Getting Settled In

As promised, I am back with pics of our new place! I actually had everything unpacked two days after moving in but we have spent the last week completing the usual moving errands: new bank account, new driver's license, new library cards, getting internet hooked up, etc. We have also been spending a lot of time just relaxing and hanging out with family and friends. 

We LOVE it here and I can't even think of a time that I have been this relaxed. I always wanted to live in the country but hated the idea of living in a small town. After all of our experiences in the city though, this was a welcome change of pace. Since I have been here to visit Shelby's family a bunch of times over the last 8.5 years, this place had already started to feel like home so luckily there hasn't been too much of a culture shock.

It is kind of funny going from the ghetto to small town America though. At night we hear crickets instead of police sirens and the neighbors fighting. That skunk smell? It isn't coming from the neighbors smoking pot all day, every day. Nope. That smell is my husband and father-in-law who uncovered a skunk's nest while they were working out in the barn. Lol! When you hear shots fired around here it is from a farmer taking out some wild animal that is threatening his livestock instead of drug dealers fighting over territory. Speaking of shots being fired, the weekend after we moved, our last city had five shootings over three days. Further confirmation that it was time to get out of there. 

Not only that but the day after we moved in Shelby was offered the job that he was hoping for! There are a bunch of technicalities and hoops that they have to jump through before they can give him an official start date though. In the meantime, we have been enjoying some much-needed family time before he heads back to work. The only downside is that it is impossible to keep the house clean with both of my guys home 24/7. I took all of these photos right after I had cleaned and while Shelby and Jer were still out working in the garden.

Front exterior of our cute little house and the attached garage.

Large, left side yard and the detached garage (the landlords use that one).

Large, right side yard. I actually took the exterior shots before we moved in. A few days ago my father-in-law brought over his tractor and tilled up a decent chunk of yard so that I could plant a vegetable garden. I will take pictures of that in a few weeks though because right now it is just a big patch of dirt which isn't very exciting.

The backyard. Not pictured are our grill and patio chairs that have since been moved in. Check out all of the trees we have! I'm sure they will drive us crazy in the fall when we have a ton of raking to do but right now we are loving the shade that they provide. It has been between 80 and 90 degrees this last week and we have only had to run the air conditioner for a few hours.

Our private driveway. This leads from the street to the detached garage. Jer has been having a blast out here riding his scooter and playing with sidewalk chalk.

Now for the interior starting with the living room.

We sold the Nintendo Controller Coffee Table before we moved because junk was always piling up there. I thought about building some storage ottomans that could hold blankets and serve as a footrest. Although after living without anything for awhile I kind of like how open it is and the amount of floor space that it frees up.

This corner probably looks pretty familiar since it is setup exactly like the last house. The owners said that we could paint if we want to so I will probably go with the tiffany-blue that we had in our last living room as well. I am waiting until we have more savings in the bank before I start spending on unnecessary things like that though.

To the right of the couches is the front door that hardly ever gets used. Eventually I would like to get a large rug that gives people enough room to get in the door as well as a spot to set their shoes but for now we just have one of those cheap woven rugs that I think everyone's grandma has had at some point. It seemed fitting with this being a mid-century home in a small town.

Just inside the front door is our library and board game storage. During the big purge we got rid of a bunch of books (which was NOT easy for these bookworms) so there was enough room for Jer's books too. We started up our own little summer reading program and he has already been reading like crazy. 

Continuing to the right is our entertainment center. Eventually the plan is to build a custom tv stand that is long enough to hold the record player and a few inches shorter in height so that the tv comes just below the built-in wall divider thingamajig.

I'm still not exactly sure what to call the wall divider shelf thing but I love it! When our landlords first started thinking about renting or selling the place, their friends told them they should rip that part out and replace it with something more modern but we requested that they at least leave it in while we are here. It fits our style and that of this era of home perfectly! Right now it is holding random pieces of decor that don't have a place yet but eventually I will probably decide upon some kind of theme for it.

It is also currently the home of our beta, Tony, in his gin bottle fish tank. Shelby picked this gin bottle because he thought it would make a cool fish tank and he ended up pouring out a large amount of the gin because we don't really drink it anymore. It was a great idea until it came time to move and I had to hold it for the entire 2 1/2 hour drive.

On the other side of our wall divider is our awesome 50's kitchen!

When you turn to the left there is our old diner table. Behind it you can see where there are hookups for a stackable washer and dryer (we chose to use the hookups in the basement instead). Eventually plan to build a box that will cover that and maybe extend all the way to the doorway and have a little shelf. 

Across from the table is the sink area with a window above that looks out to the backyard. (I just noticed that in the bottom right corner of the left window you can catch a glimpse of my little red head running around outside. Gotta love an accidental photo bomb.) It is so much nicer washing the dishes when there is a window to look out instead of just staring at the wall. I also love the little built in cabinet details like the wooden valance above the window and the shelves that gave me a perfect place to display my awesome tiki mugs.

There is also a little shelf above the stove for my spices! I know that your spices don't stay as fresh when stored right next to the heat but it is convenient and I like the way it looks so whatever. This also gave me a good spot to display my Grandma's strawberry salt and pepper shaker set that Shelby refuses to actually use because he is afraid he will break them. I would put them in the wall divider but he already broke my Galileo Thermometer that was sitting there so that probably isn't a good idea either.

Look at all of the counter space we have now! I don't think I ever shared pictures of the kitchen at the last house but the counter space was a joke. I had to put a buffet in there (actually it was a dresser but it worked) so that there was somewhere to put the microwave and coffee pot. Then I still had to use the dining table when I was cooking because the counter was too small. I have a few pics of the old place from right before we moved out that I will have to share some time as a wrap up.

As you may remember, the themes for some of Jer's previous rooms have included Star Wars, Superheroes, and Outer Space. Lately he has been wanting to hang up all of the art projects that he makes at home and at school though. So as much fun as I had creating his old bedrooms (which were pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself lol) I decided to decorate this room with his creations. 

Over the play area we cut cork tiles in half to make a bulletin border so we can switch out his artwork when he makes something new. The only problem is that the humidity or something is making the cork bow and fall off of the little sticky tabs. To keep them up we would probably have to nail each one in place which would create a bunch of holes and kind of defeat the purpose of using a bulletin board instead of just hanging up the artwork in the first place. It also isn't as thick as the push pins so you can't push them in all they way (um...that's what she said?). I am still trying to decide what to do here.

Turning to the right is his bed and the stuffed animal zoo that he sleeps with. I might add some colorful curtains at some point.

Continuing to the right is the dry erase board from my old craft room, the dog's bed because both she and the boy have gotten too big to share a bed now, and Jer's bookcases which hold his toys.

A few months ago we came across a piece of artwork with Batman bringing a little boy into a room full of superheroes. The title of the work is "You'll Be Safe Here". We thought that it would be perfect for Jer's new room since the big reason for moving was to live somewhere safer. A decent sized print was pretty expensive though so we were going to have to wait. Then we came across this poster at Walmart which has all of the Marvel characters and was only about $5. It doesn't have the little boy in the picture but it still kind of has the same idea behind it.

Our bedroom is a hodge podge mix right now. We don't even have matching bedside lamps because Jer knocked one over a few weeks ago when I was painting at the old house and had everything pulled away from the walls. Not that it really looked that much better before that because the lamps didn't have lamp shades. Oh well. I know that a lot of decorators say that you should start with your bedroom because you want it to be a retreat from the rest of the world or some crap along those lines. Seriously though, most of our time in here is spent sleeping so as long as the bed is comfy why does it matter what it looks like? One of these days I should probably get it somewhat presentable though since Shelby likes to bring people in because of this area:

It has been a few years but once again our bedroom is shared with Shelby's music gear. He talked about cramming his amp behind the couch and just bringing it out whenever he wanted to play but I thought it would work better for him if we put it all in the bedroom. 

Since the big purge his music gear collection is significantly smaller so it fits well in here.

The bathroom is another small one but the layout is better. I also really like all of the retro fixtures. The medicine cabinet is nice and large with an overhead light. The downside is that it is so big that it cuts into the shower and the bathroom door won't open all of the way. Weird. You can see our old towel rack in the mirror's reflection. It is a great space saver for a small bathroom and it goes really well with all of the chrome accents in there.

My crafting space is once again in a closet. An even smaller closet than before. I purged all of the supplies that I wasn't going to use in the foreseeable future and everything ended up fitting pretty well. The dining table is now my workspace and I have plans to make a foldable photo backdrop that can slide under the bed. We will see how everything works out when I get back to crafting.

That's our new place! It is a cute little house and it is just under 700 sq ft (so not much larger than the house that we want to build). It also has a full basement but all we have down there is the washer and dryer, deep freezer and a few storage tubs. Anyway, the house is still a little blah since we don't have any artwork to add color to the walls but we are super happy here and I will get around to decorating as time and money allows. :)

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting Polish The Stars.