My mom always said, that you never own a house, it always owns you. I never really gave it much thought, but we are now living proof of it.

Last week it was new sod and backyard landscaping and this week I am seeing red.

This is where I left Bryan earlier today and went up to take a nap. Taping and prepping the kitchen to make my day. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the khaki color that is in the majority of the house. I HATE HATE HATE the yellow in the kitchen. Yuck. It has always looked to me like the previous owners just messed up. The colors weren’t different enough to look intentional. I also LOVE accent walls, so when I woke up, I walked into this…

I am absolutely thrilled with it! We still need to paint the other 3 dining/kitchen walls to math the rest of the house, but I just can’t get over how much impact that one wall makes.

Dare I say that in a few more weeks, we should be completely done with the inside AND outside of the house?

The state of our loft is pathetic. When we were house shopping, it was a requirement, along with a great kitchen, 3 bedrooms and a garden tub in the master. I didn’t have a huge want list, just a few. I envisioned the loft being a great space for us as a family to play games, etc as well as a great place to send Jacey if we were watching something downstairs that was inappropriate for her. Instead, this is what we have…a mess. No one utilizes the space and it sits there collecting dust while downstairs we are constantly shuffling around 3 laptops, various cables and external hard drives

Thus the wheels in my head started turning and lofty plans were born.

We are going to turn the loft into an office (what we should have done to begin with, since this is the first time in 10 years we haven’t had an office “space” and now WE have to lug the huge sectional and tv down the stairs to get rid of). The question that stand now though is what do we want to do furniture wise? We have to have desk space for 3, storage space and space for a new flat screen tv.

I have a feeling, we are going to be making a trip to LA for IKEA :). I think…

Thankfully I don’t have to have a definite plan for another month or so. Bryan needs to be off of mids and I’d prefer to have our PCS claim money (yeah right) instead of spending our own.

I have held onto this picture since the first time I saw it on Holly’s blog. She made this craft desk and I <3 it…a lot. This is idea number 1 for Bryan and I to share. I can see our files/pens/etc on the inner shelves and all my old cameras/photography books on the outer shelves. I love the fact that it is higher than a normal desk, since stools encourage me to have better posture which equals less back pain. Plus, with the large surface, I can evict Bryan’s laptop when I need more craft room :). This can be made with locally acquired items, which means no need to go to IKEA…that alone is its only downfall.

This is idea number 2 for Bryan and I. An IKEA EXPEDIT shelf only with 2 of the desk extensions meeting in the middle instead of one. Love the amount of storage/display space with this one, it is just insane.

Idea number 3 for Bryan and I, also from IKEA. 2 of these facing each other (yes, I have a thing about facing the wall). Only problem here is, not very much storage, so we’d still have to sort out an option for that.

Option number 1 for Jacey…

Option number 2 for Jacey. Yes, I have a black and white theme going on. We already have an IKEA printer cart that we love in black, plus some of my Paris prints in B&W with black frames from my work office that we are using as inspiration.

Then, this for the tv, dvd player, DirecTV box. Only horizontally.

We’re also thinking about throwing a few bean bags up there, so we do still have the “option” of it being a media type room if needed.

Perhaps it is time for me to enlist the drafter in Bryan and get him to work on the design/layout :).

Those of you that follow me on facebook and/or twitter, know that on September 27th, we got the call that the house was ours and we were/are officially first-time homeowners! We got the keys on September 28th and our HHG’s (household goods) were delivered on September 30th….YAY! It is so nice to be out of the temp base housing and even better to be in our very own home. Of course, we dove right in and began home improvement projects last week, hence why this update is just now coming, computer time has been at an all-time low. Even so, the house still looks like a bomb went off in it, but eh…what do you do? Just plow through the millions of boxes you didn’t think you had and eventually it will all come together. We are just so happy to be “settled” again, I can deal with the disarray for a bit longer.

Just a “bit” :).

The house is located in far, far NW Las Vegas. We tried to split the difference as much as possible between Bryan’s commute to Creech AFB (Indian Springs) for work and Nellis AFB where we receive all our services (medical care, commissary, PWOC, etc). The elementary school is fabulous for Jacey (a miracle in Vegas) and only a mile from our front door, so we can walk or ride bikes most days. Everything else we would need or want is within 5 miles and the strip is only 20 minutes away (on a good traffic day). We really like it up here on the  “hill”. At night, you can see the whole city lit up and twinkling and the sunsets behind the mountains are breathtaking.

All the stress of the whole process is/has been totally worth it. God is good.

No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the planet. I am drowning in PCS (move) prep though…anyone want to come help?!

I seriously think we are crazy. What possessed us to move a week, yes you read that right, one week after Bryan gets back from this next TDY? Sigh. The dates are all turned in though, so no turning back now.

Tonight’s project was to start the home inventory. Can you say tedious? We have had a reminder to update our inventory for a LONG while now but kept procrastinating. The last inventory we did was in spring of 2005 before we moved back to the states. Yeah…it’s kinda outdated now. Last time I simply had a word doc, but this time I found an iPhone app that syncs with a web version you can also use. Still tedious but so much easier to not have to write it all down or drag my laptop around the house. Bryan and I got the big things done tonight and I get to tackle everything else while he is gone. Joy, joy.

I’m still not sure what all to inventory separately. We are thinking anything over $50-75 and then lump the smaller stuff together. Do any of you have an inventory? If so, what do you do?

Yes, it is still in progress…sigh. We did get the room painted but the dining room table…well, that is another story. We ordered the one that we fell in love with from Sears…first mistake. We thought, they would be reputable, since they are a huge brick and mortar store and we hadn’t ever heard of most of the other retailers. Ha….reputable…whatever. First of all, we ordered it and then were informed it wouldn’t be delivered until 3 weeks later. Fine. We never received any contact from Sears for 2 weeks, so we called. Well, they can’t tell us when it will ship, because the third party shipping company (who we had no idea it was coming from) was involved in the Iowa floods. Then, 2 days before it was supposed to arrive from the initial estimation, we get an email saying it won’t even ship for another month and if they don’t hear from us, they assume we are okay with this. Well, no we aren’t, so we call. Then they inform us that we can’t cancel the order because they have no way of knowing if it has shipped or not….huh? Didn’t *YOU* just send me an email saying it hadn’t?! Several calls and several transfers later, with the threat of a cc chargeback (since yes, they charged my card the day I placed the order, not when it shipped like most retailers) they agreed to initiate a refund. 2 weeks later, we finally got it.

So, to make a long story even longer, we have a painted room but no table and now we can’t find it anywhere in stock. Needless to say, we have put the whole table on hold since it has turned into such an ordeal. I’ll share a finished pic when/if we ever get a new table…LOL!

Ever since we moved, I have wanted to redo the dining room. I haven’t been fond of my table and chairs for years but at the base house, at least it was hidden around a corner. Here, it is right out in the open and I am growing to dislike it even more every time I pass by. I also aren’t extremely fond of the sage green paint below the chair rail.

While I haven’t decided yet, whether to go with a Paris or Asian theme, we did decide on a paint color and new dining set. We also plan to replace the light fixture, but I haven’t found one I like in my budget yet.

Here is the dining room before…looking in from the living room…

Here is the paint color we decided on for below the chair rail…Valspar Cut Ruby…

And here is a quick (ie. sloppy) photoshop version…

Of course, the paint won’t be quite that bright. It is a satin finish and the wall is rice paper so there will be texture and shadows (unlike my flat photoshop work).

The hardest part of this whole process though was finding a table. We wanted either a counter height or pub table. I have been looking off and on but hadn’t found anything. Saturday, we went in search again. First we stopped by the BX…found one table I fell in love with…slightly too big and WAY out of my budget. Found another we like, but they were out and there were 17 people on the waiting list already…oy. Next we headed to Target. The one there was okay but alas none in stock either. Stopped at Rooms & More…there were a few there that I liked, so I got the prices and models. Looked online at about 900 million other ones after we got home. We finally found one that Bryan and I both love.

The wood, will match the furniture in our living room and the black will match our couch and accent pieces. YAY! Now just to find the cheapest place to purchase it (that is reputable) since i found it on several websites.

I’ll be sure to share pics once it is all finished!