Home Tour: Living Room

I’ve been wanting to add more to my home tour series, but it’s a difficult task to undertake. For one, every room feels like a perpetual work in progress. I do like the slow accumulation of furniture and decorations, but I get stuck in a cycle: “I’ll take photos once I get this one final thing…. and then this other.”

Besides that, it’s hard to photograph rooms! Even when I breakout my 18mm lens, I can never accurately grasp the feel of the room. This is especially true in my living room, which is the center of the house and very large and open. The grandness of this room is the reason we bought the house. And I admit we definitively said, “Leonardo will love this!” when we walked in. He can sit upstairs and keep an eye on everything happening in the lower part of the house.

We’ve known for a long time that we did not want a television in our living room, so our book collection became the centerpiece. Most of the books are from our subscription to The Easton Press’ 100 Greatest Books Every Written. We’re sent a surprise book every month! We’re making our way through the list quite nicely and will need a second bookcase soon. There are also a few other books that we’ve picked up individually, including the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jane Austen’s six novel.

I’m sure this style is not to everyone’s taste, and sometimes I worry that it seems a bit ostentatious. But the room really came together organically. It holds a lot of our momentos, like a childhood photo of my grandfather and his brother, the embroidery I made Joseph for our first anniversary, framed postcards and a mask from Venice, and an alabaster cat and hand-painted papyrus from Egypt.

Finally, the room as viewed from the walkway upstairs.

Home Tour: Dining Room

Nearly two years after moving in and every room in the house has been put to use! That’s not to say every room in the house is done being decorated (will it ever) or remotely presentable. But the first room you see when you walk in to the house is no longer a storage room!

We ordered the dining table and chairs from West Elm four months ago. The chairs came on time, but the table only arrived last week. There was a tornado that halted our delivery. Then there was warehouse damage from the tornado. Then they had to re-order a new table. Then the table was backordered. Then the backorder was extended another month. But it is finally, finally here!

To the left is the Verona Bar from World Market. The refrigerator is just on the other side of that wall, which is very handy! Here is an Instagram photo taken from the kitchen that gives more context.

Joseph has always wanted a well-stocked bar, and we finally have one! It’s filled to the brim, so we have to keep our wine in a stand in the living room.

All the credit goes to Joseph here! I picked out the vase centerpiece, and he chose everything else!

Home Tour: Bathrooms

If this feels like a weird section of my Home Tour, just go with it, please. Bathrooms are small, and our three came together pretty easily (and quickly). They are the most “done” rooms in the house, really!

Guest Bathroom:

This bathroom is located upstairs between mine and Joseph’s offices, near the guest bedroom. As much as I would love a beautiful frilly shower curtain, I decided it needed to be somewhat masculine to make up for the purple bedroom. In the end, I’m very happy with it! I love the wall color especially and am glad I went as dark as I did.

Powder Room:

This the half-bath off the living room.

This is actually Leonardo’s bathroom. And I don’t mean that he uses the litter box in here–he uses the toilet. He’s five years old and started doing this a few months ago with absolutely no training. If the bathroom door is closed or the toilet seat is down, he cries until we figure out the problem and fix it for him. I nearly had a heart attack the first time I walked in on him, but we’ve learned to appreciate it.

If you demand, I have photographic evidence.  But with respect to Leonardo’s privacy, I will only post them in the comment section upon request.

You will have to forgive me for these photos; the powder room is small and difficult to photograph accurately, especially with the sharply-colored decorations I used.

Master Bathroom:

This bathroom is found through double-doors in our bedroom. Towards the back left we have a room for the toilet (which, by the way, Leonardo does not use–he only likes the powder room), our walk-in closet, and a linen closet (the door to which is not pictured above).

Joseph’s grandmother gave us this antique shaving mirror a few months ago. It’s come in quite handy!

Home Tour: Guest Bedroom

I’ve planned a “home tour” series for a while and finally have a room complete enough to show off. I can’t believe we’ll have been in the house for a year in September! Our one-year anniversary of leaving Italy is coming up soon, and I think I’m going to have a panic attack when it arrives…

Actually, I’ve passed that. I had a panic attack in March when I realized that the one-year was only a few months away. Oh boy.

Anyway, here is our guest bedroom! I painted it a very, very strange color that is hard to photograph. It looks weird in photos and weird in person, but I think I like it. Or I’ll just learn to like it because there’s no way I’m repainting any time soon.

I bought this Cynthia Rowley comforter set at Marshall’s a few months ago because I was having guests and decided I needed a presentable room for them.

I put a bookcase on the other side of the bed in lieu of a nightstand. I wanted to have something for my guests to read (since I’m not interesting enough to keep them entertained myself). The bottom shelf holds our collection of National Geographic magazines.

The last two photos are from before I painted. I could get much better light for photos when I didn’t have to worry about distorting the weird wall color too much! Though it might not look it from photos, I think the room looks much better with the new color.

The paint is Martha Stewart’s Heathered Moor.