Welcome to Our Home – Kitchen & Dining

It’s easily the most important room in the house and it’s historically the first room (and the hardest room and the one that changes the most) that we have set up every time we move…the Kitchen. I’ll say this much, when we accepted this house, the kitchen was easily the room that I was initially excited about. Not only is it spacious, with loads of counter space, it’s got a great center island, AND the cooktop/oven is gas! Yes, gas! I was so excited to be able to cook on gas again, although it’s been a little bit of a learning/reminding curve. 

The initial view into this half of the downstairs is the view of the three windows in the opposite walls. These provide some of the best natural light in the house and let us achieve that natural light all day (I do not care for overhead lighting as I’ve learned over the years). On the first wall we have our “command center” which as the calendar for appts and meal plans, the S was a wedding decoration, and any current photo or invitation to the clipboard. 

From there you open into the kitchen proper. I try to keep our island as clear and open as I can as we have the stools for seating for the boys or for friends. The stools are the Threshold Halifax Farmhouse Counter Stools from Target (linked HERE) and were mistakenly shipped to our old address…in Germany and ended up taking double the time to get to us (fail). Our dish rack tends to just live on the counter, though I try otherwise, unless we are baking or hosting (as we are normal people, not glamorous at all) and inevitably, things end up piled here despite my best efforts. Moving into the actual kitchen, we try to keep only the necessary kitchen gadgets on the counters, so the kitchen aid, toaster, cooking utensils, and recipe book tend to be the only regular things on the counter. The cabinets are topped with more memorabilia. We have a built-in pantry cabinet (which is SO NICE) that leads to the dining room. 

Across from the island and kitchen proper is our coffee station and deep freezer. We received the Ninja Coffee Maker (THIS one) as a gift a year ago and have absolutely loved it. I always make a rich coffee with the Ghirardelli chocolate syrup. We’ve also got our Almatrieb cowbell here to “ring for dinner” should the boys not hear us telling them. 

The dining room is the same as it always has been, with the addition of new seat covers (we got washable ones from Amazon to help save the chairs until the boys are out of the messiest of messy eating phase) and two small “café” style prints, the top from Rome, the bottom from Switzerland. Both large prints were taken in Fussen.  

There you have it, the next installation in the Welcome to Our Home: New York Edition. I hope you enjoyed seeing this little bit of our home. If you have any specific questions, please let me know in the comments below!

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Welcome to Our Home: The Sunroom

Introducing the surprise “bonus” room that we were able to work out in our New York home, the “Sunroom”. Much like a home library, I’ve always dreamed of having a sort of conservatory, indoor porch, sunroom set up in my forever home, so being able to style this room up in a similar manner has made me very happy. This room is set off the kitchen and dining room and was a kind of odd set up. It wasn’t quite deep enough to really use for a certain purpose, and since the floors are all laminate in this section of the house, I didn’t really want to turn any area in this home into a play area (just for the pure noise control factor). So, I took some of the items that we already had that didn’t have a final home (such as my reading chair, the rug, and the two cabinets) and fashioned a little seating area. 

So, let’s talk it through. The only new item I really needed to purchase was the bench against the wall, which is the Christopher Knight Home Mission Ottoman from, you guessed in, Target (linked HERE). It opens to a decent storage space, which currently holds all our candle stuff. I’ve topped with a knitted blanket and one of the pillows we purchase at Ikea when we moved to Germany. In the left corner we have my mug cabinet (of which I have cleared out my collection of quite drastically), and opposite is my husbands’ memorabilia cabinet. Then we’ve got my reading chair, which is one of the comfiest places to sit in our entire house, facing out the window so I can watch as the kids play in the backyard. This little spot also gives enough separation from the kids play area that I can both sit and enjoy my coffee or tea or conversation with friends, but also spin around and see what is going on in the play area. The chair is actually from Babies R Us, so I can’t link it for you unfortunately. The rug is from Ikea (linked HERE) and is still one of my favorite pieces. There are two smaller cabinets that serve as a table for the chair, and a storage spot for plants & outside shoes. 

On the walls we have three photographs from our time in Germany, all taken in the Fussen/Neuschwanstein area of Germany. The center being the overlook of Hohenschwangau and the lakes, the left being at Fussen Castle, and the right being a corner of Hohenschwangau Castle. 

This room serves as a second purpose though (because we are practical in this home), this room also serves as the drying room for hang dry clothes during laundry days. The dryer rack plops right on the rug and all the clothes are up on top. I can’t have you thinking our home is all glamorous all the time now, can I?

I know this was a bit of a shorter “Welcome to Our Home” post, but I sure you hope you liked seeing this little bonus area that I was so excited about. It’s the perfect morning or afternoon tea spot. 

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Welcome to our Home: The Home Library (and Kids Space)

It is finally time to start talking about our new home! It’s been a long time coming (not really, hard to believe but we’ve only been in this house for 2 ½ months), but I think it’s finally time to start sharing. I think I’m going to do this in a couple different posts, sectioning out our downstairs into 5 or 6 posts. This is the only part of my house (and just home in general) that I do share as I am going to keep the bedrooms and office private. 

I figured I would start things off with what may be one of the most important spaces in our home (in only my opinion…my husband and kids beg to differ), our home library. While I couldn’t recreate my “wall of books” (HERE) from our last home, I was able to create a cozy little space and a full chunk of our downstairs just to the shelves. 

So, we’ve got a little corner nook set up in this home, just off the main living room. In the center is the boys school table where they do their schoolwork as needed. I liked that I could have a similar “library” set up as you would find at their school with a table in the center. The way the house is laid out and the other rooms are set up, I ended up preferring this to have my reading chair in the corner. 

Aside from the main shelves, which we will get to in the moment, I do have one end table that holds a variety of “coffee table” books that I reach for frequently, as well as my current month “TBR” stack of books. On the top of the shelves there is a wide variety of décor, the various castles we’ve visited on our travel, some important books (both childhood and adulthood), as well as a framed quote from Pride and Prejudice, my wedding dress, and a framed piece of quilled paper artwork. 

Now on to the shelves themselves. There is a total of 5 (though I would like to get one more at some point and I’m sure I’ll need more in the future), and they are the Threshold Carson bookshelves from Target (HERE) in Espresso Brown. They’ve held up through two to three moves now and we’ve been really pleased with them.

A note of my organization system, I organize by “category” and then author last name within that. So, we’ve got (from right to left): Classics, Non-Fiction, General Fiction, Collections, Poetry, Memoir/Self Help, Religious/Belief/Spiritual, Manga & Graphic Novels. The final bookcase on the far left is my unread books. The goal is to keep my unread books to only one bookcase, preferably even less than that at some point, but as I’m a mostly mood reader that can only go so far. 

I also split this chunk of our downstairs (which is an open floor plan) into both the Home Library as well as a kid’s space to play downstairs. As much as our boys love to play in their room (though not as much as we would maybe prefer) they inevitably bring toys downstairs and want to play near us. I wanted to have a spot for them to do that that was still “connected” to where we would be, but not right in our faces for noise purposes. This is also a Lego spot for them to have all their Legos to build and play as they want. 

They have a main table (which is our old coffee table), then a little cabinet in the corner which holds books and school supplies (in the drawer), and a little shelf system which holds some more books. In between the two is where the Lego’s get stored in little plastic containers. The name signs are 3D printed from an Etsy shop called (linked HERE). I thought it would be a nice, personalized touch, as well as help with name recognition and spelling. They can also hang art projects if they like on the walls. 

So, that’s the home library and kids’ section of the downstairs of our house, AS WELL AS the first look into our New York home. I hope you enjoyed this first peak, and I look forward to sharing more with you! If you have any specific questions, please let me know in the comments below. 

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Round the Kettle Ep. 30: Back into the Fold

Happy Wednesday! I’m coming at you technically on Tuesday, in my comfiest jeans and a sweatshirt outfit, on a blustery, rainy day. To be honest, as much as I love the sunshine (and its necessity to our lives), my favorite weather is happening right now. I really love when it’s overcast, a soft pitter patter of raindrops hitting the windows and roof, and we are quietly cozied up in our home with books or a movie or a puzzle. That last part is incredibly rare in my home (with 2 boys and a husband it’s rarely ever quiet), but today must have some special powers because it’s happening. I’m upstairs in my office, typing this post up and the boys are downstairs playing an alphabet puzzle/game. This is rare. So, let’s take advantage of it and chat.

How are you doing? Like, really actually doing, not the standard “Things are good” or “I’m fine”. What are some specifics?

Today’s post was originally supposed to be the first in my “welcome to our new home” posts, but I STILL don’t have everything in place for that (dang counter stools). Then it was going to be a blog post about Heidelberg Castle, but…in a moment of full transparency, as much as I loved Heidelberg, Heidelberg Castle, and all of the history, there is SO MUCH history to that castle and my brain is oddly struggling to keep it all straight. So, that’s been tabled for now (maybe even indefinitely) too. Feeling at a bit of a loss for what to write about, I realized I hadn’t really done a casual chatty post in so long, definitely since before we came back to America. 

I work really hard on every blog post that goes up, usually putting a week or two of work in each post. Most of the content is worked, and reworked, and then maybe reworked again. And I love that, but I also like when I just sit down at a computer, type away, then hit publish without thinking twice (except maybe to run it through spell check or grammar checks). In some ways, that feels more vulnerable than a lot of the vulnerable stuff I share. I used to do these types of posts twice a month (if you remember Round the Kettle, there ya go), but they kind of faded away when things got busier, and I was pre planning a lot of posts. Right now though, it seems like the perfect time to bring them back.  

So, gosh, where do I even begin? My blissful peace that I referenced just…3 paragraphs ago has left. Replaced with a high amount of noise that I didn’t know two little boys were capable of making, right in my office (right behind my office chair and desk to be specific). Which is the nature of my days anymore. The boys have handled the transition of coming back to America with a poise that us adults didn’t even have, but they’ve struggled with the transition of Daddy going back to work, school starting back up (though Colton is super pumped about that), and just a general sense of normalcy returning. The minute one parent leaves, they cannot seem to let the other parent out of their sight, which means that they just follow from room to room. If there was any “sign” of what 2020 did to our children (beyond the whole school/social life downfall) it was that when we go to stores now, Andrew just randomly stops and watches in wonderment at EVERYTHING. It’s been that long since he’s been shopping in stores and such. 

Which, let’s talk about that for a minute, because a lot of us are starting to “see a light at the end of the tunnel” these days. While I personally am feeling so good (because it’s VERY different here in America than Germany- so I’m already feeling much more free) about things, I do still have a bit of a cautious feeling too. For all the bad that 2020 was (and it was bad), there was also some good that came out of it. My concern is that we are all going to rush to “getting back to normal” that the lessons and good that came from 2020 are going to be brushed aside. Let’s try not to do that, ok? 

So, normalcy is returning to our house. Colton has gone back to in person schooling two days a week at his new school, and he’s never been a happier little boy.  Andrew is still a bit attached to mommy (and daddy realistically), but he’s also really starting to become a little social butterfly. I swear, that kid will handle all the introductions I would ever need for me- he just runs up to people and starts talking to them. It’s something we are working on. Spring is…springing, which we are learning basically looks like “whatever goes” up here in the northern part of the country. We are supposed to get 5 inches of snow Wednesday, but then it’ll be back in the 50’s/60’s for the weekend before hitting 70’s next week. “Whatever Goes”. 

We are starting to explore our area, to branch out from our neighborhood and see some of the closer small towns. It isn’t anything like full blown traveling, rather little day trips here and there, but they’ve been special in their own ways. It’s nice to explore the area, to learn the history, and to see those little “American Small Towns”. We went to Sackets Harbor this past weekend, walking through the battleground from the War of 1812, learning the history of the battle as it happened, and then wandering through Main Street, stopping in a little bakery, an antique store, and a tea shop for some shopping. It was a lovely day and it felt good to just see something new for the day. 

And that is basically it! I feel like we’ve gotten a pretty good routine going, cleaning, writing, reading, schooling for the kids, socializing, etc. I always talk about feeling settled and the desire for “home”, and I feel like we are at that point. With that, I’ve got some big plans for the rest of this year. I’ve got two projects I’m working on outside of the blog as well as some big reading goals. 

Ok, post writing all this, but I felt like I needed to add a bit more. I wrote this before the verdict came back in the Derek Chauvin trial. I feel like first we need to address the fact that we were all waiting to see what the verdict would be, knowing full well what we all saw and witnessed in the video. The fact that we had to have a trial (instead of him pleading Guilty), and then had to wait for a jury to reach a verdict (what that verdict may have been), says A LOT about our system. But it’s also important to note that this is not justice. This is not something we should be grateful for (though many of us are). This is simply a man being held accountable for his actions. It is not the “sign that our system is changing”. It is not a time to say, ok we did this, we’re good. No, this is a time to keep pushing forward. To keep listening, learning, and fighting for the changes that we want to see, that we need to see. 

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Welcome to Our Home – Living and Dining Room

I think I’m finally ready to share our Living and Dining Rooms! I’ve been putting “finishing” touches on these rooms for almost forever and, while they may not be exactly as I would like them (there are things that I want to eventually replace post Germany and a few things that still need to be added), I feel like they are ready enough to be shared.

So…welcome to our Home: Living and Dining Room Edition.

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We’ve veered a little bit off of our standard pathway and I’ve finally managed to insert some color! We really love the look of darker furniture as a baseline, which you’ll see running throughout our entire house (for reference on our other rooms I’ve shared: office/library, kitchen), and one of my goals was to inject a little bit of color. I also wanted a rug, which we haven’t done before (as we’ve always had carpet). The other big change that I made was with the artwork on our walls. I decided against putting up family pictures (I am going to do a gallery wall going up our stairs for these), instead choosing to use pictures I’ve taken from our various travels.

Let’s talk about the actual Living Room. Our couches are from American Furniture Warehouse (in Colorado) and are part of a system of a full recline living room. Every seat can recline (although one recliner is blocked) and our loveseat is actually one that has the “center console” and built in cupholders. They are quite comfy overall and have served us well. The throw pillows and covers are all from IKEA (Pillows, Lumbar Pillow, Blue Pillowcases, Mustard Pillowcase) and the blankets are from various different stores collected over the years.

The end tables and coffee table are all incredibly old and I have no idea where they originally came from. I’ve accented on each side with a family picture and a plant from our local grocery. We have a lamp in one corner (as I’m not the biggest overhead lighting fan) from Ikea (HERE). Above the couch are pictures from our trip to Fussen, Germany and Neuschwanstein/Hohenzollern.

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Pulling out from the couches we have this gorgeous rug from Ikea (HERE) which is one of my favorite purchases and what kicked off bringing color into our home. I wanted to make a bold statement to go against the darkness of our couches and furniture and this gave me the perfect opportunity to strike that balance without going overboard. I love the varying blue toned shades, but also the pop of Mustard Yellow.

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Sweeping around to the main wall of the living room, the DVD case stands against the wall in the corner, with the TV aligned center of the actual Living room area, rather than center of the wall. Above that is a painting from my husband’s service. Also, on the wall we have our Coocoo Clock and the kids only cabinet of toys that is allowed in our Living Room. This was probably one of the biggest most recent changes in our home, all of the kid’s toys are now up in their room. They are allowed their matchbox cars and a couple other small toys in our Living Room as well as a selection of books. Eventually we will be getting a small bit of seating (it’s actually The Nugget that we will be purchasing-so not quite “seating”, but when not in use I plan to have it look like a little couch area) for the boys that will go in between the TV and the cabinet. This change has been absolutely incredible for our home and has led to a much calmer Living Room space.

IMG_5634Turning towards our Dining Room, we’ve got our small little dining room table. This is another really old piece in our home that will be probably replaced post Germany, but it has served us really well. It fits perfectly into this little nook and while we don’t eat as many family meals as I would like, we are still getting a lot of use out of it. On the wall above the dining room table are pictures from our travels once again, this time of little café’s that we’ve stopped at. We also have our Shot Glass cabinet, which is something that my husband loves to do for our travels.

 

 

 

And that is pretty much it! This is the last bit that I’ll be sharing in regard to our home, but I hope that you’ve enjoyed this little look into the house we’ve turned into our home.

 

 

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Welcome to Our House: Entry and Kitchen!

While the library/office may be one of my favorite areas of our home, the Kitchen is the heart of our house. It’s the first room that I fully unpacked and put together, the room where I probably spend the most amount of my time, and it is an area that brings me a lot of joy (and practical utility). Our kitchen is a pretty fair size here in Europe and I have found different ways of maximizing our space and trying to keep the counters as clear as possible.

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I am attaching our little front entryway to this as it is the second thing you see when you walk into our home (the first being a welcome sign) and I really like how it came together. Also, I will put where things came from if I know, or where you could find something similar in parenthesis after.

So, we’ve got a tall wardrobe right when you come in which holds handbags and coats, as well as cleaning supplies and some kitchen linens. Spinning around you see our “home” sign which changes out seasonally (given to us as a gift), and then our storage cabinet (Target). The top drawer is a sort of “junk drawer” and the bottom cabinet portion is full of cookbooks and such. On top of the cabinet will rotate seasonally, in the spring/summer I’ll typically have fresh flowers, then in Autumn/Winter I’ll have a candle burning. This is also where any mail or papers that need to be handled will congregate.

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The pictures on the wall were all taken by me. From Left to Right: Stream at Balmoral Castle, Scotland, Cherries from our Backyard, Taco Night, Tea in Northern Virginia, Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany.

Now, to the kitchen…

Before I get really far into this- I think my favorite part is that our kitchen has its own door to the backyard. It’s a benefit not only for hosting in our backyard, but with keeping the kitchen cool. We don’t really have too many wall decorations in our actual kitchen, aside from a little bit here and there and I don’t know if that will really change as time goes on. We will see.

So, now getting into the actual kitchen. It’s a fairly basic set up, the first two drawers being our cutlery, the bottom cabinet being baking dishes and pie pans. The first top cabinet is my little tea and mug heaven at the front of our kitchen. On the counter we have our produce basket (I would recommend looking at Home sense/Home goods for one), toaster, and cookbook stand (Amazon). All of our cookbooks are stored just outside the kitchen except this one, which holds the recipes I use the most often.

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The next cabinet holds our spices and baking things (flour, sugar, brown sugar, etc.) and as you can see, the shelf above that holds various drink items. The drawers hold all of the cooking/baking utilities and measuring cups. The cabinet underneath holds pots, pans, and bowls. We’ve also got our most used cooking items, knife set, kitchen aid, and cutting boards on the counter. I feel like our counters are right at the cusp of being too cluttered, but I feel like it still works out well and the kitchen is able to be used without much complaint this way.

IMG_2986Before we get to the next rounds of counters, you can see our meal board and recycling station. I’m a big meal planner and found that having a board that lists the dinners for the week for everyone to see really helped eliminate the “what’s for dinner” conversation I seem to have daily with my family. Recycling is very big here in Europe and we have a total of 4 of these containers to separate out almost all of our things. The three you see here are for plastic, mixed, and glass. The basket on top is for paper recycling and our metal bin is above the fridge. Bins are from IKEA.

 

The second side upper cabinets holds all of our plates, bowls, and drinking glasses. We’ve also got the smaller cabinet for to go cups and water bottles and a portion of another larger cabinet is for my husband’s work meals/snacks. The bottom cabinet holds our large collection of Tupperware.

We have a large cabinet at the end of the kitchen that serves as our food storage/pantry. We bought a shelving unit from IKEA to add some much-needed space and it’s been working out very well for us at this point. Honestly- our pantry never ends up being as organized as I would like it to be (never has been), so it is something that I am continuing to work on. Shelving unit was perfect though (IKEA).

Finally, one of our only décor pieces is this sign above the door. We purchased this at a Cracker Barrel right after we got married on our way to our Honeymoon. It’s just one of those phrases 🙂

And that’s our kitchen! I hope you enjoyed! We’ve got one more room to “unveil” and I’m just working on putting the last touches on it before showing you.

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Welcome to Our House: Office and Library!

Good morning and Happy Monday!! I am really excited to be able to start sharing glimpses into our house. It’s a long time in the making as I’ve been wanting to make sure things are just perfect before I share them. Obviously things will come and go to an extent, but when I share these rooms with you they are pretty much settled and no further big changes will be happening to them. I’m not going to be sharing every room as some I would just like to keep private, but I am looking forward to sharing the more open spots in our home. For me, I want our home to warm, cozy, and inviting, without feeling cluttered I try to be very conscious of how a space comes together and how different items can compliment (or contrast) each other.

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The first space I am going to share with you is our Home Office and Library. I am going to be a bit of a disappointment and only share part of the room as I’ll be keeping my husbands portion of the room private. Rest assured, all your missing is one desk with his computer and such on it. When I think about what I wanted for my home office, natural light was an absolute must for me and I wanted to have minimal things on my actual desk. A couple bits here and there, but for the most part clear for me to clutter up while working.

I used to have a much much larger desk that would get cluttered up throughout the weeks getting cleared out only once in a while when it became unbearable (about once a month). My previous office was in the basement, wasn’t a spot that I really wanted it, and wasn’t set up the way I really wanted either. The piles made sense to me and I could easily access what I needed at any given time, but it quickly became kind of a source of frustration and it look horrible.

I knew that I wanted something a little bit different here, so when we moved, we split my big desk into two smaller desks and I chose to take the smaller of those two. This forces me to actively clear things away and sort what I have going on on a daily basis, rather than monthly.

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Now, I tend to pile books, paperwork, my planner, mugs of tea, and snacks all over my desk while I am actively working, BUT they are cleared out at the end of everyday and the entire look is much more simplistic (which I really love).

On my desk I’ve got my computer, a couple of pictures, a figurine, tea caddy, candle, display mug, and my planner (not pictured). My planner moves around with me throughout the day, but ultimately it makes it’s way back up here.

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I do have some low shelves next to my desk to just give a little extra space when I need it, and then I have an overflow tea shelving unit. I also have my memory boxes which contain all of our photos, photo albums, and other memory items. These are the only boxes left in my house and I do plan on finding a different, better way to store all of these items. It’s on my never ending list haha.

The desk is from IKEA, the planner notebook cover is from Chic Sparrow, the figurine is Willow Tree People, Display Mug is Churchill War Rooms, and the rest is various ETSY shops, Amazon or hand me downs. The pictures on my wall are my own photography from our travels.

So, swinging around, you have my little reading nook. This is the comfiest chair of them all and I like to come up here early in the morning, if I have time, or during naptime during Autumn/Winter and reading here. I use the little plushy almost like a pillow and the blanket is so warm and cozy. Colton will come up and read his books as well. I’ve got a little shelving table for the book that I am reading, a couple little books that are mostly for decoration (but I do read them), and my tea.

The chair is a baby glider from Baby’s R Us, the blanket is from Walmart many years ago, Plushy from Amazon, Books on the table from an Antique Store.

Finally, swing around again and you see what I like to call my piece de resistance, my pride, my joy, my wall of books. Haha…but no really, I am obsessed with this.

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I’ve always had a lot of books, I’m a big reader and it’s to be expected. I’ve also always wanted a home library. I grew up with one and it’s just something that I believe is a necessity in my own home. In our previous home all of my shelves and books ended up in our basement (which had it’s own wall of books, but no real natural light and no good reading set up) and I was so excited that I didn’t have to do that this time.

I’ve got quite the collection filling 4 bookcases full of books. I’ve got 3 bookcases of books that I’ve read or should be grouped together (such as classics) and one of books that I own and haven’t read. They are semi organized by bookcase and I could probably tell you the exact spot of any book in my collection in a second or two.

On top of the bookshelves I have a couple of décor items, and my Harry Potter collectibles. I decided this time around that I would continue with the “minimalist” look that I did on my desk and I am super pleased about it. I’ve found over the past couple of years that unnecessary clutter really stresses me out (any clutter really stresses me out), so to not have a lot of décor, and just letting the books speak for themselves really looks nice.

IMG_9343.jpgI do have a smaller little unit towards the end that has décor, a couple of toys for the kids, and a couple of overflow books (I have a problem) and then next to that is my box of notebooks (another problem I have). I’m hopeful to eliminate the overflow books by the end of this year, although I am probably going to need another bookcase in the very near future (husband is not too pleased about that…).

The bookshelves are from Target from a few years back, little shelving unit is from Amazon, décor is from various spots.

 

 

And that’s it for this first room in our home! I hope that you enjoyed this little peak and I look forward to sharing a couple other spots with you soon!

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