OUR HOUSE - VERSION 2.0

Its been a while since we last let you have a sneak peek into our house. Last time you saw the house we had scattered pieces of embassy furniture and the place looked rather sparse. If you can't remember then look here. Since then our stuff has arrived from England, we have made some furniture and we have made the place more homely. I won't bore you with another shot of the front of the house as nothing has changed there, so we'll kick things off in the kitchen area. 

Having all our stuff from England has cluttered up the kitchen surfaces a bit more but its great to be able to cook a bit more. Andrew bought a kitchen aid as you can see with his birthday money and he's loving it. I used it to make the muffins I put on Instagram and it works so well. Think we'll be exploring a lot more in the kitchen now!

Macintosh's area has become more defined now that he has a bed, which is huge by the way! And his little box of toys. I got fed up of tripping over his toys so they get stored in there now. He pulls them out to play with them but at the end of every night (or when people are coming round) they get placed back into the box and the neat freak in me calms down again! 

Our lounge is feeling a lot more cosy now it has ornaments on the sides. It feels a bit more us. We still need to add some pictures on the walls and one of the new ones we have ordered comes this week so once we've agreed on where they go we'll show you some updates. 

The desk/office area is rapidly becoming my favourite. Andrew's desk is amazing and looks great. I think the vintage fan he found in Florida really adds to it. It actually still works but is far too powerful and blows everything off the desk! 

Our trusty sideboard is in place and ready to become our new fireplace. Once I've got some inspiration I'm going to create a little fall display on there and will change it out each season. Just need to get thinking about what to do. For now the trusty whale bookend keeps me smiling. 

Our dining area feels a little less sparse now with something on the table, a picture up and a bookcase. We must admit we rarely use the dining table as its just the two of us. We tend to sit on the bar stools at the kitchen. But when we have people round its a handy space to have. 

The guest bedroom photos always come out a little dark as its the hardest place to take photos of due to its position. There's not masses of light in there. It's Mac's favourite place to sleep because its so cool in there. We have to drive him out though otherwise he covers in the place in hair! 

Our bedroom gets lots of lovely light from our big patio doors. The outside has been cleared and no longer is covered in weeds. However there's not much going on out there as we tend to sit out the front. So there was no need to photograph the A/C machine again.

The tour wouldn't be complete without at least one picture showing our pooch. In this photo he's showing his displeasure at being photographed whilst attempting to nap. Sorry puppy! 

I wouldn't say that what you've seen is finished. We still have lots of adjustments we can make and I love to tweak with decor so no doubt there'll be more sneak peeks into our house, although probably not all in one go, more like room by room as things change and develop. I would also say that our house doesn't always look this neat and tidy either. I had cleaned and tidied prior to taking the photos. We don't live in a house that looks like a showroom. Most of the time its quite the opposite, but I wanted you to get a sense of the house so that meant clean and tidy! 

I really enjoyed looking back at the first photos and seeing the transformation. I can't wait to see how it changes and adapts too. If you want to see the changes firsthand remember Hotel de Woodruff is open for business!
H 

BOXES UPON BOXES

Earlier this week our stuff finally arrived from England - hooray! We had been waiting rather a while for this to happen and had been living in somewhat more sparse conditions than we were accustomed too. We were really looking forward to having some familiar stuff around us including family photos and personal things. 

Anyway we had 30+ boxes to unpack! The men arrived and began unloading. Andrew had hold of Macintosh and a clipboard to stand and check off all the boxes as they came off the lorry. I was inside the house directing operations (as you can well imagine) and beginning to unpack. We wanted to unpack as many boxes as possible before the men left as they would then take away all the empty boxes and packaging. It was a bit of a race to just unpack everything carefully without losing anything (or the dog!) in all the packaging. 

We managed to unpack over half the boxes in that time whilst they unpacked our bits of furniture and kindly put together our bed for us. It was quite a feat unpacking that much and left us in one messy state. See the picture below...

                   

However once they had gone, and we had found a tennis ball to occupy Macintosh and stop him destroying the packaging, we began to get into quite a rhythm meaning that by the time we stopped that evening we had pretty much done the kitchen and the bed was all ready to drop into. We then were able to have our first dinner in about 2 months on one of our dining plates. Bliss!

                    

We have spent the rest of the week beginning to put away the remaining things and are getting there. We have lots of little bits that still need to find a home and clothes that need sorting. I doubt my scarves and woolly jumpers will be needed just yet so could be vacuum packed under the bed. And the garage needs tackling! It's currently rather a mess! 

     

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. We will get there and when we do I can bore you all again with some new updated house tour photos! Yay!

H