the awesomeness of backsplash

It's been an insane couple of weeks here as we're moving into our new house and I'm starting a new (dream) job. I finally feel like we're starting to make a dent and with our final major delivery being this Saturday, may feel encouraged to unpack my dozens of accessorizing boxes. 

As I get ready to do a couple of before and afters, I realize I've been horrible with taking photos -- both before and after. This is completely counter to my normal disposition to grab my camera every time Dudley, our dog, strikes a cute pose (which is pretty darn often). I'm a little sad and a lot shamed that in my desire to document here to home, I've lacked some critical documentation.

Our kitchen is nearly done, but I'm excited to post some in progress photos as I try to catch up with life.

Well that's a lovely white fridge

This picture is from closing day and shows the kitchen as it looked when we moved in. It's also 'exhibit a' of delivery disasters ... because white totally matches our whole look.

Yep, those are pizza boxes. We'd hate to actually cook in our brand new kitchen. 

This photo is taken at the end of our first week, after the backsplash was installed. In my opinion, it's made all the difference between a kitchen that screams builder grade vs. gourmet kitchen. We debated long and hard about what backsplash we wanted. Originally, it was 100% subway tiles. But, as you can see, our cabinets aren't exactly white -- which made finding a tile that matched exactly (per my husband's mandate) a little difficult. We then ran the gamut between glass, stone, mosaic and stainless and lucked out in finding a gorgeous tile that combines stainless steel, brushed steel and a couple different colors of glass.  

Also, if you look closely you'll notice some paint smears and a peek of our lovely pendant lights.

There have been a couple other changes; some are documented, others I need to get on. But I hope to soon be able to post a before and after on our kitchen.

beautiful views

I snapped this photo while waiting for our painter to arrive this morning.

Clouds rolling in over the foothills

I continue to be completely awed by two things. The first is how insanely close we are to the foothills. The second is the incredible speed at which houses are built. This photo was taken from the same place just over a month ago. Crazy.

I also realized while I was downloaded this photo that all of my plans to take a load of "before" photos of the house flew right out of the window when they delivered the wrong fridge on closing day. I'm a little sad that a majority of my "before" pictures will now include some furniture, etc. Oh well, I guess it's better than nothing. 

overwhelmed

Walking into our new home, I knew that I'd feel excited and proud. The feeling I wasn't anticipating was overwhelmed. Having lived in our townhome for 9 years, we knew where everything went, had a home for everything, and had a system for mail, cleaning, etc.

We're starting fresh with our new place. On one hand it's great because it means we can try a new system without the constraints of habit. On the downside (and I'm feeling a lot of the downside now), it means that nothing has a home and that we have piles of mail, trash and orphaned items all throughout the house. It also means that our house is a mess. I know, it hasn't been a week since we moved in, but everything still feels very temporary ... and messy.

I think after all of our planning I expected to walk into our new house knowing where everything should/would go and that after a couple days of unpacking, we'd be good to go. That hasn't been the case. Top that off with a slew of delivery nightmares, puppy problems and some unplanned expenses, our move-in week hasn't been as exciting or smooth as we thought it might be.

Hopefully over the next week things begin to fall into place, until then I'm going to go be overwhelmed on our temporary couch with a glass of wine.

officially ours

Our dream home is officially ours. We closed on Tuesday and have spent the last few days dealing with delivery nightmares, contractors and moving. It's been exhausting.

But our house, our amazing house, turned out perfectly. There are a couple minor things that I may have changed (the tile in our laundry room and guest room, as previously mentioned), but they're minor compared to the rest of it. I can't believe it's ours.

The next few weeks will be filled with more deliveries, unpacking, organizing (and reorganizing), and starting installation with our blinds and landscaping, as well as getting a couple rooms painted.

There's so much to share and I'm excited to walk through the progression from day 1.

Standing on our front porch (a little worse for the wear between moving and delivery disasters)