Fabulous Fall

This tree is in our backyard! Spectacular!

Hello all! It's been a busy few weeks since I last posted. I'm going to combine several topics into one post. :-) We moved in, got our furniture put in the right places and I went to Florida and College Station almost immediately for a week. I've been back for a bit and we're slowly getting everything set up. We don't have decor put on the walls, books on shelves or the garage cleared out, but we're making good progress and it's really starting to feel like home.

I've even been able to put up some fall decor. Michael's had some great sales, so I was able to get some things without much investment. Here's a sampling:

I've had those pumpkins for a few years. The peacock was a recent gift. The leaf garland and wheat in the vase are my new additions.

A friend made a centerpiece like this recently and I copied the idea. The coffee beans in the bowl smell great!

I am really proud of this wreath. I was appalled at the price tags of pre-made ones, so I picked up a grapevine wreath, leaf garland, artificial flowers, pine cones and pumpkins and made my own for half the price. I love the color!

We finally got all the pieces for our new bed and set it up. It's super super comfy and I really like the colors. We're planning to use that teal throughout the house, and you can already see it here and there!

Bed is from Restoration Hardware (Originally), bedding is Barbara Barry (Bed, Bath & Beyond), the teal throw is from BB&B, purple pillow is DKNY and the teal pillows are from Ross. I made the lamps myself in welding class in college. :-)

Though I never would have thought it would work with my style, we decided to use some of my mom's furniture in our bedroom. It's all solid oak. Our bed is also oak, so they work well together. We may refinish them someday, and we'll probably get new handles, but for now, we have a really nice bedroom set up. I'll show you the rest once we get our decor up.

I've also been doing quite a bit of cooking. It's wonderful to have the kitchen all set up with all my favorite things! We recently had a gathering with our Supper Club at the house and I got to try out some new recipes.

My first time to roast a chicken. It turned out REALLY good.

I was so proud of my roasted chicken :-)

I made butternut squash soup too, and it was awesome. New favorite meal right here.

got to use my wedding gift champagne glasses!

Our first fire in the fireplace. My brother-in-law made it a roaring one.

We also made s'mores. Super yum.

beautiful!

Drew and Ellie

Pierre will only let Jason do this to him.

Our party was a sleepover before our 5K Foam Race, so we also had breakfast, courtesy of Grant and Zach.

awww

We've been doing some gardening as well. Zach has been hard at work making our yard look great. We seeded the bare spots with fescue. Can't wait to see how it sprouts up!

the bare part of the backyard after Z got it ready for grass seed

evidence of Zach's industriousness

grass will go here.

grass will go here

grow little fescue, grow!

Hard at work

We got the bougainvillea hung up too!

I'm very excited about the two trees we're planting. I really wanted something with pretty fall color. Lucky for us, one of the trees in the backyard has gorgeous yellow leaves. We just planted a "Fire Dragon" Shantung Maple in the front yard today. This is what it's supposed to look like--IN TEXAS:

"Fire Dragon" Shantung Maple (the red one)  and regular Shantung Maple

It came in a box!

I can't wait to see how it grows. I'm already in love with the leaves!

tiny tree :-)

tree in our front yard--Total To Kill a Mockingbird moment :-)

I also got some acorns from the one and only CENTURY TREE from Texas A&M. It's a huge tree on campus and the tradition goes, if you walk under it with your true love, you'll stay in love forever. It's such a special tree to Aggies. Thanks to my friend Jana, I have acorns from it... so I planted them. It'll take a while to grow, but that's ok. We'll be here for a while. :-)

Where's Mr. Carson when you need him??

A little Downton Abbey humor for ya :-)

This Keep Calm pic seemed appropriate today. We moved in Wednesday and Thursday and spent our first night in our home Thursday. The place was such a disaster, but we at least made our bed and I tried out the jacuzzi tub. Friday my brother and his girlfriend stayed with us, so we spent the day picking up things at our teeny Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond. We also put all our furniture in the right places and even set up the upstairs areas. A couple of footmen and a valet would have been nice, but we're not Downton Abbey so we definitely got a workout. My feet are still recovering. I'm pretty excited to have rooms ready for guests, and all my favorite bathroom stuff got to go in the guest bathroom. :-)

Zach was overjoyed to discover some bedding I've had since college. He giddily made me put it on the bed where my super-conservative, straight-laced Army brother Jonathan would be sleeping. Here's the bed. Please note that I don't plan to have the guest room looking like a shoutout to my 12-year-old self all the time.

Note the My Little Pony pillowcase!

Zach has this running joke with Jonathan about pink everything. He's nearly convinced some family members that pink is Jon's favorite color. 

So we gave Jon and Holly a tour of the house, and showed Jonathan the room. At midnight, because they got in late and the comforter was taking forever to dry. Jon is such a good sport--his face was priceless.

So funny

Zach loved it too :-)

We had a great weekend at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas and hanging in Fort Worth for dinner with Holly and Jon. They even got us a wonderful housewarming gift that is perfect for the direction we want to go decor-wise. 

Sunday was the day we *really* needed Mr. Carson to fix our lives. I was in the master bedroom closet while the shower upstairs was being used, and noticed water spitting out of the A/C vent in the ceiling. That's going to need to be fixed ASAP...

Then I tried to do laundry to get ready for a work trip tomorrow and after three loads in our dryer of 48 hours, the "check exhaust" error message came on. My mother-in-law suggested looking for the dryer vent. It looks like it goes up two stories out the roof. That seems a bit far from the dryer on the first floor... so, on top of the big list of maintenance/improvements we're going to be making... these two items top the chart. 

Where's my darjeeling Mr. Carson??!?

Pumpkins and Shoes

Yesterday we went to Supper Club with some friends and carved pumpkins. I was so excited to put SOMETHING on our porch. I also brought in a load of my important stuff... basically, my shoes. :-) tomorrow we're starting the moving process. I have zero boxes packed so... Tonight will be fun!

Welcome to Downton Blabby!

Welcome to our new home! Would you like to take a look around? These are photos I took before we owned the house (it was actually during the inspection, hence the ladders and such) so this is a good chance to see it before we make any changes. 

Cue Downton Abbey theme song. Missing a giant golden labrador... just pretend. ;-)

This is the street view-- the building on the left is the detached garage. I love the Austin stone and brick, and we hope to put some rocking chairs on the porch.

To the left of this photo is the front door. I am standing in the formal living room. You can see the doorway to the study, the utility room, downstairs bathroom, stairs, living room, master bedroom and dining room. :-) It's an open floor plan, which I love!

This is the study, where we'll be spending a LOT of time. The floor looks like wood, but it's actually ceramic tile!

Downstairs bathroom. Yes, that's animal print. Eventually we'll paint. :-)

This is the utility/mud room. That shower is for Zach when he comes home from soccer I guess!

Master closet--it has a vanity!

Master bathroom. Eventually I'll get rid of the wallpaper and brass, but it's ok for now. Can't wait to use the tub!

Master bedroom--that door straight ahead goes to the back patio. Door on the right goes to the living room.

Living room. I'm so excited we have a fireplace! Not sure what we'll do with that hole in the wall--TVs aren't that shape anymore...

Kitchen. It's the only room in the house not neutral colors. But somehow it works. I love the slate colored tile throughout the house--it matches our table!

Upstairs living area

Upstairs bathroom. Again with wallpaper and brass... at least it's consistent!

Backyard patio - we're going to do something cool here eventually! They left the patio furniture and it's nice!

Backyard view of the detached garage.

Breezeway between garage and utility room. I think it would be nice to just sit out here!

So there's our house! We're planning to move in next week. Even though the house is ready to go, we've got a list of things we want to do to it. I supposed that's a lifetime-long task, but we're really excited. I've been looking at furniture and decor, but I think we're just going to move in with what we have and a few pieces we got great deals on. I DO plan to get some fall decor because I don't want to wait a whole year for pumpkins! And I want to plant a few fall trees/plants. 

What do y'all think? Do you have any suggestions for decor/style/gardening?

We Bought a House!

Today was a momentous day for Zach and I. We closed on our first home and officially became residents of Fort Worth, Texas. We even got the keys today! It feels like a really big step, but I'm ready to put down some roots amongst the craziness of our lives.

We plan to move in sometime next week when we get back from San Antonio. We still need to set up a few things and pack up our stuff in Cedar Hill.

I can't wait to give y'all a tour of the house. That's in the next blog post. :-)

Now, I can start figuring out decor, gardening and organization! Anyone have any tips or favorite blogs/websites?