feels like home. for real.

we've only been in the new house for almost five months but there has been a constant feeling of discontent on some level or another. three weeks ago, a friend and i co-hosted a pampered chef party at her house and she mentioned to another party-goer that she'd been there for about six months. somehow that didn't seem right to me, it seemed like she'd been in her new house longer, but at that moment i was too busy enjoying my third mimosa that i didn't do the math. later that day her husband came home and at some point he asked me how things were coming along, if we were settled in yet. i think he was taken by surprise when i said no and it was only then that i did do the math, for me anyway, i still don't know when they moved but i'm pretty sure it was last summer.

i was shocked. it's almost been five months since we moved. okay, three weeks ago it was like four months exactly and for the most part we are settled in but there was still a lot of undealt with stuff in the garage.

the following weekend, awesome papa put up some shelves in our garage and we went through a ton of boxes and organized much of what was stacked along the walls. the garage now has breathing room and it feels lovely. we still need to spend another weekend or two in there but then i'll be in organized garage heaven - it will not be a dark abyss where unwanted and miscellaneous things go to die but rather a bright and happy spacious place where everything that doesn't belong in the house has a home.

this past weekend we worked on the bedroom that pea and sprout share. as much as we're looking forward to our offspring sleeping in their own room, it hasn't happened as of yet. we weren't sure if we wanted bunk beds for such young kids, a corner unit, or two twins and we needed to sell pea's nearly new full-size bed in order to fund another solution. my aunt recently gave us a twin-size trundle and we thought all our problems were solved, but the pull-out trundle was nothing more than a metal pop-up frame that really couldn't be used as a low-to-the-ground option so i wasn't comfortable with that but i loved the twin bed and figured we'd just get another once the full-size bed sold. after a couple of weeks with no solid bites from craigslist, awesome papa and i decided to at least arrange the room in a functional way with both the twin and the full bed and see what we thought. as it turns out, that was also the day that i had a very interested and persistent buyer contact me but once the room was rearranged, it looked perfect! after the furniture moving, awesome papa watched our awesome kids while i cleaned and organized the toys and we were both surprised by how well both the twin and the full beds fit, along with the boys' dresser and bookshelf.

awesome papa mentioned at some point in the last week that it takes about seven weeks to feel settled or at home in a new place. i don't know where he heard that but after situating the bedroom for the littles, i had a much calmer sense than i've had since we moved in. the house felt tremendously more like home, though it's been a bit longer than seven weeks.

yesterday my parents delivered a dresser set, also given to us by my aunt. the dressers belonged to my great-grandparents but i didn't remember what they looked like. i knew that they were solid wood, made very well, and most importantly, they matched and had that obvious retro-modern cool factor (without the ick-factor i now have for buying used furniture). i have been looking forward to getting rid of the solid wood, but pretty basic, chest of drawers my mom picked up for me at a garage sale some 15 years ago, as well as the cheapo particle board chest of drawers my husband has had for much, much more than 15 years. i had hopes of scraping off the bumper stickers i put all over my dresser and then stripping off the finish, finding a similar dresser for awesome papa and then painting them in coordinating colors. realistically i knew it would be years before i could take on a project like that and i really couldn't have asked for anything better than our new-to-us kent-coffey set.

awesome papa's highboy





awesome mama's whatever this type of mirrored dresser is called



with a colorful dwell studio duvet set i picked up on clearance last year, our room is going to be damn spiffy in a few days, once the new furniture is exactly where we want it and the old furniture is out. yay!

next on my list: get the bean's room together. he wants new paint and a new loft bed but it's the little things that count. get his posters and his artwork hung up. i almost felt bad since it's been a little more than a month since he's been back but really? it's been almost five months since we all moved in and only this weekend did the other two bedrooms get much needed attention :)

now. on to more fun stuff...it's time for me to select the two winners of my most recent giveaway.

coming up later this afternoon...