a perfect spot for marble.  Nothing ever gets set down on these counters.

Top detail of the columns.  I was worried about these columns because I didn’t want them to look too fancy!  I like things so simple.  They had a lot more detail in the original design and I kept taking things out making them as basic as possible.  Same with the crown molding.  This crown is throughout our house in rooms we didn’t do a ceiling treatment and oh my word it was a pain figuring it out!  Apparently they don’t pre make crown this simple.  Everything my carpenter showed me was so swirly and fancy.  Kenny was like “don’t you just have a straight board?  That what she wants.  Something as plain and boring as possible.”  :)

 Ok.  Can we please talk about this wallpaper!?  Do you love it as much as I do?  Oh my word.  I adore it more every day.  If that’s possible.  I knew early on I wanted to wallpaper this bathroom because it’s a smaller space and I was too big of a chicken to make a bolder move with wallpaper in a big space.  I also knew I wanted something grey and white with a geometric pattern.  I looked at so many options on-line that I liked, but they just didn’t feel like “the one.”  Then when I was in a local design store picking out fabric for my girls’ bed pillows, the designer helping me mentioned she sold wall paper.  I looked through several books with her and when I opened the page with this sample I heard music playing!  K.  Maybe I just heard myself singing.  Or squealing.  I’m not sure which one.  But it was loud!  I knew the two of us were meant to be together.  :)  So many of you have already asked about this wallpaper and I’m happy to give anyone the info. you need to order it!  Like I said, it’s not on-line so just send me an e-mail and I’ll explain who you need to call.  The store designer and I clicked and have become fast friends.  She is helping me with a few other things throughout my house.

 Most of the lights throughout my house are clear glass – another look I love.  I fell hard for these sconces when I found them for this room.  You can order them here.

They take an edison bulb.  I’m a big fan of vintage touches so I have a lot of lights with edison bulbs.  LOVE the look.  The only downside to lights like this is how badly they show dust.  I will have to stay on top of keeping them clean.  Kenny thinks I’m crazy for ordering so many clear glass fixtures but I say small price to pay when they make me so happy!  :)

These fixtures are from Quoizel Lighting and you can find them here.

What are you doing for window treatments?  

The girls’ have french doors in their rooms with windows on the sides of them.  Their rooms are BRIGHT.  I love how sunny they are.  Happiest rooms in the house.  We decided on plantation shutters for the whole wall.  These pics show the door shutters installed.  Their window shutters are coming this week.  In this pic El’s door shutters are open.

 And Ad’s are closed.  Their rooms are pretty sparse at the moment.  We haven’t bought them furniture yet – just the beds.  This is their old bedding making due until headboards and new bedding comes.  Hopefully in the next week or two!  Once I get those in place I will start working on decorating the rest of their rooms.

I placed their hand towel holders on the wall next to their built-in side cabinets.  I ordered them from Top Knobs – the Edwardian Collection in polished chrome.

We also added some new towel hooks on the wall (the only wall space we had to hang towels so that was an easy decision!)  These hooks are the Aubrey hooks from Restoration Hardware.

We bought most of our cabinet hardware at Restoration Hardware.  The pulls on their drawers are also the Aubrey pulls.  I adore them and put them in my laundry rooms too.

 These little niches in the showers were hard for me to figure out!  How high do you want them?  How wide?  What materials?  Where will the water spray?  Not a big deal in the end, but at the moment I was certain I was going to destroy every shower in my house by not spacing these right.

 Here’s a tip if you are putting marble in your shower.  I used the marble on the back of the niche, but the bottom of the niche is a tile called “statuary” that looks like marble.  That way you don’t have to worry about shampoo and soap ruining the marble.  We did this in our master bathroom shower too.

What color of grey did you paint the walls?  

Their bathroom wall is the same grey as my family room and hallways – “Seattle” by Frazee.  I was originally going to paint it a fun color, but after the girls’ bedroom paint went up I was afraid we would have an Easter egg look going on with three bright colors in line with each other.  :)  I decided to keep their bathroom a neutral grey and bring in the bedroom colors with rugs and towels.  I would add pops of grey in the girls’ rooms too if I totally had my way.  But their rooms are a compromise and the girls don’t want grey.  Just bright colors.  We’ll see what I can sneak in…   :)

I think that was all the questions!  Anything else I’ll answer in the comments.

And to my friend Shari who said in the girls’ bathroom comments regarding finally seeing new house pictures – “now I feel like I’ve eaten just one potato chip out of the bag and I want more!” …  

Ha ha… that cracked me up!  More are coming.  Just be patient with me.  If you all saw the current state of my garage and half of the rooms in my house right now you’d understand.