First Home: The Living Room Part 2

Time for round two of our living room. I forgot to upload the furniture shots... whoops... :)

We have Ikea furniture right now: eventually, and slowly, we are going to upgrade to sturdier and larger, more plush furnishings. For now, this works for us.



Another shot of the furniture. You can really see the open concept of the house from this angle. I want to purchase a skinny table for behind the couch soon.


We're enjoying our time with Nate's family :) We just finished eating at Cheddar's, and we are about to go to the movies to see "Dinner for Schmucks". Goodnight!

First Home: The Living Room

So here is my first entry on the work being done in our new house. Please note that this is a WORK IN PROGRESS, and is in no way, shape, or fashion the final product (really, is there ever a place when we are done with re-decorating?)

First up, the living room. Here it is, in all of its original, move-in glory:



Gotta love the bare-white, clean slate. Here is what we came up with (so far):


We painted the room Benjamin Moore's "Smokey Taupe" in eggshell and love how it pops against the white trim. We are going to hang the two large pieces of art high on the wall to show off the high ceilings. I want to find two matching chairs to place underneath each piece of art to have a nice seating area. Do you love our hand-me-down end table? It will either get stained, painted, covered, or replaced :)


This is one side of our entertainment unit: a cross wall. I enjoy collecting crosses. They are an excellent reminder of the sacrifice Christ gave for us while we were (and still are, no doubt) sinners. I try to buy a unique one if we go on vacation somewhere (I have one from Cabo: thanks Emily! and another from Disney World's EPCOT park (Mexico)). So I have various crosses displayed throughout the house.


Here is Nathan's pride and joy: the entertainment unit. It displays his beloved HDTV, as well as his game consoles. We have our DVDs stored in simple black boxes, with some overflow going to the DVD storage rack to the right. I need to find/replace the accessories in the top cubbies... too much red for my liking, but they are all SO lovely... hm...

To the right of the entertainment unit. The DVD stand and Chloe's bed (for when we leave during the day).

I'll upload the furniture arrangement later today or sometime next week. We are heading to East Texas this afternoon to spend the weekend with Nathan's parents, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. SO excited! We haven't visited since March when it was the nephew's birthday. We have already planned shopping excursions to Hobby Lobby and Kirkland's. Gotta love that :)

A Whirlwind of a Week and a Half

It has been a crazy week and a half.

We OWN a HOUSE. Hooray hooray hooray! We are falling in love with it more and more everyday, and fixing it up and getting to do what WE want to it is so much fun. It is in completeeee disarray right now, but we're slowly getting there! This week, expect one post per room... maybe ;)

The biggest struggle is filling all this space! Going from a 700 sq. ft. apartment to a 2400 sq. ft. house is hard! We are having to be very good to save money and remind ourselves that we can't fll the house overnight. It will all come together soon!

Expect more updates from me this week: we have internet now, hooray!

I'm still alive!

I promise...

We haven't gotten internet hooked up at the house! As soon as we do (crossing fingers for tomorrow: it's been an ORDEAL), I will upload pictures of progress!

New House!!!!

That's right, everyone...

WE GET TO CLOSE ON OUR HOUSE THIS WEEK! So excited. This has been a long time coming, and as first time home-buyers, we are reallyyyy nervous. Who wouldn't be? We know that this is what's supposed to happen, Lord willing. After going back and forth and having heartbreak after heartbreak, things are finally working out.


It's a little more expensive than what we would've originally spent, but there is zerooo we have to do to it (besides paint). As first time home-buyers (with zero renovation experience), we figured that was a better investment instead of buying a less expensive home and having to do a lot of work to it (and possibly not getting our money back when we sold it).


We are so thrilled and can't wait to finally have a place to call our own. I have MANY diy ideas that I can't wait to try out: and of course, I'll keep all of you up-to-date on our progress :)

Youth Camp

Whew.

Nate, 12 students, two sponsors, and myself just returned from a 5-day youth camp in Leakey, TX. It was a great week of growing closer to God and bonding with our new youth group. Jeff Johnson was the worship leader (he did an awesome job) and David Burk was the speaker. The camp was unorganized and we were really frustrated at the beginning, but it got better as the week progressed. Needless to say, I think we'll be attending either Centrifuge or StudentLife camps next summer.

Nathan and I didn't have a "family group" (aka a group of students from various churches to meet with/do activities with). Instead, we walked around taking pictures of our students and attending different sessions with different groups. It worked out nicely because we felt that as new members of the church, we needed to bond with our own students instead of building bonds with random students. Us girls also met new girls from another church (we shared a room with them). It was a lot of fun going as a sponsor: definitely a different experience from going as a student!

I'll upload pictures soon: We are pretty tired and Chloe is falling asleep in my lap as I type this... she spent the week at a "puppy club" (cough boarding place cough) and she always gets super tired when she gets home. We need our beauty rest. Goodnight!

New camera!

It has been a lazy Saturday around the Johnson household (besides making TWO 20 minute trips to Walmart to buy last minute supplies for Youth Camp next week), so Nate and I took our new camera for a spin!


We have been wanting an SLR camera for quite some time (excuse my "lingo"... I honestly have no clue what I'm talking about). Our friend, Jimmy, from church found us an amazinggg deal on Ebay and we jumped at the chance. We also got another lens (not sure what type... kind... again, excuse my lack of photography "lingo").


We took Chloe outside and I took some pictures of the two of them, then played with the editing software that came with the camera to enhance the colors a wee bit. I can't WAIT to purchase PhotoShop so I can do even more fun things with the pictures.

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Happy early 4th of July!

Saddle Ridge Ranch

VBS prep began this week! Since I will be at Youth Camp when I should be preparing for the "Ranch", I started early :) I'll be teaching the Kindergarten group (holla for K!) My prep started with going through the lessons and centers for each day, discussing God's truth and how we are special because He created us in His image. Today I worked on my room decor: cactus with yellow blossoms, a "fireplace" for our "bunk", a longhorn skull, and a wagon wheel. We'll see what else I accomplish! I should have taken pictures, but alas, did not. I'll wait until the whole room is done!