The best birthday present ever - and full house photo tour!

We've taken to hunkering down at home and mumbling softly to ourselves over and over "I love our house, I love our house".

We went out of town for New Years (which is also my birthday) to enjoy the city for the night and do all those fun city things for a day. You know, walking out the door and down the street for a morning muffin and coffee. Browsing bookstores and window shopping. Dropping in somewhere unexpected for a late leisurely lunch. We got to our destination around 2:00 pm and did spend the afternoon doing many of those things. Then we had a fabulous dinner and went to an actual bar to see actual live music. It was all wonderful, but what we realized was, well, we'd rather be home. So the next morning when we woke up, we scrapped our plan to have a leisurely day in the city and went home and had a fabulous leisurely day there. And that realization, my friends, might just be the best birthday present yet.

So here are some updated photos for you so you can see why I'd rather be here. We've also been working on the master bath and Matt has finished the incredibly beautiful walnut vanity. Keep working your way down and you'll get to it eventually!!

This is an overview of our main kitchen/dining/living room

View of our living room and the amazing wonder dog Indy. In the upper right you can see the jams for a future set of stained glass doors which lead to the unfinished loft.

I love stained glass! This is a beautiful piece that was a gift from Matt's aunt this year. It's gorgeous and fits in with our house perfectly.

The kitchen is my favorite part of whole house. Above the window in front of the sink is a wooden sign that reads "RAW BAR REGULAR" - a gift from our great friends from Cape Cod (and one of our favorite bars).

The stars hanging up high have been collected over the years from antique shops in the area. They are the heavy iron original stars that were bolted to the exterior of homes that had been braced against hurricane winds.

Another thing I am so excited about! Our good friends Johnny Rea and AZ gave us an aerogarden as housewarming gift!!!!!!!! Obviously, they rock. Countertop hydroponic kitchen herbs:)

This photo shows the dining area, and you can see the future stained glass doors up there at the top again. The idea is to build one of the sliding library ladders that will run on a copper rail above the framed pictures and tuck in next to the tall window when not in use.

Another living room view with the new stained glass piece. For those that have seen earlier pictures, that is the window that has the best stream view before the stream goes under the house. If you look all the way to the left you will see the new copper light switch plate.

A gift from my mom (we are SO LUCKY)! We are hoping to get enough of them over time to cover all of the switch plates in the main room. Don't you love them?

Our guest room (if you know us (and we like you) COME VISIT)!

This photo is taken from the bed in the guest room. The loft will be finished with a cherry knee wall and ships ladder at some point down the road. Right now the only way us there is to haul a ladder in from the garage.

Our office (which you can tell I did not bother to straighten before taking pictures), but who am I kidding, this is what it looks like.

We recently resurrected the cradle from my moms attic and cleaned it up. We are hoping to put it to use in the guest room when our new nephew visits.

It is a beautiful hand carved piece that dates back to 1851. The article in the frame is a picture of my mother with me shortly after I was born. My grandfather had refinished the cradle in time for my birth, and the paper did a short story on it.



The master bedroom with princess Amelia

The latest and greatest of our projects. Matt custom built this black walnut vanity for our master bath. He even dug through the wood pile to find the perfect rough edge with remnant bark for the front face of the counter top.

My sinks. The subject of many debate. They are actually serving bowls. From an outlet. And they only cost $20. But convincing Matt that they could be turned into sinks by simply drilling holes in the base took months. I won.

And last but not least - The finished shower....

With rock spill over detail