our first home | formal living + dining

Since we're moving, I wanted to feature our first home for memories.  Also to show off how awesome our house looks in these pictures, taken by a professional that our realtor hired.  He made our house look ginormous in these pictures! 

First up are the two front rooms, the formal living and dining.  You've seen these rooms several times before, but thought I'd start from the front of the house and work our way to the back. 

As soon as you walk into the house, the first thing you see is this. 

This is how it looked like when we first got our keys back in September 2009 and walked in for the first time as homeowners (well that's a lie - this was the day after).

I think the first thing I bought was that rectangular mirror which I found at Ross.  I was so excited when Paul bought me the console table for my birthday.  I've been hinting at him for months that I found the perfect console table at Target. 

I found this picture of Paul painting the first coat on with Behr paint in Desert Camel.  A few weeks later (if not A week) we changed it to Sherwin Williams in Camelback because the previous one was a little too yellow.  Lesson learned:  see if you like the paint in natural light first before continuing on to paint the rest of the house. 

Here's the formal living room and dining before:

We even had my family over for lunch one day and had them choose their top two favorites.  We ended up choosing a Behr paint that my Dad really liked (hi Dad!).

Our awesome makeshift blinds.  We put them on there when we painted the room and never took them off.  It was like this for almost two years.  Goodness.

 

And here it is now, as you've seen it lately on this blog.

Don't mind the blanket on the couch.  We forgot to remove it before the pictures.  That's Bailey's favorite spot, her go-to place when she wants to get away from us.

I've been meaning to put some artwork and a bench on that bare wall but never got around to it.  Maybe in the next house.  I think we put most of our hard work (and money) into this front room.  There was a lot to fill up and we basically started from scratch.  I am probably most proud of this room, and I hope I can duplicate this in the next house, if not make it better.

Up next is the kitchen.  I hope you have a good weekend!