The house is coming along...

So, we have been busy making our house into a home. None of the rooms are totally finished yet, but I thought I'd document some of the progress we've made. There will be no pictures of the kitchen/family room yet, because I did an awful job painting the chair rail and haven't figured out how to fix it yet! We're also waiting for a sectional to come, so that room isn't really put together yet.

The living room is becoming one of my favorites. Here it is so far.

I fell in love with the fabric that will be made into that pillow into the middle... so my colors for the living room became blue, green, and a little bit of orange. The room still needs a coffee table (actually I found one on Craigslist after taking this picture), a rug, and I need to sew a couple of pillows and hang a couple more things on the walls.

...and figure out what to cover the piano bench in, and make or find a bookshelf to put by the piano, and raise the curtain rods up a bit. Ok, so now I feel like even this room isn't close to being done!

We call this the "learning room." It's not finished... I'd like to get a smaller shelf for the toys to get rid of some clutter. That craft table for the boys has been awesome! Any art supplies they could want are readily available, and out of the reach of little sister.

We also have the computer in this room, and I love the color we chose to paint the cabinet!

The "art wall," made out of Ikea curtain wires and clips. (This is the hallway going from the learning room to the kitchen/eating area.) That purple guy is a project Rick did when he was little!

Our table: my favorite project that we've done so far!! I knew I wanted a square table, but I figured we would make do with the current table we had for a while. Well, during my daily Craigslist scouring a couple of weeks ago, I spotted a warehouse clearance sale with a picture of this table top. The kids and I went over the next morning, and I loved it just like I knew I would! It is solid, heavy wood already finished; it just needed legs. So, handy Rick (with the next door neighbor's help) got some wood from Lowe's, stained it to match, and made some legs for me.

And then the table needed new chairs, right? Another awesome Crigslist find! (I think 75% of what we own now comes from Craigslist. Those bar stools in the background? $5 each.) These chairs are metal. They were gray with black seats, so we sanded and spray painted them and recovered the chair cushions. Oh, how I love this table and chairs!! The plan is also to make a bench so that it can seat eight (or nine with three small kid bums on the bench.)

I keep thinking of putting a striped rug under that table, but don't want to deal with the messes on it. And probably a gallery wall on the wall you see in this picture.

Lots more house pictures coming soon, although progress has slowed dramatically since Rick started working 6 days a week/14 hours a day plus a long commute! I should just learn to use a drill, right??

P.S. I would LOVE any constructive criticism, like "maybe this would look better..." kind of comments as the house comes along. I am pretty much making design decisions on my own and wish I had some other opinions!