Some Furniture Photos

Keep in mind, this is a work in progress.  I had no idea how much effort went into moving into a new home.  We were in our old home for 7 years, so we had really "settled in."  This place, however, I feel like I may never have as "homey" as the old one.  I know that's not the case, it's just that I was so used to our old house having everything just so that it's tough for me to get used to having a clean slate/bunch of new stuff here.  There's so much furniture and other stuff to buy!

I know, I should be excited, and I kinda am.  But when it comes to the curtains...I'm terrified.  At the old house I changed out the hardware and curtains in the family room, and changed the valances in the kitchen.  That was easy - the holes and hardware were already there to guide me.  The bedrooms all had white wooden (or faux wood) blinds, and I took down the curtains one year while I was painting and never replaced them.  They were all the same drab shade of green anyway so no big loss.  We still had the blinds.  But here, at this house I have no idea how to do what I want. Do I go with 84" curtains, knowing that they won't be a full 6" above the windows if I do that?  Do I go with 95" curtains, and hang the rods super-high, making our already tall 9' ceilings feel even taller and possibly drawing attention away from the crown molding we wanted? 

Oh. My. God.  I have no idea what to do. 

The only room in the entire house with any type of window treatment is the mudroom/laundry room, simply because I had a valance from an old house/apartment and I could easily buy a tension rod to fit.  Otherwise, I'm paralyzed.  It's even worse now that the neighbors are all moved in.  One of their side bedroom windows and the window on their stairs (it's a Venice with the garage on the left) look directly into our master sitting room area.  It was fine when there was no one there, just workers, since I never needed to worry about the weekends or after hours.  But now I seriously need something there, lest I continue dressing in the closet.  I think I may call J.C. Penney.  Apparently, they will give you a free in-home estimate and design consultation.  I think I know what I want to do, it's just the little details like how long of curtains I should buy and how I should hang the hardware that I'm stressing about.  And, it's really only for some of the windows - all of the windows along the back of the house (save for the single window in the back of the master and the smallest bedroom/craft room) will be going bare for the foreseeable future.  There are a good number of trees back there, and a good distance too, between our house and the neighbors', so I'm less concerned about someone seeing in.

Anyway, anyone's thoughts about curtain placement and hanging height would be appreciated.  It's starting to make me sick.

Here's some pics of some of the rooms that have furniture.  Once again, they're all a little rough - not one room is completely done.  And our new bedroom furniture is nowhere in sight yet, so that's another room that needs some serious help (no pics here of that - it's just our old mattress and box springs on its frame with two old nightstands next to it.  Nothing to write home about yet).




The Living Room
(still looking for tables and lamps - night pic from the day we got it)

  

The furniture is by Best (Made in the USA) and the rug is from Lowe's.
(day pics from the weekend)





Couch - apparently it's called black although it looks grey to me.
The cats have already left their mark with cat hair and snags.  *sigh*




Another view - I'm so happy with it all and the rug is soooo soft!



This chair is totally cute but completely uncomfortable...



...for humans.

 

The Hall Bath - I am in love with this shower curtain.
(The husband swears there's a devil in the branches.  It's possible, I've seen a running horse and a deer head)



The Morning Room
(thinking about a rug from Macy's, but we need to order it)



Panorama of the Media Room (and another Kitty!)





This TV will soon be upgraded and we still have to clean up the wires and stuff
(and then I think this TV will end up in the bedroom, but I'm not sure).




Ahh, the Family Room.
We need some bigger furniture!





Entertainment center in the Family Room
(what's hilarious is that this practically filled up the wall it was on in our old house...now it seems small!)

We still have no dining room furniture (soon, I hope, soon).  You can see from the above pics that I have a box of artwork/pictures in the family room, but nothing on the actual walls.  Once again, I'm paralyzed.  I'm afraid to put holes in the walls!!  I do have one thing on the wall, though - 

It's an "S" initial my sister made for us.  I need to trim the ribbons a bit, but it looks great!  Matches our colors perfectly.  And it's hanging by a Command hook, so still no holes!

Hopefully we'll have more furniture and pics soon.  I look forward to everyone else's decor pics too!!

Finally, An Update!

Here we are!

Just as a reminder, we closed on February 14, and got the keys on the 15th.  That weekend then became a whirlwind of trying to get some stuff in boxes and over to the new house, while also calling to switch over cable, electrical, and gas.  Of course, we couldn't switch over the cable right away, so there was about a week of heading back to the old house to do work-related projects that required internet access.  That was fun.  Plus, I missed a bunch of shows!  It was rather painful to read Facebook updates about The Walking Dead when I hadn't even watched it yet!

I'll get to pics in a second, but first I want to bring up some of the things I mentioned in my last post a month ago.  I mentioned that our PMs have been pretty good overall, save for an occasional lack of communication.  This came to the forefront the day we closed.  Apparently, there had been an issue with the dishwasher that we were completely unaware of.  At some point in the cycle, the dishwasher would leak a small amount of water from the bottom righthand corner.  Now, at the pre-settlement walkthrough we were not told any of this.  No one mentioned anything to us about it.  According to what our PMs told us later, they had assumed that it was fixed since they had GE show up before the pre-settlement date to repair it (that was repair attempt #1).  After our pre-settlement meeting that day, one of the PMs decided to try to run another cycle to see if it was fixed.  It wasn't.  There was still a small amount of water that leaked from the bottom right corner.  After we closed on Thursday, I called our main PM to let him know that we were able to sign the paperwork (and left a message, since it was after hours).  He called back shortly afterward and told me THEN about the dishwasher problems.  AFTER we had already signed off and closed.  Wonderful.  He was lucky I answered the phone and not the husband.  The husband was pretty upset about it, and rightfully so.  No mention was made of this to us.  We had no clue that ANYTHING was wrong with ANY of our appliances.  It made me wonder, "What if something else was wrong with something else, and we had no idea before we closed?"  In addition to all that, now the house is ours and there will be someone trying to get in to repair this dishwasher - and of course they'll likely want one of us there to supervise.  Well, great, but neither of us were able to take any real time off work after closing because of our work schedules and conflicting colleagues' vacations.  So, uh, wouldn't it be better if this had been fixed BEFORE we closed, instead of now one of us having to leave work randomly to try to be there for a repairman?? 

And then the repairman!  The PMs made an appointment that following Monday (I think) to have GE come out and try to fix it again (repair attempt #2 - apparently they try three times before calling it a lemon and replacing the appliance).  Okay, we told the PMs we want someone there to watch the guy, as we started moving stuff in over the weekend (including our two cats).  The PMs said one of us had to be there too.  Great.  Now the husband has to leave work (as we were short staffed at my job and I couldn't get away) so he can be there with the repairman.  Luckily, both our PMs were also there.  The repairman comes in and starts working on the dishwasher - this is where it gets good.  First he breaks a couple parts off while trying to figure out what's wrong, including the bottom trim and the plastic top part where the buttons are.  The husband and PMs kept looking at each other like, "What is this guy doing?"  He then proceeds to throw down one of the broken pieces on the counter, and exclaims "I don't know how to fix this.  I can't do this.  I'll have to call another service guy."  And he leaves.  Just leaves, with our dishwasher now broken.  Husband and PMs look at each other, husband says "You guys are gonna replace this now," PMs say "Yes, this will be replaced."  A little while later, one PM calls the GE service department to find out whether a new repairman will be coming out or not, and GE tells him that the first guy never even checked in!  Never called, nothing!  They have no idea where he is.  By 6 pm or so that evening, they still didn't know where the original repairman was.  Apparently, our dishwasher broke the guy.  I think he left the country.

Another thing I mentioned was the cleaners.  I know some people on the blogs have complained about the cleaning being less than ideal before closing.  I'll have to second that.  We are rather lucky that our paint color for the walls matches the tile colors closely - otherwise it would be really really obvious that there are paint drips and messes ALL OVER the tile.  They did a good job with the obvious trim paint overspray that we had on the hardwoods, but the tile was terrible.  I know that because of the fact that our paint and tile colors were so similar led to them not being able to see how much paint was on there, but seriously.  I could tell when I was sealing grout - I know the cleaning staff was on their hands and knees cleaning the tile as well (we walked through the house one evening while they were there, so I saw them).  Our PM even told us that he had them come back through to clean right before we closed, but I find it hard to believe.  Obviously some of the stuff can't be helped - lord knows there's a ton of drywall dust still settling today - but paint on the tile?  Come on.  It was pretty obvious to me.  Of course, I wouldn't be blaming the cleaning crew if the painters had been more careful, but whatever.  Expecting people to do things right the first time seems to be a pipe dream.

Finally, on to the pics.  Overall, we're rather pleased with how it all turned out.  I still thank the husband daily (out loud or in my head) for changing the paint color to Pavilion Beige - I can't imagine how the other paint choice would have turned out, but this is perfect for us.

First, the first floor...



The Stairs - I really love how these turned out



The Living Room
(There is now furniture in here!  I'll post pics later today)



View from Living Room into Dining Room




Fireplace
(update to come on this one - they're replacing our hearth stones as one of them has a very sharp edge)



Morning Room (and awesome view)

Kitchen



Kitchen from Morning Room
(Another update - GE is replacing our freezer door since it's dented near the handle...perhaps someday I will discuss this more, right now it's a bit touchy)

 

Dining Room


 

Another view of the Dining Room





Overall view of Family Room (a little out of order)



Mudroom/Laundry Room

First floor Powder Room - rather hard to photograph

First floor Office - also hard to photograph

Windows in the first floor Office

And now the second floor...

Master Bedroom Sitting Room
(Closet door to the left)

Master Bedroom - lots of these rooms are hard to photograph
(might have to use panorama next time, when there's real furniture in here)

Master Bathroom sinks

Master shower

Jetted tub (yay!)

One spare Bedroom (next door to the Master)

Foyer chandelier

Stairs looking down (you can see our shoes!)

Hall Bathroom

Hall Bathroom sinks

Smallest Bedroom and my future Craft Room

Another spare Bedroom

Finally, the basement...



Basement (to the right of the stairs as you face them)

 

Basement (continuing to the right of the stairs as you face them)


 

Basement stairs

 

Basement (to the left of the stairs as you face them)



Basement Powder Room

Unfinished Area
(Only unfinished storage in the whole house)

Unfinished Area
(and  some leftover carpet and hardwoods)

 

Another shot of the Basement - the back of the stairs are at the far right of the picture


 

Future Hearth Room
(planning on putting a fireplace in on that open blank wall)



The Future Bar Area
(finished space under the Morning Room - doors to outside are in this area)

 

Doors to the Media Room



Media Room (back)

 

Media Room (front, where the TV will go)


 

View from the walkout doors - inside the tiled Future Bar Area
(Lots of mud right now, but hopefully a patio in the future)


 

The Front of the House!



There are more things to come in the near future (like other complaints, how things went at the 30 day inspection, etc.), but I think that's all for now.  I'll try to get pics up soon of some of the rooms with furniture.