Decorating a house

When we moved in, Ryan and I were very satisfied with the condition of our house. We liked the paint in the living room and kitchen, so all we (um, him and our friends and family) had to do was paint the bedrooms. We brought in furniture that was leftover from high school and college- most of it was junky or not our style. Two summers ago we got our living room in decent condition, buying two new sofas and getting a huge entertainment center for a steal on a local web site. We left our old coffee table and end table, not sure of its fate given we'd have babies soon. I've since added some art and what I'd like to think is matching decor. There's no curtains, or "window treatments" (the PC term, right?), but we're both okay with that since we have nice wood blinds and enjoy the sunlight streaming through every day! I have no idea how to classify our taste, but I can say that I don't like art or decor that is meaningless. I don't like going to the store and buying something because it's pretty- instead, what we display is family photos, religious art, and other things that were gifts or have other sentimental meaning. So maybe our home will never look like it came out of a magazine, but I like knowing that every last thing has a meaning. :-)

Beth's room is in pretty decent condition. She's 2- don't expect much. I loved her room when she was a baby- her crib bedding matched her wall paint perfectly, and I tried to match an image of Our Lady and Baby Jesus with the roses I chose for her bedding. Seriously, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I loved how it turned out. Now, it's sort of a mish-mash of things- a full-sized bed on the floor with a hand-me-down bedspread, every last one of her toys since we have no toy room, and a matching Ikea dresser and shelving unit. At least those match!

Luke's room is under construction again. I had a freebie set of matching things in there, cute but not really my style. I've since decided I want to do his room in a sailboat/nautical theme. I bought some curtains from Wal-Mart that are my inspiration, ha! I bought an extra set to make a matching crib skirt, then plan to frame an 8x10 photo I took of him at the beach for the wall. I have a really great photo of me and my grandfather on his sailboat from when I was young (3?4?5?) that is really cool, but I don't know if it should go in his room or not. Why not, I guess?

Next up is our bedroom. Today we made a big purchase! After much deliberation, we picked a bedroom set from Star Furniture. We bought a 4-poster bed, dresser with mirror, and gentlemen's chest (not the armoire in the picture, something different). Ryan is tired of living out of hanging canvas baskets in the closet. ;-) I will have to find one or two night stands, as those were a little big for our room (and out of our budget!) so it's up to me to be thrifty. It will be delivered mid-August, so hopefully by then we'll have found a comforter that we like (we're both really picky!) and re-paint our bedroom. I think we want to go for a grayish-blue color, kind of a slate. We have to figure out if keeping the dog crate in our bedroom will ruin some sort of feng shui or something, haha, it's not the most attractive thing in the world but there's no room for it anywhere else! Ryan and I are both incredibly excited about the bedroom set, I think this is the biggest purchase we've ever made together (okay, other than a house and a car!). We're just happy that we'll have matching furniture in our bedroom!