Home Sweet Home: an Update

I was looking through old posts the other day and I realized I never updated y'all on how we settled in to our apartment! So here are a few shots of the current state of our place.

This is the entry way with the Mr. Pig and Mr. Otter prints that were two of the first things we hung in our new home. We've since added a fantastic entry table that affords us so much storage! You can't see it very well, but just to the right of the door is the print of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, which is a gift from my aunt Becky. It's a tradition the women in my family (my mom, my aunt Becky, her daughter Sarah, my sister, and me) to have a print of Sunflowers hanging somewhere in our homes. I've had this print hanging in all my homes since my first college dorm.

Here are the dining room tables. The apartment comes with one table, but our weekly family dinners have grown to up to 16 people, so I got us a second table and 4 more chairs. It's like Thanksgiving every week (but with slightly less food) and I love it.

Storage is at a premium over here, so I have tried to find furniture that serves a dual purpose when possible. Those benches on either side of the white loveseat used to be the only storage in this corner. They roll out and hold all our holiday stuff and my scrapbooking materials. The white love seat is a life saver for the times the Mister wants to play video games and I want to stretch out and stream my TV shows.

This is my favorite part of the house! The couch has taken quite a beating since we purchased it last year, but I still love it! The photos over the couch make it feel so much like home. But the best part of this living room, by far, is the fantastic comfy chair we got from our friend Sharon! The Mister is in it right now playing his video games and it is famous for its afternoon-nap-inducing powers. You'll notice that the entertainment center is a vast improvement over the rustic xbox-sitting-on-a-chair set up we had last year.

A close up on my attempt to be all interior design-ish. The Ganesh was our latest smuggle from Sri Lanka. We also were able to re-purchase the Sri Lankan man and woman and nativities that were confiscated by the Saudi government in April 2012.

The guest room (aka the cat room for the time being) actually looks like a guest room! We bought the bed last semester because a friend of ours was coming to visit from Saudi. Notice the storage under the bed. It currently holds...well...everything I couldn't find a place for previously.

This is the room where I spend a lot of my time (keep your jokes to yourself, fellas). It's not much, but it's mine. The green cabinets drive me a little crazy. The guy who lived in this apartment before us had leftover paint from the living room, so he decided to paint the cabinets. Alas, he only had enough for the uppers. It feels like a kitschy 1950s kitchen and I kind of hate it.  But oh well. At least it doesn't clash with the tiles.

Here's the bedroom. I know, Mom, I know: the bed's not made. Some things never change.

Hope you enjoyed your tour of our crib! The guest bed has a VERY dreamy memory foam mattress topper, so feel free to come visit any time!

Vicariously yours,