making our house, a home.

So we've been in our house for about 3 weeks now. We moved in and there was just a hodge podge of furniture! The people that have lived here in the past, have only stayed for a couple months, if that, so no body has put the time into it yet. Well surprise, surprise! I will put the time and money and love into you little cottage! We already threw out all the old, super ugly furniture and bought new stuff from Ikea (thank you Ikea for your reasonable, newlywed, student prices). Now we're working with that! The only thing is.... I'm AWFUL at decorating! Seriously, I know I look like a little Martha Stewart over here... but that is a farse. I know what I like and I see it in tons of magazines, but I don't know how to accomplish it.

I asked a decorator to come and look at it and give me ideas and direction as to what I should do. Well she came and left and emailed me later saying that she "didn't have the time" to work on our place right now. K lady, it's not THAT ugly....! But anyway, now we're on our own decorating wise. My awesome cousin, who is not a professional interior decorator (but will be one day) is coming to visit in like 3 weeks and he is AWESOME at decorating! So I'm going to post the before pictures right now, so when he leaves I can post the after pictures!

It's going to take a lot of time, effort and $$... BUT it's a home! SO here we go! BEFORE:

Everyday I fall off the sloping little kitchen porch right there. *AJ add to our Saturday work list: build new porch.

This is the front of the house! On the right you see the out of control rose bush, which I'm going to get rid of tomorrow (it's seriously ridiculous and doesn't bloom roses anymore). And I've been pulling and killing ivy for 2 weeks (where does it even come from?! I swear the vine NEVER ends!). So we're going to plant those really pretty, tall, skinny cyprus trees on each side of the porch with some shrubs and flowers between. It's going to look really good:)

Walk in the front door and this is what you see. My biggest problem with this room is AJ's music stuff (which isn't a problem, I just don't know where to put it so it's not so out of place!)[Note the Mitt Romney bobble head AJ has:) Oh and ask AJ who he had lunch with 2 weeks ago! He'll love it!] and storage. There is absolutely no storage anywhere and all the junk is under the bed, which drives me CRAZY!

Dressers don't completely match, but we'll make it work. So you can see the birdcage and pictures on the floor. Help me think of what to do with the birdcage! It's just decoration (no real birds) and I really want to use it.

I like the pillows on the bed, but am having troubles finding other pillows to match and curtains (curtains are much needed! Right now.... no I can't even tell you what's there right now, that's how ugly they are). The Union Jack is going to go... lol sorry AJ.

Our kitchen! Really cute kitchen! I really really love it! Problems: Not enough light or surface space. Once again, addressing curtain issues. But here is the linoleum on the floor...

Maybe I'm weird, but I think it's a really cute pattern and colors and has great potential! I plan to build off that and use it to my advantage.

So if you were to walk through the kitchen you'd get to the bathroom (which I didn't post pictures of because it's okay and I care more about getting the other rooms done) or the storage room (which you can sort of see in the picture above). Not a big place, but it works and we love it! We'll love it even more after it's all finished!

If anyone has any ideas, links, pictures, etc. they want to throw my way I'd GREATLY appreciate it! I really need all the help I can get:)