A mini home tour: our main floor.

Within 30 seconds of walking into this house, Shawn announced, "We need to make an offer." The white kitchen with new appliances, the brand new hardwood floors, the space, the price. It sold us. We did make an offer later that day and moved in three weeks later. While we'd love to purchase a fixer upper someday in the future, now's not that season. So to have a house with very few updating needs was a huge blessing.

The house is split-level, and the following photos are of the main level. If you go upstairs, there are three bedrooms and two bathrooms. If you go downstairs, there's a partially finished space that functions as my craft room and a play area for Liam, as well as a large unfinished space with laundry and lots of storage.

The one major update we've done was to have the walls on the entire main floor painted. The kitchen used to be a baby blue (see photo below), and is now Benjamin Moore Gray Owl. The living room and hallways are the same color, just lightened by 50% (though, honestly, you can hardly tell a difference between the two colors). I love this color. It doesn't reflect blue or purple or even beige. In most lights, it's just a pure, light gray. Exactly what we were going for.

Before:

After: 

The kitchen is my favorite we've ever had. It's bright and airy with three large windows that look out onto the street, so I never feel closed off in a corner while I'm scrubbing dishes. (And it's so fun seeing kiddos walk to school every morning.) The only downside to not having any shades up yet is that, at night, it feels like a fishbowl where everyone can see right in. Eventually, we'd also love to buy a breakfast table for the nook in the corner that's begging for one.

While there's still lots I'd love to do - mainly photos and art on the walls to make it feel a little more personal - I love living in such a simple, serene space. It's easy to keep clean because we just don't have that much stuff to find places for. (Liam's toys either stay downstairs, in his room, or hidden in the crate in the living room. We use a Bumbo-type seat strapped into one of the dining room chairs for his highchair.) And because buying two houses in one year is expensive, our decorating budget was $0, so I'm thankful the things we already had fit the space nicely and naturally.

 PS - I'm happy to share sources for all of our furniture and accessories, but when I thought about it, 90% has been thrifted, purchased from Craigslist, or given to us by friends. But if you have any questions about where we might have found something, please leave it in the comments and I'm happy to point you in the right direction!