Our new(ish) house.

  We've officially been in our new house for a year, so it seemed like a good time to finally do a tour. I realize I talk about our house a lot (too much?) but have never done a full tour. So today's the day! Before that, let's do a check-in on where we are a year after moving in...

   We still love this home. (We're pretty open-handed about it and know that it is just a house, I feel as if I should lead with that before I dive in to our favorite things about it!) I could gush on and on with all the reasons we love it so much, but here are the highlights:

• Our new neighborhood is super friendly! We are working about being more intentional with neighbors and love actually getting to know the people that live on our street and next door.
• We have great space for hosting and inviting others over- a finished basement for kids (and toys!), a separate dining room, and lots of sleeping space.
• The big backyard might rival the basement for our favorite place to hang out!
• All of the bright, natural light through the entire first floor.
• Our neighborhood pool! Not technically part of our house, but dang, we love having access to a pool one block away.

  It really has been such a blessing to be in this house. We prayed intentionally for lots of things like chances for hospitality, fun for our kids, investing in our neighborhood, etc- and we've truly seen each of those things happen or grow since we've moved in. But enough of the emotional stuff! Let's talk about the actual house. 

  One of the best parts of this house is that the previous owners did a handful of great cosmetic upgrades. They repainted the entire house (in colors we like!), added trim work, and changed out lots of light fixtures (adding recessed lighting!). Those things have made a huge difference and we've hardly done any other projects since we've moved in. Here is what we've tackled in the last year:

• finished the basement (which also included finding/treating mold and repairing an exterior wall)
• painted upstairs bathroom
• painted Tyler's room
• painted guest room

 Such a small list! I have a much bigger running list of smaller projects in my head that I want to do over the next few years. Most are pretty simple, but a couple require some tools I don't have or just a bigger budget than we have right now. Overall, its just really fun to love this space and know that we might be here for years. We aren't in a big hurry to tackle projects and want to save money for them over time. Add to that my tendency to just be extremely slow with decorating and making house decisions and, you know, we're just in no hurry :)

  Without further adieu, here is a not-so-quick tour of our house! Stay tuned for a quick update soon, since I forgot to include Caleb's room and the basement. And gold star to anyone who actually watches the entire thing!