the dining room. with new curtains from west elm!

so, we’ve been in the new house for two months, and we often get asked:

1. are you settled in?
2. are you loving it?

yes and yes. “settled in” is a relative term for me (shocker!), but we have furniture in, things are unpacked, and the storage unit is empty. have we done a lot to put our mark on the house? honestly, we didn’t need to do a ton. yes, we’ve got plans and things we’re going to do, but really here’s what we’ve done so far:

1. put in a ceiling fan in the master bedroom. (because i always need a fan to sleep. and, because hormones.)
2. put in a new ceiling fan in no. 2’s bedroom.
3. bought and installed a new foyer light.
4. replaced seven sconces with something a little more our style.
5. added curtains to the dining room (thank goodness for west elm for having the perfect dreamy combo of navy velvet curtains!)
6. random assorted stuff that mr. has done that i couldn’t tell you about, but that have to do with the garage, landscaping, and outdoors stuff.
   

   the new foyer light that i’m in ❤️ with! hello sputnik!

i haven’t open a gallon of paint yet (that’s coming, especially for the boys’ bedrooms), which i figure is the perfect project for when it gets nasty and cold outside. there’s a laundry room to put my organizational touch on (if you remember, we kinda did up the laundry room in the last house, and i’m kinda missing that), and we have plans to update the coat closet in a way that’s kinda cool (more on that in a later post). in my usual, sometimes indecisive way, i have lots of frames + canvases leaning up against walls all over the house, while my fear of putting holes in the walls takes over. one of these weekends, i’m going to have a margarita and just grab the hammer and nails and go for it. 🙂

all in all, we have our stuff in, it’s pretty much in its place, and most importantly, it feels like home.

now, in case you read the title of this blog post and wondered what in the world i mean by “the glass block house,” there’s kind of a funny story behind it. when we started looking at houses, mr. didn’t refer to them by their addresses or even their neighborhoods (he is infamously known for having a not-excellent sense of direction, so we addresses and neighborhoods didn’t really work for him!) we started nicknaming the houses. usually the nicknames were based on some feature in the house…like there was the “one for one” house, and our new house got dubbed the “glass block house.” why? because there’s a feature wall on the main level with glass block (and it’s also featured in the master bath too!)

our big, beautiful glass block feature wall!

we’ve gotten lots of questions by visitors about whether we’re keeping the wall…and, our total honest answer when asked is  “absolutely.” it’s one of the main reasons we love this house. you see, mr. and i grew up in the 80s. several years ago, we were having a discussion about houses and glass blocks came up. i turned to mr. and said, “you know what? i love glass block. it was a total staple in every home in every 80s movie, and when i would see houses that had glass block, i always dreamed of having one.” strangely enough, he had felt kind of the same way. so, we both have a thing for glass block that totally goes back to our childhoods and 80s movies and big dreams and goals! so, when you see the new house, yes the glass block is staying. we love it, and we’re learning how often it needs to be cleaned. (hehe!)

new paired sconces in our great room from amazon!

no. 1’s bedroom, complete with his new loft bed from pottery barn teen. (yeah, pottery barn *teen*…can someone make time stop??)

a peek at no. 1’s desk with a few of his favorite things!

a view of no. 2’s room! (inside info…this main wall behind his headboard is going to be painted in bright green with a navy stripe, then completed with his pottery barn kids letters centered over the bed. i’m waiting for the first weekend without plans/with bad weather to tackle this!)

there’s definitely lots more to come as we head into winter, so stay tuned! we love our new house, our new neighborhood, and love having this new space to call our own!