A Home Means More than a House

I miss our rental house so much, we just moved from it in September to stay with my Mom and save some $$ in hopes of buying our OWN home {soon, yet not soon enough at times!}

I just wanted to look back and remember the place on Red Oak St. where we called Home. I loved working on this house, even though we only lived here a year- it was worth every ounce of work to make it our style and comfotable for my family. It was simple, but it was home.

Here was the Family Room {just overlook the horrible picture quality and adorable children}

Love these pillows so much! Our first pillow splurge purchase, and Justin actually helped pick them out! {$60 for 3-not too shabby!}

The Fireplace- that was once red {I'm not totally against red, but with the natural slate flooring they had, I never did quite get their choice of color}

(that rocking chair is very special- it is my best friends from her son's nursery) {don't mind the broken lamp shade with light bulbs sticking out the top- just keepin it classy}

See what I mean with red not going with the slate? Someone please agree {or disagree and enlighten me} on this!

Here was our Kitchen {favorite place in the house} Wanted to do something very subway artsy above the kitchen window- but time went by too fast!

This was the little Dining Room Notice, there is no picture of the actual dining area...haha we didn't really have one- we had a little hand-me-down table that sat only 4 of our 5- still waiting on my dream dining room table! (it will be made from old rustic doors- I hope!)

I miss this little "Command Central" Spot that was off the Dining Room so much!

The Den/Office/Workspace {this room had gone through 3 different uses in that one year- this is the only picture I have of it now- again, wanted to do so many things in here too!}

Oh how I miss sitting in this chair with my laptop or favorite book in the evenings!

Here is the Hallway

Loved this storage area for our blankets and towels {and my growing stacks of catalogs & magazines}

Jack's Room {still had more ideas, but a year really does go by fast! he desperately needed a curtain rod too! haha}

The Girlies Room

I threw these up above the window just for fun- after making like 20 of them for my cousins baby shower! I didn't keep them up long, but they're fun!

The Green Dresser- this was one of my favorite transformations. It was a chipped up white dresser with boring white knobs. Now a sWell shade of GREEN- I could marry this piece! {again, no blogging at the time or I would have a tutorial on how I did it- nothing major though- lots of sanding, painting, and sealing thats all}

The Bedding I LOVE so much, from Walmart! {looked online for weeks for bedding I loved- PB, Land of Nod, Etc. and ended up at Walmart! $30 for the set! it was exactly what I was wanting...score!} The picture is awful- it is a lot more vibrant in colors, greens, blue, pink, and even this awesome burnt reddish color.

Threw in some inexpensive bird houses from the craft store- painted them and hung from the ceiling {tried to stay simple- but again, wanted to do so much more!}

The Bathroom {I took these pictures quickly so please look past the fact that I left the toilet seat open, again, just keepin it real haha}

And This is the part of the post where I want to CRY....loudly....I have no pictures of Our Room! It was probably the hardest room I worked on because it had high ceilings and I painted the entire thing PLUS hand stenciled a wall with this wonderful, beautiful stencil.

The Best picture I can find so far is this....{squint past the cutie to see the wall behind her!}

I just want to cry!! This is why I NEED a blog! I have done so many little {& big} projects without documenting ANY of it! *sobbs*

Oh well. Hopefully I come across a picture of it soon, Justin thinks we have one on a hard drive somewhere. It was very pretty though- beachy and modern. I even did our dresser {still haven't finished it- probably will post about that in the future because I love it!}

Well, that was home. I am so looking forward to having a home we never need to move from {Lord willing of course}.

But, as much as I anticipate what our own home will look like, what I will design within it, and where it might be... I am reminded of our 5 years of renting houses and how much it didn't totally matter where we were, the House was only a Home when we made it be.

A House is made up of just walls, rooms, and floors. A Home is where memories, love, relationships, and warmth is made; it's where LiFe takes place- and THAT can be done anywhere.

I'm thankful the Lord has brought us to where we are today and I am hopeful and trusting He has yet to show us the House we can finally make our permanent Home.

Hope you're having a gReAt week!

Love, Me
(Colleen)