The Seizure Room {NO MORE!}

Happy New Year to all of you Part II!

We have been tying up a few home improvement loose ends over here and I thought I'd show you the results of our work.

One of our home's former owners is a painter: quite an accomplished landscape painter, but unfortunately that passion also led to enthusiastic faux painting of lots of the surfaces of our house. I'll show you the mural we have in our bathroom sometime. The most egregious example of this passion was in our guest room - the room I referred to as 'the seizure room' since we moved in. It was mostly the combo of the walls and the bedspread which made it so crazy, but people, who does this to a room?

Here's a close up.

You know, I get that this was a lot of work to do, but this room has been a thorn in my side for a while, so I was so excited when Conor said he was ready to paint it! Yippee!

I have been wanting to try out some of the no-VOC {volatile organic compound} paints for a while and we decided to give it a go in this room. The VOC's are the strong fumes that paint gives off and they can out-gas for up to 5 years and make the air in your home more toxic. When you wash it down the drain, it's also bad for the water supply and bad for the Earth in general.

The paint we used {Mythic Brand} IS more expensive than traditional paint {partially because I bought it at the local mom and pop hardware/general merchant store} but I am really pleased with the results. There was a slight smell to the paint, but NO fumes. Seriously, you couldn't tell we'd painted one hour after we were finished. The smell didn't waft all over the house like it normally does when we paint. It also had a really nice coverage to it. We did one and a half coats of primer and one coat of paint - done! We have a few touch up spots to take care of, but in general it was great.

I know you've seen all the crazy colors we've painted our rooms in the past, but we went a little neutral for this room. I've got a decorating scheme in mind. I'll post photos of the completed room when it's done, but here is the color. Ahhhhhh....much better.

The New Toy Room!!!!!

I was waiting until the toy room was clean, but this is about as good as it gets.

Here it is in all it's blue glory - I love how this turned out!!!!!!!!!

I need to put some art on the walls, but the new curtains are making me happy!! Especially since I got them on sale.

POTD: Painting

We are painting Savannah's toy room.

Well, actually Conor is painting Savannah's toy room. I bought the new drapes and paint. I left these B&W so the final unveiling would be a surprise. Yes, it's another 'bold choice'. I don't care - it looks awesome. AS Ikea says "Be brave, not beige".

Note the dripping and Conor's expression.

Our Orange Room

"Orange? Oh that sounds........nice". That's what everyone said when we told them we were painting the bonus room orange. Look at it! It's soooooo beautiful (minus the mess in the corner). The lesson is - don't be afraid of bold.

I love it so much - this room is transformed. It was a very boring vanilla before (with a bad faux painting job on top of that - see picture in post below). Thanks so much Dad for painting it for us!!!!!!!!!

Grand-pa! Grand-pa!

One set of Grandparents were in town this weekend for a wedding (that I shot incidentally) and to help some more around the house. Here is Grandpa painting our bonus room. I'll post after pictures shortly. Just know that this room is totally transformed and soooooooo beautiful!

Thanks Dad!

Moving

Hooray for home ownership! Here are all the pictures.

Our walk through on closing day.

Savannah checking out Dad's new office.

Walking down the stairs for the first time.

Walking outside to see....

The SWING!

With Dad and Grandpa in front of the house. I was using a super-wide angle for all of these photos. That's why the edges of the pictures look all bendy. Just an FYI - our house is not bendy.


Playing in the upstairs living room.

The truck was a big exciting deal!

From the actual moving - it was a long day.

The next day was much more fun and involved swinging with all the Cunningham men.

And playing in the new playroom

And reading with Grandpa Jim.

And more swinging....

Savannah with a shopping bag over her head.

Why? Well, why not?

Exhausted family.

We are very happy to be in the house!

Thanks to everyone who helped us - Grandmas and Grandpas and Uncle Damian and Chris!

POTD: Savannah got a new swingset!

And it came with a really great house! We are in! More pictures later.

FYI

Pictures and the 17 month update coming soon, but I thought I'd let you know that the house inspection went well. There are some things to fix, of course, but no Plutonium (sorry Rich).

The House!

Well, we FINALLY found a house. Conor and I have been truly surprised by how competitive the Austin market is. We thought we'd stroll in here with our west coast equity and own any house we wanted....they give them away here right? Ummmmm....no.



To be fair, we really wanted to be in town and close to everything. Living as far out as we did in Bothell made it hard to enjoy all the cool things about Seattle because we had to drive across a bridge to get to them. However, the in town Austin market is INSANE. We're talking houses that are falling apart selling in a day for $300 a square foot. No thank you.



The search was getting really depressing and very stressful, so we widened our area just a bit and then we stumbled on this house.




We went to look at it and this is what sold us.

You guys.....they could have told me that there was a den of pit vipers on the second floor and I wouldn't have even heard them. I would have been like "Is that a plate warmer? Two ovens AND a prep sink!?!" I almost passed out I loved this kitchen so much.

We had some tense times during negotiations, but we found out on Friday that it's ours! The inspection is next week, so hopefully they don't find Plutonium in one of the closets. We close the end of June and it can't get here soon enough for me. Here are some more pictures.

The master bedroom

The backyard (we totally scored the playscape!)

They converted their dining room into a kids play room.

One of the owners is a painter and they made one of the upstairs rooms into an artist's studio. It has tons of natural light. DIBS!

More backyard

I'll post some more pictures once we get into the house, but thought you'd enjoy seeing this. What do you think? We are super excited.