We're Home!

Four months in a hotel.  Four months eating mostly food someone else cooked, food that probably came from a box.  Four months of housekeeping coming every day to empty the trash and run the dishwasher.  Four months without the dogs.  Four months since we lost our beloved cats.  Four months since I slept in my own bed.  Four months of driving back to our neighborhood to take the kids to school and do chicken chores.

Four months.

And now, home.  Home.

Even though the entire interior of the house is remodeled, it feels like we never left.  Our family's memories and moments and spirit are still here.  The fire didn't take any of that.  In fact, having a completely remodeled house isn't like putting on a new, ill-fitting, need-to-be-broken-in pair of shoes.  It seems to me that I've slipped right back into my years old Ugg boots that never leave my feet in the winter.  The girls have gone right back to keeping their room as messy as possible.  The bathroom towel still doesn't get hung up after the kids wipe their hands.  The same sunshine greets us in the front window each morning.  I would give up new cupboards and new floors and new furniture to have our cats back, and I hope that someday guilt won't shoot through me when I think of them.  For now, all the bright, shiny newness will be a little tarnished by their loss.

We still don't have anything hung on the walls, and our hurry to unpack has been somewhat derailed by a constant battle with a nasty virus cycling through the family.  I've been down for days and am only now feeling like a human again.  The house is definitely livable, welcoming, and functioning despite its lack of home decor.  So, here's the tour:

First, the kitchen and dining room...I realized after I uploaded these photos that I didn't really take a good picture of the whole kitchen, just parts of it.  I gained quite a bit of counter and cupboard space with our upgrades (which I am LOVING).  The double oven has also been a well worth the money upgrade for me.  We still don't have any curtains for the deck door, but I've just been too sick to go do any shopping.

The living room...The walls are what I'd call Tiffany Blue with just a little extra green.  It is hard to really appreciate the wall color in photos, but it is quite bright and uplifting.  We went for a vintage look in the living room.  We chose vintage-inspired furniture and fabric for the curtains.  A note about all the curtains in the house: Colby made them with (lots of) help from my step mom.

Two of my favorite blonds on our area rug.  Love them!

No more smoke-damaged door!  The door was the last thing they replaced.

We splurged a little on the railing here.  It was worth it.

Jefferson feels right at home, too.

Colby picked out an orange recliner.  It looks so nice.

The upstairs bathroom is pink and gray.  The old bathroom was in desperate need of upgrading, more so than the other rooms in the house.

The kids enjoy having their own room again.

Brody has a football-themed room complete with Chicago Bears curtains made by dad.

The girls' room is in a perpetual state of messy.  Just the way they like it.

The girls now have a sturdy table that can be made bigger to compensate for all their art projects and sewing.  Soren needs lots of room to play school.  

Dade's room seems typical of a teenage boy, pretty low key.

Probably the heaviest piece of furniture we purchased was Dade's dresser.  The thing is a monster.

The master bedroom is nice and cozy.  We bought a faux fire place to hold the television and keep us warm.   The blue color is much more navy blue than the photos show and isn't quite so bright.  We were able to save our bedroom furniture and have it restored after the fire because it was located downstairs (smoke and heat rise).

Colby picked out Star Wars fabric for our curtains.  I got the fancy mattress; he got the Star Wars curtains,

The large walk-in closets Colby built when we originally remodeled our master bedroom a few years ago look really nice with some new shelves and fresh paint.

While we were in Texas, Colby's dad built us some awesome washer/dryer stands in the laundry room.  Now I can shove baskets of dirty laundry underneath and out of the way.  We replaced the bathroom sink/vanity with a large utility sink.  Now I can fill a mop bucket easily, and Colby can stick his whole dirt-covered arm under the faucet instead of just half his hand.

And that's what we've got so far.  I'm excited to get decorations and photos up on the walls.  I'll post photos as we finish.

We're home!