Paper

I'm back! Between graduation, the temporary loss of my powercord for my laptop, and a couple of busy days (including a job interview and a day of subbing at my old middle school), I just haven't had any time. Who knew the end of school would leave me with so little free time?

Anyway, we have a couple small developments with the house (which we're moving into in about a week!). First of all, and pictures, I promise, are coming soon, my dad has started to divide the top floor into two seperate rooms. The "bones" of the rooms are up and he and DOH have started putting in wallboard. Once that's done, I'll paint. And while I posted about the paint colors here, they've changed slightly. Here's what we're going with now:
Lettuce Be Green (California Paints)
Morning Mist (California Paints)
They're slightly lighter than the original colors. My mom convinced me to go lighter because the bedrooms are going to be on the small side and the other colors, while great, where going to be just too bright and therefore overwhelming.

So, with the bedroom paints officially picked, the next thing we needed to tackle was the downstairs room and wallpaper. The downstairs "room" is really one big, multi-use room. It's our kitchen, dining room, and living room (plus we have a family room/mancave in the basement). There is one section that is wallpapered (the dining area), while there are two other walls that are painted (the livingroom is a really catchy red, that I LOVE, while the kitchen walls are green. Here's what the dining area looks like:

I know it's hard to see the wallpaper clearly (it's a sort of leafy, grapey, green/yellow color scheme), but I think that maybe you can tell it's not so hot. (Also note, the furniture is not ours. This picture was taken before the owners moved their stuff out. Also, also note, the incredibly horrible railing--if you can call it that--on the stairs is currently being replaced with one that Lizzie won't fall through.) Frankly, I hate the wallpaper. It's the one detail in the whole house that makes me cringe. I feel like it belongs as a print on an elderly lady's moomoo. Not attractive on anyone or anything, especially my walls.

So, the search for new wallpaper began. Initially I figured we'd go sort of arts and crafts/folk artsy, since that is the general vibe of the house. I grabbed a whole library's worth of wallpaper books from our local interior decorating store, flipped through the books, and marked a whole bunch of stuff. Then DOH stepped into the picture.

Unlike the stereotypical American husband, DOH very much likes giving me his opinion in how things like decorating will go (he was very involved in the planning of our wedding, much to my chagrin, since we are both somewhat type A when it comes to those sorts of things). As he flipped through the pages I'd marked, his responses to what I thought would look good and what I thought he would like were sort of "eh." Then he got to one of the pages I'd marked just for fun, not really thinking he'd go for or if it would even work for the house.

It was a toile. (If you're not familiar with toile, check this out.) It was green. We both loved it. But it wasn't right for the house. The color was off and the scenes were a bit too formal, so we continued looking. The next day I went back to the decorating store, returned a few books and picked up this gem: the Ashford House wallpaper book (sounds very posh, doesn't it?). It was an entire book of toiles. DOH was in wallpaper heaven.

This is what we eventually picked, which I love:

While it's not the traditional toile (with the formal little scenes of pastoral life), it is in a similar style and I think it fits well with the feeling of the house and the landscape we're in (lots of trees, wildlife, and land around us...I know, I need to post pictures). The colors are exactly what we need, and I think it will add a level of sophisitication to the house that wasn't there before. It will be the way we really make the house our own, which I feel like we need to do, because the house has so many distinct features put in by the previous owner.

The next thing on the list (besides actually wallpapering) is to get a sofa for the upstairs. We're getting the sofas in my parents' playroom (or, I should say, my brother's playroom) for our basement family room, but we still need something for the upstairs. Tomorrow my mom and I are going sofa shopping. We'll see what we'll find!