Too Blessed to Stress

"Too Blessed to Stress".  That's something Niall read on Facebook the night before we moved into the new house.  If only it were true!  It made us both laugh, because we were talking about how lucky we've felt with so many things with the house.  And how I have been so stressed out and anxious about everything.  But we are in a good place now.

We moved in about 10 days ago and we're almost settled.  We had a group of friends over today and things were in order enough to make for a fun afternoon.

Movers.  I love them and have learned that (for us) it's worth the extra cost to have them do the packing and unpacking.  The unpacking leaves things in a disorganized state, but it kinds of forces me to find a home for everything.

On move-in day the kitchen looked like this.

And this evening it looks like this.

My dad and step-mom came for a visit last weekend and took us to Ikea to get some things for the house.  My step-mom is an interior designer and made some helpful suggestions.  One was to put a shelf in the kitchen for cookbooks and other items.

She also picked out the rug and gave a lot of other helpful (and requested) advice.

The brown piece of furniture is a sideboard.  I think we're (eek!) going to paint it red and then add a butcher block countertop to make it a kitchen island with barstools.

The table is tucked in the corner for our everyday use, but we can pull it out when we have more people over.  It might sound ridiculous, but I have been so excited to get to the point where I could mop the kitchen floor.  (You can see a little bit of water left from the steam mop, which I love, behind the closest chair.) 

And there's a row of toys for the girls.  Toy box, play kitchen and easel.  Niall requested the clock on the wall.  Now we just need to get to hanging pictures.

The understair WC has been so useful!

And the hallway is finally clear of all the moving boxes and piles of stuff. 

We power washed the front steps and walkway.  Maybe you can't tell.  But I know we did it.

And cleaned out the garage.  We took four dump runs (current total:  35) and have placed some of the larger pieces on the drive for Glasgow Council to collect.  (These were the pieces we couldn't sell or give away!)

We didn't have stairs in our rental flat, and our one-year old is so interested in climbing.  The stairs are nice and wide.  Too wide for our stair gates.  I was in a panic over the baby's safety, and the joiners worked out a solution.  Maybe it's not that pretty, but I love it because it works.  (The stairs need some attention, but that's down the road.)

The front room?  It looked like this just before we moved in.

We decided to paper the built-ins.  And really liked the Brighton print from Harlequin's What a Hoot wallpaper.  At first Niall wanted me to draw and then paint the print, but come on!  One roll of paper was under 30 GBP and was much easier than me drawing and painting.

Ha!  Niall hung the paper while watching football.

The living room looks like this now.  We don't think the chaise longue and couch don't work that well, so we're trying to sell them and get something different.