Welcome to Our House....Come on In!

Once you step into our house you are on a small landing in our stairwell. The house is a split level but not in the traditional sense. You only have to go up about 5 stairs to get to the main floor but need to go down about 1o to get to the basement. Anyway, the picture above is the view into the house as you come in. The picture below is just about the best find from Ikea. We were in need of some way to contain the large pile of shoes that were collecting by the front door since they made the small entry even smaller. While at Ikea we found this shoe keeper. It looks great, holds lots of shoes, and doesn't take up much space!

As you walk into the living room we have our bookcase along the wall. Once again Ikea came through with a very useful piece of furniture. When we first moved into this house we rented the basement out and these shelves helped contain the many baby toys that seemed to multiply and take over. They actually still hold some baby toys that get played with when playgroup comes over.

Around the corner, to the right of the shelves is what is supposed to be the dining room. We did use it as that when we first moved in but it quickly changed to the toy area and now is just a part of the living room. The piano (the one I used as a kid) fits pretty well there.

The picture below is taken from the door to the deck (by the piano). I like how cozy this room feels. I still like the color we painted it, which happens to be called Griffin (a fact we remembered awhile after he was born). I also like how light it usually is in here. There are so many windows (6 plus the door).
I wish we had been better at taking before and after pictures of the house. When we first moved in, there was a freestanding woodstove in the middle of the wall where the tree picture is now. It was on a big brick platform that stuck out into the room. It was a lot of fun tearing that out! The other major difference was that the woman who lived here (and had the house built) had wall-to-wall curtains in this room. They literally started in one corner and went across the wall and around the next corner and past the door. We took those down the first day! Oh....Dean also did all of the trim around these windows when we replaced the windows. Before it was the 70s/80s no-trim look with a little strip of laminate on the window sills.

So...there is the first stop in our tour. Come and make yourself comfortable and we can chat for awhile. Tomorrow we can head to the kitchen and I'll make you a latte!