dreaming of mudrooms...

with every new season, i dream of having a mudroom someday.  i have been dreaming for years what it would look like, how big it would be, the paint color, the flooring, etc.  i would LOVE a place for all of that stuff that comes in my back door...shoes, coats, backpacks, etc.  We have a very small area when you first come into our house from the back, which is the main door we use 99% of the time.  i feel like there is a pile of shoes at the back door all of the time...just check it out...

So for now I am dreaming of a mudroom that looks like this:

i love the cabinets that can hide a lot of stuff!  all of the winter stuff that we have to have here in the midwest...perfect spot for it.  i love the place for shoes and i am a huge fan of hooks for coats!

and my other favorite in a mudroom are lockers...oh, how i love them so, so much!

and this one is very pretty too!  i love the bead board!

but, for now...we are working with the space we have and i am liking it!

hooks for all of coats:

sorry for the dark picture...it has rained all weekend!

and a new shoe rack from ikea for all those shoes:

but, a girl can dream...right?

what is one space you would love to have in your house?

365 project...delayed!

my pages are not done yet...hopefully later today they will be up.  all the pictures are taken...check that off my list!

but, i need your help with something.  my cute pottery barn stockings need some kind of letters on them.  they look so bare, so if you have any great ideas, let me know.  i am just not coming up with anything right now and would love to jazz them up before the 25th gets here.

and i know peace is spelled wrong in this picture, it is fixed now!

i have sent one child to school today and another is home with me.  a fever on and off for the past 24+ hours...of course yesterday she was fever free all day, until 1 AM this morning...so no school for her.  i hope she gets better before the Christmas program on thursday at school!
enjoy!

a new look!

we had a great weekend!  a lot of time at home, just hanging out as a family...with a new look to our house! enjoyed our first fire of the year!  we have not had a fire since before the girls were born...it was so much fun!  and they loved watching it...for afar!

on friday night...during a big snow storm we were getting, todd and i moved a lot of furniture around in our house.  we had to actually move some of the furniture out in the snow...we got 8 inches in less then 24 hours...we were crazy!  but, it was a lot of fun!  

we have lived here for almost 6 years and it has been the same.  i was getting a little sick of it, but maybe it is because i am here every day looking at it...the same way!  so, i wanted to share our new look with you! 

the upstairs...we moved the sectional from the basement to our main floor.  and i am loving it!  what do you think?

before:

after: (sorry for the not so great picture...it was at night time!)

my biggest fear was it the sectional was going to block too much of our built-in bookcases, but i don't think it does....at least i hope not!  and the room is so much more cozy.  we wanted to use this room more and we are already, so that makes my happy!

the basement...has a new look too. this is the area that is a work in progress right now.  i don't love it, but it is the basement where the girls hang out and play a lot.  we want to make it the play/kid area, so that was why we moved everything. 


before:

after: (again, sorry for the dark picture...it is the basement!)

for now we are keeping it, because it was a lot more work then we thought to move it all around.  we will see how we use the space now and if it works for us and if not, we can always move it back in a few months!  

how was your weekend?  do anything fun?
happy monday!

friday fun: a little neighborhood tour

it was so much fun giving you a little tour of my house, i thought i would give a little tour of our wonderful neighborhood.  i had no idea how much i would LOVE our neighborhood.  i loved our house when we bought it and having great neighbors was the icing on the cake!  

they are just the BEST!

i think we live in a great area because,

we are close to both down towns (minneapolis & st. paul), we can be downtown within 10 minutes!

supertarget is 2 minutes away, which is so nice!

great parks...2 that are within blocks of us

2 cute little neighborhood coffee shops...we can walk to them!

we have 2 malls within 10 minutes of us.

lots of great places to eat 

and best of all great people around us, our community is just wonderful!

so here are some of my favorite houses in our neighborhood!

this is the house we first thought we were going to buy in our neighborhood.  if you read my first post, about how we found our house, this house is 5 houses away.

when we looked at this house, it didn't look like this.  the last owners did a ton of work inside and out.  the biggest reason we didn't buy was i didn't love the floor plan, but a very cute house.  and a great young couple lives there with a new baby girl!

the tulips are coming to an end, but still so pretty!

another favorite.  they have done a lot of work as well.

and we have a great mailman.  the girls love him!  and he takes all of my two little tots packages, even when my front step is full of them!

where k&m's bff's live...just about a block away!  they have a really cute house inside and out too!

 and we have some really beautiful garages in our neighborhood.  must people have torn down their old little 1 car and put up a new pretty 2 car...i love this one!

same house with a great white fence!

 love this house...the couple has raised all of their kids in this house since they were babies.  i just love to hear stories like that.  not moving to a bigger house, even if you could, but making your house a home for your family!


thanks for stopping by our neighborhood today!

and these little girls say hi

and have a happy weekend!
see you on monday!

friday fun = house tour part 2

thanks for taking a little tour of my house with me and thank you for all the comments last week, they are so nice!

i found this picture when i was digging for pictures on my computer...i thought i had them very organized, but some are just in random places...but i love the fact that our house is in the background...i just love this picture and i think i am going to get it framed!
(the girls are in the buggy...I {hearted} that buggy!)

so here is the rest of the house tour.  we have not done much in this house expect for paint some walls, but that is it.  and i have included the paint colors of each room...the main level is getting re-painting this month...i can't wait!


going upstairs...

 we have 3 bedrooms all upstairs, which i love!  2 that are a good size and 1 that is tiny, but works as a great playroom!

this nook is at the top of the stairs...perfect place for my cedar chest. and if we add on...this will be the door way to the master bedroom....i can see the double doors now!


the sunlight in the morning upstairs is beautiful...i took this the other day when it was shining in the hallway!

stairs going up...i am adding to the picture wall soon...i just need to pick up the frames at pottery barn!(note this is an old picture...but with all the rain, no good light.  i have a few more things added to this wall, but more coming and i have to update those pictures!)

 our bedroom:

i just painted it last year and i am loving the color...it is in 3 rooms in our house!  it is called asian juut from hirshfield's.



girls bedroom:

paint color is butter from restoration hardware.  i don't love their paint, but they have great colors, so just have it color matched somewhere else.  and i still am looking for artwork for their walls.  i have a few ideas, but i just need to work on them!


playroom: aka: dollie house room the girls call it!
paint color...same as our room.



upstairs bathroom:

 again...cute arch way for the shower!
no idea on the paint color, was here when we moved it and i loved it!


going downstairs:

back doorway...see it is small! every time we all come in the door we are on top of each other...drives me crazy, but it works!  i want to hang some family pictures above the hooks...it needs something!

family room area:

same paint color as our room.  the shelf above the sectional i designed...todd made.  and i love it!  i got the idea from a pottery barn catalog...which i can sit and look at for hours!

love that we have the tv on the wall now and the bookcase is from ikea.

play area:

desk nook:

downstairs bathroom:

another view...so wish we had double sinks in this bathroom...we might just have enough room to re-do, need to look into that!

the big tub: the girls LOVE this tub...the only time I used it was when I was prego with them...and then I LOVED it too!

backyard...which is wonderful!  we have a pretty good size yard for living in the city!
patio:

i don't have a good yard picture right now and it has rained all week...big bummer!  once i get that yard work done, i will show you it!


thank you for letting me share my house with you.  we love our house...the good and the bad.  for now we will keep it ours and i am sure that will not change anytime soon!  we just keep making it work for our family.


enjoy your weekend! do you have any fun plans?  i am hoping the sun comes back out...this rain is killing me, i need to get outside and finish my yard work!