Upstairs Tour

If you stopped by yesterday, you saw the downstairs of the home that my husband, Stephen and I just bought.  Now buckle your seat belts and get ready to see the upstairs :)

When you get to the top of the staircase and look to the left, you see the hall closet, bathroom, and 2 bedrooms (picture to the left).  When you look to the right, you see our bedroom (picture to the right).  We'll start in the master bedroom...

Right when you look in the door, you see where our bed will go (that is not our bed, it was the previous owners, they hadn't gotten it out yet..).  You also see our closet (to the left of the picture)

Here's a shot of our bedroom after you've walked in the door more (our bathroom is behind you, our closet is to your left and our bedroom door is to the right)

This is the view of our bedroom if you're standing in front of our closet door.  The bathroom is to the right - don't worry, Stephen was simply checking to make sure that the toilet had been fixed per our request after inspection, he is not doing anything that shouldn't be put on the internet!

This is our closet.  The picture to the left shows you what it looks like from our bedroom door (the door you see leads to our attic).  The picture on the right shows you what the closet looks like from the attic door.  You should've seen our closets in Chicago - this is a MAJOR improvement!

The master bathroom; the picture to the left shows you the right side of our bathroom and the picture to the right shows you the left side of our bathroom

Let's move on out and check out the hall closet and the hall bath...

The picture on the left shows you the hall closet - awesome storage!  The picture on the right shows yo the hall bath.  Now onto the bedrooms...

When you get to the end of the hallway and go to the room on the right, you go into what we fondly call the "farm room".  This room had a farm mural painted on the walls and ceiling...ay yi yi!  What a hard room to paint!  The picture to the left shows you what the room looks like when you're looking out the door and the picture on the right shows you the alcove window with the window seat.  

When you get to the end of the hallway, and go to the room on the right, you head into the pink (now tan) room.  The picture on the left is what the room looks like when you're looking out; the picture on the right is what the room looks like when you're standing in front of the door.

That's it for our upstairs tour.  This house has 3 different colors of trim throughout the house with 2 different types of sheen.  Needless to say, we've been busy!  We've already painted 4.5 rooms as well as the trim that's in that room.  I'll be back soon to show you our progress!

Downstairs Tour

Whelp, it's been MUCH longer than I had anticipated it being...needless to say, things have been CRAZY!  I've been good to keep my head above the water and stay sane!  Anyhoo - I promised pictures of our new home and so pictures I have.  These are pictures from when we did our walk-through 3 days before our closing (so about a month ago).  Since then, we've been busy, busy, busy painting and preparing for this weekend when we finally move all our furniture in.  We're both really looking forward to waking up and knowing that all of our clothes are in our closet, where we can find them!  I wanted to include a floor plan to help navigate you around our digs, however that is taking me much longer than expected.  I decided to just bite the bullet and share the pictures with you without the floor plan.

So our house is a 2-story Cape Cod with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and a 2 car garage.  We do have a basement, but it is unfinished (I included no pictures...it looks just like any unfinished basement you've ever seen).  So, without further a-do, here she is:

{First Floor}

Right when you walk in the front door.  Just so you get your bearings, the dining room is to your right, the living room to your left.  If you go straight past the stairs, there is a half-bath in the little hall to the left and then the hallway ends in the family room (which is connected to the kitchen).

Looking to the right...

Dining Room from the front door

Again, the dining room, a little farther in looking into the kitchen

In the dining room, looking on the front door (standing next to the kitchen door)

Looking to the left when you're standing at the front door...

To the left is the living room (we will be using it as an office) and you can see the hall half-bath in this picture

Looking into the living room (office) - it is connected to the family room by french doors

Looking into the living room (office) from the family room

Moving to the back of the house...

The family room (as if standing to the left of the french doors) and looking into the kitchen

The family room, with the kitchen in back of you

In the family room, with the fireplace to the right and the kitchen to the left, looking towards the front door

The kitchen (standing with the family room facing your back)

The kitchen with the bay window behind you

and off the kitchen is a little mudroom...

The blanket is the efficient window treatments that the first owners had covering the window...the short wall hides the door leading to the garage

The half bath in the entry hallway

I'm so excited to paint this ceiling that the old owners had green (that comment is dripping in sarcasm).

That's the downstairs of our new home.  I'll share with you the upstairs tomorrow.  I'll also be sharing with you the plans that we have for our new home and the progress we've made.  Don't get me wrong, it's been great living with my parents, but we're both SUPER excited to move in and enjoy having all of our stuff put up where we can find it!

Where I spend most (let's be real: all) my time...

I figured that I live spend so much time in my classroom that it only seemed appropriate to show you what it looks like.  I have a thing for primary colors...I really like them.  In my very first apartment, I had different primary colored pillows for our couches and we decorated in primary colors.  It only seems appropriate for me to incorporate that color scheme in my elementary classroom!

This is a picture of me standing in back of my desk looking out onto the room...it's definitely lacking in size...we're getting to know each other reeeeaaallly well in the cozy space!

This is a view from me standing in front of the door looking into the room. 

This is a view of the white board.  To the right is our calendar, jobs and mailboxes and to the left is the "Who Is Mrs. Corsi?" board (which will later be turned into the "Star Student of the Week" board).

To the right of the white board

To the left of the white board

Here is our sink area...this is where their lunches hang out (if they brought them from home) until lunch, where they switch out their dull/broken pencil for a sharpened one, and of course, where they wash their hands :)

Here's our "book nook" and the site of all of our morning meetings and number talk discussions...that rug sure does look big but my big 4th and 5th graders definitely don't all fit on it!

Here are our student computers as well as our Mastery Club board...if you're a teacher and you haven't checked out Mrs. Renz's website, you definitely need to give it a look!

And lastly, here is a view of our SMARTboard (I have a chart taped to it for this particular discussion) with our lone window to the right (my desk sits right in front of it).

It's so funny how the room looks so peaceful when it's empty.  It's definitely anything but peaceful during the day, although I feel as though I'm starting to figure out day by day a teeny-tiny bit more on how to survive in a split classroom.  For the longest time I couldn't get them to stop talking.  Like, seriously?  Why won't you stop talking???  I figured out something today that surprisingly worked really well: I started talking very quietly so they had to turn off their voices in order to hear mine.  I was pretty impressed with such a simple solution...I know I sound like such a debbie-downer when I say this, but I only give this solution a short amount of time before they decide they really don't care to hear what I'm saying!  If you're a teacher, do you have a great website resource that you recommend I check out for some great classroom ideas?

In other news...

Stephen and I close on our house tomorrow!  AHHHHH!!!!  We had our walk-through tonight and I snapped a ton of photos.  These will be great for me to look back on after we've worked in the house and made it more of our home.  I'll definitely share the pics here on my bloggity-blog as soon as I get a moment...expect them before next week is over :)

Checking in

Ahhhhhhhh!  What a relief it is to be back here in blogland!  I have missed the relaxation and creativity that blogland has to offer.  It has been quite some time since I've been here and I've missed it greatly!  I know that I let you all know that on Monday, August 1st I accepted a position as a 4th grade teacher here in Louisville.  At the end of my first week, I took on a new challenge that has just about eaten me alive: I no longer teach 4th grade, I now teach a 4/5 split.  Let me tell you, I'm currently living in my classroom and doing nothing but eating dinner and falling asleep on the couch when I come home.  I'm looking forward to {hopefully} getting my mind wrapped around what I need to do and how to do it so that I have more time to do the things that I really want to do (for all you teachers out there laughing while I type that, I realize that this is a seemingly impossible task...).  I have lots of projects just waiting to burst out of me and it's killing me that I can't do any of them at the moment...

Here's a list of the things that I can't wait to do (in fact I have just about everything I need to do them, except for the time):

-Finish up Charles the Chair and start on his twin brother (destination: living room)

-Refinish a chair that I got with Charles and his brother (destination: guest bedroom)

-Refinish my parents dining room suite that they are graciously giving us (destination: duh! dining room :))

-Make baby bedding; my sweet friend Traci is pregnant with twinsies (YAY!) and I have the honor of making her little boy and little girl bedding!  My sister-in-law, Cali is pregnant with a little girl and I have just about all I need to start working on her bedding.

-Make baby items: with babies coming, lots of baby products are in order!

...and it's official!  Stephen and I officially will be closing on our house this upcoming Friday!  WOOOO!!!  It's been a long time coming, especially since we made our first offer on the house on Thursday, June 9.  We've been camped out at my parents house and we can't wait to finally be able to officially unpack and know where all our stuff is!  Needless to say, this is a BIG project that I'm excited to be able to tackle!  

That's all for now - I won't be waiting so long to come back and share my projects and life here so be sure you come back and check often :)!