Dave and I fall into a funny category of caring a lot about what our space looks like (and more importantly, how its appearance makes us feel), while not having the skillset, patience, or desire to ever take on a big renovation. Thankfully, both of our houses have provided us with the same starting point: the bones don’t really need to be touched, while the list of updates we want to make is long, but doable. I posted a casual walkthrough of our house a few days after we moved in on Instagram Stories (saved in my Home highlights), but also wanted to share these quick photos I snapped before the moving truck arrived. I loved looking back on this post from our last house and being reminded of how much progress we had made, especially in moments when I was feeling discontent about something in our space. I know I’ll need that even more this time around–this house is much bigger and will take a LOT longer to get looking the way we want from top to bottom. We even have some projects that we plan to tackle in 8-10 years…we’ll be able to ask an 11-year-old Charlie for help by that point!

Here’s us right after the house became ours :) If you missed the whirlwind story of why we unexpectedly moved in the first place, find it here!

When you walk in the door, the first thing you see is a formal dining room, which we’ll actually be using as a playroom to start. The plan is that in five years, our combined 35th birthday present will be moving the playrooom upstairs, redecorating this room, and investing in our perfect dining room table and chairs. That gives me five years to make a decision, which I might need every moment of, ha! As of right now, this is my favorite dining room inspiration.

The main area downstairs is nice and open, consisting of the living room, kitchen, and a roomy breakfast nook. We just had this area professionally painted earlier this week and it looks SO much brighter and cheerier!! These gorgeous copper pendants are on their way to replace the turquoise ones above the island (there’s a copper farmhouse sink in the island that it’ll subtly pair with from this angle) and we’ll be replacing the one in the breakfast nook as soon as we can decide on a color. I think I’m going to need some input from design-minded friends, so keep an eye on Instagram Stories if you want to help me choose ;) I’m usually very decisive about what I like and dislike, but light fixtures have been kind of baffling/overwhelming to me!

Also downstairs are the master bedroom (another space we had professionally painted, totally transforming it!) and bathroom and a guest room that also serves as my office. Both rooms are at the front of the house and get beautiful light throughout the day! The master bathroom is a project we’ll take on in stages–painting the walls this spring and then re-tiling the floors and switching out the fixtures way down the road. The room is not a very high priority, but has so much potential, I think! Also on my someday list is to wallpaper what I’ve affectionately nicknamed my Barbie closet, for obvious reasons :) I love this and this, both of which remind me of this all-time, out-of-budget favorite.

Not pictured is our neon green laundry room/mudroom, which is another space I’m dreaming of transforming with wallpaper. The tentative timeline for that is to prime it this spring/summer and then add this wallpaper (the best budget alternative I’ve found to this one) hopefully in the fall.

Upstairs, here’s Charlie’s room and the upstairs bathroom. The nursery is almost exactly the same as Charlie’s room so I didn’t include a photo, but it is up there as well, along with another bedroom that Dave is using as his office (bottom right). Between the rooms is a giant open space (bottom left)–something that seems very common in Texas (I think every house my parents looked at when they moved there had one) but you don’t see it as much here. It’ll probably stay pretty empty for now, but will someday be home to the playroom and then, I hope, to a cozy family room we can enjoy with our preteens/teenagers. It’s the room that epitomizes the fact that this is a house we pray we’ll grow into!

As always, I’ll be sharing our progress along the way! Find all of our past Home posts here.