Sweet Home Arizona

Even though I really miss having the 24-hour maintenance
service that comes along with renting, being a homeowner
ROCKS! It's been a long time coming, but it was totally worth
the wait.

It's so much fun to pull into our neighborhood,
park in our driveway and
walk into our very own front door.
Such a good feeling --

David really seems to be enjoying it, as well. We've got
a constant and running list of 'projects'. He's been
conjuring up plans for the yard and for expanding
the guest bedroom. What's nice is this is not a fixer
upper. Whatever we do can be at our leisure and will
only add to the house and how much we love it. If we
get to it this month or next year, we're non-the-worse.

Most of you have asked to see photographs -- I'm finally
ready to take you on a tour! We have a few things hung
on the walls and most everything is in it's place. I'll start
with the outside of the house and work through the inside
beginning with the main living areas.

The Front Yard

This sign hangs by the sliding glass door -- you can't see it
from the road, but I wanted to share it because it was a
gift from our realtor and good friend, Kim Baldwin.







The Back Yard
This backyard was hand picked for Killian. He really
likes it here. We added something to it especially for
him...


It's a doggie door! David did a fabulous job installing
it and his efforts were not for nothing. Killian loves it!
We still put him in his crate when we leave for the day,
but now he has the option to lay on the soft bed in his
crate or go outside in the yard where he has food, water
and room to roam. I feel so much better leaving for the
day knowing he can stretch and go to the bathroom
whenever he wants to. (We've started leaving him out
in the house with free roam when we know we're going
to be gone for short periods of time. So far, so good! I
hope he can be without his crate soon.)







When you first walk in the front door, you enter the...

The Living Room






The living room, dining area, kitchen and eat-in kitchen
are all one big space. Moving through that area, we come
to the...

Dining Area




Kitchen and Eat-in Kitchen






So, that is the main living area of the house.
If you were to turn left when you walk in the front door,
that would take you into the master bedroom and bath.
So, we'll go there next. Below is the little hall that leads
to the bedroom...



Master Bedroom








I'm still working on accessorizing this area. We moved all
the decorations from our old bedroom into the guest room
and got a new bed and color scheme in our room. Im not
going to do anything major though -- just little touches.
Maybe I can get to some of that while Sandy is here and
I'm on spring break. I feel like it's one of those things that
has to develop slowly to look good.

Next stop, our bathroom. This is another room we have
plans for. It's not terrible, but I'd like to put hardware on
the cabinets, get new rugs, replace the mirrors (HATE
THEM!), and replace the glass shower doors with a
curtain. Let me just show you what it looks like right now...

Master Bath






Now moving back out into the living area, there's
another hallway on the opposite side of living and
dining room. Even though hallways aren't usually
too exciting, I'll take you there so you can get a
little frame of reference for the rest of the
rooms I'm about to show you...


Behind me is the office
Directly to my left is the laundry room
Directly to my right is the living and dining
rooms In front and to the left is the guest
bath. Straight ahead is the guest bedroom

The Laundry Room


The Office
This room is kind of struggling at the moment. I have
plans to rearrange the furniture. Reorganising it spatially
will help a lot. The furniture is all hand-me-down and
mismatched. So, at some point, I want to do some
refinishing and replacing. I'm not exactly sure what the
plan is. I do know I hope to have a before and after
picture with you soon! In the meantime, it more than
works for studying and working with my photos.



Guest Bedroom




Guest bathroom





I got this in Ireland while Art and Mary were
visiting - she got one for her bathroom, too.

Just a couple other notes about the inside...
All the painting was done before we got here.
I imagine we'll keep the colors they incorporated and
just add to. Also, we have these ceiling fans throughout,
another thing from the previous owners. I really like
them. They look good and they're all on dimmers,
which is nice.



And that, my friends, wraps up the tour! I get kind of sad
when I realised we have made the big step of buying our
first house and most of you live too far away to come check
it out in person.

This blogging thing helps me feel a little closer to all of you.
Please send us some pictures of you and whatever you're
up to from time to time. We'd love to see all of your smiling
faces more!

Also -- I've updated the right margin...Take a look!