La Casa Nueva

Consider most of these to be before pictures. Our house is cute and roomier than I remembered; it's actually a nice house, but needs a little love. We do have a little bit of a yard as you can see...the side yard is just long enough to teach little girls how to pitch. =) This is around the corner to the back and the stairs to the deck.

As you can see, I was impatient to get RID of the awful white paint in my room. The light doesn't work in here, so I did it in the opposite order and will go back and pick up the edges when the maintenance people get here to fix my light. This is only slightly lighter than it is in person - looks like the ocean. I'm planning to use a grass green and tan in here...love it. That's the bathroom off to the right, it's a light yellow and we have a large-ish walk-in closet with built-in shelves on the other side.

I really do like this house and one of my favorite things are these big giant windows. The ceiling is vaulted so it's just all light and air in here. I LOVE that....not so much the white walls. All the main walls will be a warm tan called Vanilla Bourbon. Were this my house, I would do something a little more interesting, but I think the tan will be really pretty. At least it is not white!!!

There are no less than fifteen cans of paint in the garage which makes me think that each new renter or owner has gone to town on the color scheme. The latest was this brown color block situation. It's not too bad and might actually get to stay, but with a few touch-ups. There are drips near the fireplace - sloppy. =) Anyway, design ideas are welcome for what in the world to do with that big one up top. The bottom one was clearly designed to hold the TV...and back when this house was built, TVs were basically cube-shaped. Mine is not, so I put a couple of throw pillows and a basket of books in there for the girls. They love it!

This little walkway (with a pair of very cute little feet) is where the girls toys are going to go. The walls are high enough that nobody will fall off and it's a nice size. After I followed through with my threat to throw away any toy that got pitched over the edge (thankfully it was a cheapie parade stuffed animal from Mardi Gras three years ago), I'm fairly confident I don't have to wear a hardhat while walking through my house. =)

Looking down into the dining area, see the deck and kitchen counters and the rad copper patina light. Really, all the dated stuff isn't really bothering me that much, it's just funny.

VERY ORANGE BATHROOM UPSTAIRS. The color is washed out in this photo...it is crayon orange. INTENSE and must go with a quickness. The girls are getting a nice warm yellow to match the shower curtain Carly requested - the ones that look like a map of the world. I think at one point the whole house was this intense color scheme, judging by the closets (that I'm not going to repaint either)...wow.

Cute little office area in the closet off the small bedroom upstairs. The previous tenants had a little boy in there and they painted the room a really peaceful blue. That color will be allowed to stay, but the weird curtain rods with leaf finials....gots to go. =)

This big room will be the girls' room. It's a gosh-awful purply brown right now...so bad. And the border is weird, but it's all going to a nice friendly sky blue. Their bunk beds will stick out from the wall between those windows and there is plenty of room for both (sort of broken) dressers and their small round table. Their closet is nice and big with the same built-in shelves you saw above. There's attic access, too, but the door will remain locked. I don't want to walk out to the garage one day and see Bree's feet sticking through the ceiling.

Here's the kitchen! It's bigger than I remembered and that island with the super cool white and gold barstools (with peach cusions!) has been so great these last few days. The girls eat every meal there and they can sit and talk to me while I'm getting stuff ready...I love it. All the appliances except the fridge are originals - and you can tell they were top of the line when the house was built...back when watercolor brush strokes on microwave buttons was in style. Paul was worried that it might be dirty, but everything is fine. It all works great...it's just...vintage.  =)

Closer view of the wallpaper in here. I swear to you, you could walk into the ladies room at any Baptist church in the south and see this exact pattern. It's actually not just so horrible I cringe every time I walk in here...it's just like all the other stuff, sort of cute and funny. I'll get it taken down and the kitchen will go a soft yellow called Belgian Waffle, but until then I'm going to enjoy these summer fruits in all their gaudy awesomeness.

So that's it for now! I'm absolutely exhausted, but I have to meet my boxes goal for today and mop the floors so our feet aren't so dirty. The girls have been so unbelievably good! The past couple of days, I've worked until 5 and then taken them out to play. We went to the pool yesterday and today we walked over to the beach. It's probably a little less than a mile? I'm guessing? I don't know. Takes about 20 minutes (with shoes). The tricky part is when your flip flops decide to come apart while you're AT the beach...lovely. Fortunately there was a little consignment store on the way home whose owner didn't mind me traipsing around with no shoes on. =)