Reasons To Smile

As I prepare for our first dinner guests this week (!) I look around and smile at the things that bring me joy in this home.  I love our home!  Here are a few of my favorite things :)

 SIDEWALK!  You might be surprised by this, but we haven't had sidewalk since our little Bungalow where we began.

 You can hardly see it, but there are such wonderful windows in our home!  I love having the sunshine, breeze, and eventually snow to enjoy!

 A linen closet and a shoe closet.  Enough said. :)

Our enormous porch!  We loved using our porch at the Bungalow and now we can make memories with our adventurers!

 I get to dream of staying in this beautiful castle every time I sit on our couch.  I absolutely love it! (Don't mind the frame awaiting a picture of Miniature...)

 My #1 reason to smile in our home.  This takes the cake and will always successfully bring joy to my day :)

Until rest time - Mrs. Bell

Carpet

Today we transformed our basement into a guest suite.  This morning there was dark Berber carpet on the stairs and large ceramic tiles in the basement.  Since our guest suite will double as a playroom we wanted to minimize our ER trips and do away with the tiles.  We chose to leave the tiles and have carpet installed over them. That way there's the option to revert back if necessary (worst case scenario - flooding) or if the next owner someday doesn't prefer carpet. 

After a long day of reminding H-Man that he couldn't go downstairs and attempting/failing rest time 2x with both adventurers we have an awesome new playroom with the cushiest carpet you ever walked on!

Now we just need guests!  The bathtub downstairs has jets...need I say more?!?

Until rest time - Mrs. Bell

A Little More Light

I decided to get the pictures taken and uploaded so I can move on with my to-do list!  Here's the transformation from the Billiards Room to Play Room/Guest Room...yep - GUEST ROOM.  Come visit us!

Handyman is Here!

Today we are replacing these. It's time to turn the billards room into a playroom :)

(Please excuse the mess- this has been H-Man's zone while the rest of the house has come together.)

Until rest time - Mrs. Bell

Playing House

As you all know we moved this summer to the Midwest from SoCal so Mr. Bell can get his MBA.  It has been an absolute dream to set up my own home. I can't help but quote Charlotte from Pride & Prejudice, "It's such a pleasure to run my own home!" :). By the Lord's gracious hand we landed on a tree-lined street with the most awesome neighbors, great parks around the corner, and more food than our scales should allow.  We are in love!  

Our home is called a Duplex Down meaning we live on the first floor and have a basement, but it's not completely underground. We have windows in the basement that look at our flower garden out front.  We have chosen to make a few cosmetic changes so I'll post those as they happen.  

I had given myself the goal of August 1st to be unpacked. I was feeling great this past weekend when I unpacked the last box...until Mr. Bell informed me there were 4 more boxes stashed in the littles room!  What!?!  Good thing I have a week before my goal!  So as I work to unpack those you can enjoy photos of the only room I have completely set up so far: H-Man and Miniature's room ;)

Until rest time- Mrs. Bell