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By Anonymous

A long time ago I promised to post pictures of our house. At the time I was in the middle of trying to avoid studying for the Bar Exam by talking a lot about how I needed to go study for the Bar Exam, so as you can see there was really no time to do anything productive like upload pictures. But now that the Bar is (at least temporarily) over, I can give you a glimpse into the Casa Lag Liv.

This was our first weekend at home since the Bar so there's still a few projects on the list (like putting a cat door in one of the upstairs closets for Lilly's food because Landon and the doggies keep eating it), but in general I feel very settled. The best part so far is having so much storage- after coming from a little apartment our closets and cabinets aren't anywhere near full (yet!) so it's easy to straighten up. Clutter is stressful to me, so I like being able to put everything away easily. It still feels big... it feels like home too, but even with two dogs, a cat, and a baby we don't use a lot of the space, and that bothers me. Unlike JP, I loved living in an apartment and enjoyed the coziness and efficiency of it. I'm certainly not complaining about owning a big house, I'm just still getting used to the size and the permanence of it. And I keep reminding myself that hopefully someday those rooms will be filled and we'll never have to move- unless we win the lottery and can buy that mountain property up in Colorado we've always dreamed of.

I spent about a week shopping around Austin before my in-laws came so that the house could be decorated. The archways were tough because I felt like there was so much pressure on what went in there - we certainly didn't own anything worthy of its own spotlight! My goal was to find things I liked but were cheap enough that I wouldn't feel guilty replacing them over the years as we found things we really love. Landon has quite a bargain hunter's eye and I'm very proud of the good buys we found. The picture above the fireplace was $15, the candle sticks were hand me downs from my mom, and the candles were $2 each. The arch in the living room is composed of a picture from Ross that cost $25 (the most expensive thing I purchased, but it reminded me of Chicago and matched my colors perfectly so it will probably stay up for a long time), the glass plate was $7.50 at Hobby Lobby, and the candlestick was another cast off from my mom and happens to match the plate perfectly. The front arch has my favorite wedding picture, our wedding album, and a candle wall thingy that was $10 and looks very pretty lit up.

There's also a good mix of new and old. One guest room is decorated with plaques my grandpa was awarded during his career in the Air Force and the linens are from my brother's freshman year at college. The other guest room has pictures painted by a close family friend that no longer matched the decor in my parents house, and the bedspread is from my old room. Most of the furniture was given to us by family; our only big purchases have been the couch set for the living room and the patio furniture out back. I really love the way everything came together, and almost everything has a story behind it.

The master bedroom and study remain unfinished- there's furniture but little else, and they will likely remain that way for quite a while because paying off loans takes precedence over replacing our serviceable, even if non-matching bedroom set. The dining room is going to remain a play room as long as our kids are young enough that we don't want them playing upstairs on their own. I just went to a teacher's supply store and bought a set of alphabet train posters to make a border around the walls of Landon's room as well as some cute "color and shape" posters, so I think that will add color in a fun, easy, and inexpensive way. And maybe he'll learn something when he's on his next nap strike!

So without further ado, here's a few pics of our home (you can put your cursor over the picture for a little caption and you can increase the speed to get through them faster):

Full post as published by Lag Liv on August 25, 2008 (boomark / email).