2012 home goals.

i am so excited for the nester's home goals party.
i have so many ideas for projects to do around our house.
i love love love our house and we have adored owning our first home :)

first up: my craft room/laundry room.
this is my favorite room in the house, but it is always messy.
i can easily close the door and forget about my mess, keep adding to it then feel very overwhelmed by the junk. ...and we've only lived here for a couple months.


how great do these laundry rooms look..?

Source: tipjunkie.com via Brooke on Pinterest

Source: theinspiredroom.net via Alana on Pinterest

next: our bedroom.
we have made huge strides here over the past week or so, but still lots of decisions need to happen.

drooling over this headboard.

[source]

we need to pick a paint color and get more furniture. 

i can't pick a paint color to save my life. suggestions..?

other smaller goals:

finish our bookshelves. yep, still haven't done that.

use some of our leftover wood. our garage is filled with it.

print out photos and hang picture frames. sounds easy enough...right?

find a church pew for our living room. we need more seating.

anyone know of a place to find them in or around west alabama? :)

i'm sure we will find lots and lots of other things to do in our casa this year.

but here's to 2012!

sorry for no pictures of our own house. we've been living out of a suitcase for about 3 weeks and i can't find my camera cord. so thankful to be home sweet home.

kennedy prints.

earlier this fall we bought two prints from kennedy prints at the kentuck art festival in town.
they have been sitting in their bag taunting me ever since...

finally we got around to framing and hanging them last night. woo-hoo for another accomplished task.

the green one says "coffee taste best with a friend"

the brown one says "how can you know Jesus when you can't wring a thank you note."

on a different note...what do you think that means?

justin and i were discussing it and we really don't know. would love to hear what you think the quote means!

 the prints are a little bit smaller than 16x20 so i just flipped over the flower insert and used the back as my mat.

finished project.

no more taunting.

so...what do you think?

painting.

last weekend my parents came to see our house and help us paint. so thankful for their help and little tips to help us along the way.

the "formal" living and dining room was a dingy green [or blue based on where you were standing]. praise the Lord for previous owners leaving their leftover paint from the other living area. we painted this entire room for free....except for the cost of primer and have enough to paint the hallway. 

double score.

the boys priming. made a huge difference.

welp, i guess i didn't get an after pic. but it looks great, trust me. i'm sure i will post lots of pictures once we get everything set up!

next up was the guest bedroom that was a little too purple for our tastes. i was way too excited to get that color outta here to take any pictures.

again, the previous owners left paint that matched the other bedroom [now justin's office] so of course we were going to use it...not sure the official name but it's a great color!

the color isn't as dark as this picture makes it look.

next up, the hallway. it's all primed and ready for a coat of paint...i'm glad or i am sure we would procrastinate on this task.

moving is tiring...

we have been in our house for a little over a week.

moving, unpacking and organizing is exhausting. even little millie thinks so....

will be back this week updating you on all the fun projects and visitors we've had so far.

so blessed to have our house and blown away by the generosity of others!

it's official...

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS

whoop, whoop

please don't steal my fingerprints from this picture... :)

justin and i got the all clear this afternoon to head into our house, so we immediately hopped in the car to our new home!

we are so thankful to have our own space after a summer full of transition! we appreciate your prayers, gifts and love during this journey.

welcome!

the kitchen cabinets are getting repainted and will be hung tomorrow.

the main living room.

i am not the best at taking room shots, they are harder than they appear...

taken from the breakfast nook area, this is the dining area and 

another living room we will use as formal study

we are so blessed by God to find this house, we look forward to furnishing the entire house as we find furniture and other items. i can't wait to start crafting/sewing/etc in my laundry room [which is huge, i love it] and justin has the third bedroom as his office!

we are excited to move everything in tomorrow!!

closing day.

yesterday afternoon we did our final walk through and closed on our first home.

[cookies courtesy of the closing attorney]

we could not be more excited! 

last night we spent what seemed like hours looking at paint colors as we begun to decorate the house in our mind...which is tough when you have exactly three pieces of furniture to work with.

we will be moving in the house late next week and hope to spend the next couple of days shopping for furniture and appliances.

our home!

today our new house passed the home inspection with flying colors. ah, now all we have to do is actually close on it and the house is ours! completely surreal, but we are so thankful for God's provision during this entire process.

[excuse the oddly placed ladder on the house, i hope that was the home inspectors]

[excuse the baby pool, i hope that wasn't the home inspectors]

we fell in love all over again as we walked around the house. i would show lots more pictures, but it was packed with their belongings as they are beginning to move out their family plus you can't really see the true beauty of the house. 

we are enthralled with furnishing and decorating this house as our own. justin is already fantasizing about hours and hours of landscaping...and if you know me at all you know that yardwork is not exactly my favorite thing but i am still excited because it is our own!! 

thanks for praying and encouraging us during this process. we are closing at the end of july and moving in the first week of august.

no longer homeless.

welllll, big news from the karl family.

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!

the past few weeks we have been searching tuscaloosa and northport for a place to live. the rental market was crazy. most of the places we would live were already filled by other tornado victims or the prices were inflated...just because they could and people would be forced to pay.

...so we looked into buying a home. which completely scared me to be honest. but we felt like it was the best option for our family and God had put us in a situation to afford a house.

after looking at many many many houses we thought we found the perfect house, until the contract got messy and we walked away from the house yesterday. but we had a peace from God as we stepped away from our "dream home" and our real estate agent actually found us our true dream house yesterday afternoon. it actually wasn't on the market yet, but we got a peek at it and fell in love. we are so blessed to get this house and are excited to have our own place!!

in a two-hour span we had one house, cancelled that contract, found another house, put an offer in on that one and were accepted. what a day. praise God for working through this situation.