Show and Tell Tuesday - a home tour

It feels like it's been forever since I've posted photos of our home, but also like it was just yesterday...funny how that works. 

Today I'm linking up with Andrea for her Show and Tell Tuesday series, and today is the Home Tour Edition. If you know me then you know I love to see other people's homes and it just wouldn't be right if I wasn't willing to share mine too!  

And if you are new around here, thanks for stopping by!  I'll give you a little history on our home.  We purchased our home in 2008 several months before I got married (and my mom being old fashioned like she was "forbade" me to move in until after we were married...so being the good daughter she raised, I lived at home for another 7 months)  

We've done a lot of work on our house over the years: front yard overhaul, painted the exterior, painted the interior (a couple of times) and the moldings, new floors, kitchen refresh, new appliances, replaced lighting, enlarged and covered our deck, and fenced the whole property for our animals.

When the house was on the market the front yard was chock full of junipers, like over 20 of them, bark and gravel.  Within two years we pulled them all out, laid grass, planted trees and created some flower beds and just last year we put the cherry on top by painting it a dark grey (instead of peaches and cream).

We also have a vegetable garden in the front, along with some apple trees and blueberry bushes.  The front flower bed is HUGE and it's taken me 6 years to get it filled in, I still have a lot of work to do but I love it so much.

We really lucked out with our house, even though it was built in 1989 it has a great open concept feel to it that I absolutely love.  Our living room has transformed over the years but I really love how it is now.  I just recently painted the wall the fireplace is on and I am not sure why it took me so long.  It used to be green and I loved that too, but I wanted something lighter and more neutral so I painted it the same color as the rest of the walls and it makes the space seem so much larger.  The couch is from Macy's home and the arm chairs I got at Target.  The coffee table is from IKEA.  We actually have a second couch that you can just see the arm of, it was in my moms house.  The other tables in this space were found at antique stores and the TV stand was a Goodwill DIY.

I just love how the new wall color doesn't compete with the furniture, gallery photos, or other accessories.  

My Dad retired last month from over 40 years of practicing medicine as a General Practitioner, but wasn't done providing medical care and is now over in Jordan serving the Syrian Refugees.  It all happened rather quickly but he decided that he is going to sell his home and I was honored to have the chance to grab this Philodendron and bring it into my home.  It's actually a very old plant - it was my mom's and I can remember it being in my childhood home, now it's one of Ellie's favorite things and she insisted on being in the picture with it telling me "I love this so much!"!  It looks spectacular in this spot and seems to be very happy here.  I love having plants in my home and this one is near and dear to my heart!

This past November we finally replaced all the wall to wall carpet in our great room and hallway, along with the linoleum in the kitchen with laminate flooring.  It's held up great and we love this look so much.  I feel like our home is so much cleaner, brighter, and grounded...plus Ellie loves to go "skating" in her socks.

Here is our pantry.  I painted the pantry doors three years ago with Chalkboard paint and I love being able to change up the original artwork as often as I want! Ellie draws on it too and I love it.

Here is our kitchen, it was originally oak colored cabinets with linoleum floors (from 1989) and fairly "dark" to my standards.  So I wanted to lighten up the space by painting them white and it made a huge difference.  We then got a new dishwasher because our vintage one from 89 stopped working and then due to a fluke tea kettle accident (I left it on the stove for too long) we had to replace our oven/range.  This past year we got a killer deal on a fridge that fit into the space like a glove (it barely fits and the guys who brought it in to install were pretty freaked and measured about 5 times).  The next on our list is the microwave - but this one works so well we can't come up with a reason to replace it.  I also just painted the lighting fixture last week.  It was oak colored too and a total eyesore...it still is but much improved. I was hoping that by painting it white it would sort of just blend into the ceiling and I'm kicking myself that I didn't paint it 8 years ago! What was wrong with me??  Oh and we have replaced the light above the sink a couple times too, I am loving this current one.

And how sweet are these four sack towels??  We made a trip to Vashon Island last week and picked these up in the Pharmacy, we are suckers for things with goats on them and so these two just had to come home with us.  I am so glad that Thomas found them and that he insisted we get two of them!  I've trained him well over the years, haha.

And our last stop on the home tour this time around is Finnley's nursery. I am actually not sure if I've shared it on the blog before or not?  But I am just in love with it and it came out better than I imagined.  I was going for a neutral/boho/tribal/bows,arrows, and feathers feel with wood tones and gold/rose gold accents.  I love this room so much (and way more than Ellie's nursery...)  We reused a lot of things from there but my decor style has changed in the past three years and this just fits me.

Mirror, chalkboard Arrow with custom calligraphy, dreamcatcher from Disneyland, feather drawer pulls, tear drop drawer pulls, birdhouses from Michaels, area rug from Target (no longer available), glider (I sanded it down), accent table from HomeGoods, crib,  frames-curtains-sheepskin rug IKEA, changing pad cover

Her closet and behind the shutters is more storage for extra diapers and other similar necessities. 

I am in love with her crib, we used it with Ellie too and it's been great.  The tassel garland is from Target's Valentines decore and I made the mobile after I couldn't find what I was looking for.  I got all the supplies at Michaels and it's one of my favorite things in her room!

Thanks for taking a small tour with me today! I hope you enjoyed taking a peek inside my house.  We still have a few things we would like to complete in out house, like replacing the baseboards with some more detailed white ones (which we currently have in our garage...just have to paint them), switch out the lighting in the bathrooms, new light fixture in our bedroom, new flooring in our bathroom (to get rid of the 1989 linoleum) and then replace the carpets in the bedrooms. I think once we do that and reorganize our laundry room this house will work for us for the foreseeable future!!  I am really hoping to get those baseboards done this summer...

Thanks for stopping by and if you have time feel free to check out more of my blog!!

♥ Ashley