New House..

Well we moved… 5 months ago. When Clayton and I bought our first house we knew that it was a starter home and that we were not going to be there forever. When Exxon started building in the Spring area we started talking about moving. I am not the best at change so we had to start early. We picked out a nice neighborhood in Cypress and started the building process.

  

Once we started the building process we started thinning out our old house to get it ready to show. We gathered a lot of stuff for a garage sale and started packing up things we didn’t use on a daily basis and stored them at my parents’ house. We put the house on the market and accepted an offer in just 4 days. Once we accepted the offer everything started falling into place. Clayton and I broke down the furniture and wrapped it up so it was ready to be put into the POD. We packed up the house, my mom helped me out one day. Valentine’s Day weekend we packed up the POD and moved in with my parent’s for the week.

I picked out the area and did all the research about the schools. We had several neighborhoods that we had selected to go and look at. We looked at several neighborhoods but we really only saw one floor plan that we liked a lot. Clayton picked it out and it not only fits our family now but it also fits our family as Tess gets older so it works perfectly.

Clayton went by the new house about once a week and took a picture from the same spot. It was nice to see the progress each week. We chose a lot that is right next to a walkway so we only have a house on one side.

We basically added a bathroom and a game room and added some room to each area. I like how open the main area is downstairs. We enjoyed going to the design center and picking out the different aspects of our house. It was nice to see how everything fit together as the house was being built. Some things were a little too expensive at the design center to immediately put in the house so we went with some basics.

We have finally gotten the house mostly finished. It took a little while to get unpacked and we had to buy a couple of extra things for this house. When you walk into the house you instantly see upstairs. I love our entryway.

Right next to the front door is Tess’ Room which will turn into the Guest room when she gets bigger. Her old room was decorated in green, brown and whites but when we moved into the new house I went with a pink, grey and white theme. The bed in her room was my grandfather’s bed that I used to sleep on and now little sleeps on it. It’s kinda cool to have something with such history in her room. We also found her this vinyl saying that says “RAWR means I love you in dinosaur” and this is perfect for her room because Tess loves dinosaurs and has loved them for such a long time. I also found her a “You are My Sunshine” sign at Canton and this was also perfect because I sing this song to her every night. I was afraid that Tess would not want to sleep in her new room, but it was the exact opposite. She loved her new room and her new bed.

Her bathroom is also the guest bathroom so it’s usually pretty clean. We added some pink touches to the white and black theme from our guest bathroom in the previous house. Her bathroom will probably change as she gets older.

We also have an entry through the garage which is also our mud room. Clayton and his dad built a coat rack which I love. I picked a couple of coat racks off of Pinterest and showed Clayton and his dad the pictures and let them choose which one they built me. Clayton and I also put in a cork board so that we can pin up important notices or calendars.

Right Across from the garage entry is the laundry room. We actually were able to put the washer and dryer in their proper places. In the old house the washer and dryer were on opposite sides and the dryer door would open into the washer so it made it more difficult to transfer the clothes. The one thing I love about this laundry room is the storage under the stairs. I have already filled up this extra storage space with my luggage and holiday decorations. I think Clayton is going to love not having to go into the attic to get all the holiday decorations this year.

The office/workout room/fire room is right next to the laundry room. After we moved Clayton found out that he was not going to be able to renew his FFL license at the new house so the office was repurposed. All of his fire stuff has been moved to the office but it now has some work out gear in it. We bought a smaller desk and I think this room works well. It’s set off from the rest of the house so you can work out in peace and not really bother anyone else.

The dining room is actually a dining room in this house. Since the office is our fire room we decided to buy a china cabinet and display our china and lladros. We have eaten in here a couple of times but we mostly still eat in the kitchen. I do love that we can finally display all of our fine china and pieces that we received at our wedding.

This next area is my favorite part of the house. The Kitchen, Family room and desk area are all so open. The kitchen has always been Clayton’s domain. He does most of the day to day cooking. I do love to bake even though I would love to have more time to do it. One of his requests was a double oven and I will say it was probably one of the best things we did. We did lose a little cabinet space but I love the huge island we gained. The pros outweigh the cons with our new kitchen.

Right across from the kitchen is this desk nook area. This will come in handy when Tess needs to do homework and we are cooking dinner. Right now we have an old computer set up and we prepare bills and use it if needed. I also needed a little cabinet for medicine so again my handy husband bought one and made me what I wanted. I love when I have a vision and my handy husband creates it for me.

Our Family room is really open and I love it. The room is perfect for a sectional and we originally picked out one sofa from Rooms to Go but it had feathers in it and I kept getting sick. The guy never let us know that the couch actually had feathers so we did a switch and got another couch. I liked the original couch because of how big it was but I still like the new furniture and still think it fits nicely in the room. I do love my ottoman. There are four footrests inside and each top cushion turns into a trey. We spend the majority of our time in this room playing, watching TV and laying around.

The master is just off of the Family room. The furniture arrangement took a little while for me to get used to but I love how much room we have. This room is bigger than our old room and I love it. We changed up our color scheme, I have been wanting to update our colors and I am glad I went with these colors.

Our Bathroom is very different from the old house and our closet is way bigger. We still don’t have enough clothes to fit. We have an entire wall that doesn’t have any clothes hung on it. I am glad that we decided to bring the granite into the bathroom and change up the tile a little bit. Tess loves taking a bath in our Big Bathtub and she loves our big shower. I think she has taken one bath in her bathroom, the rest have been in ours.

The upstairs will eventually be Tess’ domain. We turned the gameroom into her playroom and she loves it. She will tell me some mornings that she is going upstairs to play and won’t invite me because she wants to play by herself. She feels like it is her area to do what she pleases and to be honest it is. She knows that what she messes up she has to help clean up but that is really her only rule. She watches movies up there, cooks in her kitchen, takes care of her babies, and reads her books. I love how it turned out.

Upstairs also has a guestroom and guest bathroom which will eventually turn into Tess’ room when she gets older. Right now Nana and PawPaw spend their weekends there when they come and visit their only grandbaby.

Well that is our new home… we are happy we moved. My commute is quite a bit further but it’s not a bad drive and I am pretty used to it by now. Once the Grand Parkway opens up it will be quicker. We have a lot of children around Tess’ age that live right around us so she is outside a lot and playing with kids her own age. It’s funny but how just moving can sometimes make such a big difference.