house tour, anyone?

i realize it's taken me an age to post these, but basically, just we had justgotten the entire downstairs unpacked, set up and decorated, when we made the sudden and unexpected* decision to refinish the floors! so of course we had to pack... up... everything; have all the work done; and wait (and wait... and wait...) for it to dry and cure completely. then unpack and arrange everything all over again. this time we're prettttttttttttttty dang sure it's staying this way for the foreseeable future!

ok, so starting with the entryway, as you come into the house:

in the midst of the floor saga, we were given the hand-me-down pink couch. which, on paper, seemed like it would fit really well in the entryway, where i wanted some "stopgap" seating. as it turns out, it's waaaaaaay too big for where i planned to put it. so we've done a re-shuffle, and swapped the seating for these two rooms. i'm still not in love with the result, but i can totally live with it until i find my dream couch. or possibly my dream chaise longue? this one is a serious contender at the moment.

moving through the next arch... (which, can i just pause here and say,"ARCHES!!!!!!!" definitely a big style point for me in this house, i love them!) ...you get to the dining room:

this floor was in pretty good condition, but it was very pale, and when we decided to re-do everything, we went with the darker color throughout. jeff insists i also show you the following photo, which was taken standing in the next arch, but looking back. so you can see back to how the dining room connects up. luckily there's a BIG PINK COUCH to orient you, eh?! :)

off to the side is the kitchen, which is a bit dated. in a few years, we'd like to renovate, but yet another selling point was that it is perfectly use-able until then! my favorite part is the table area with those big sunny windows overlooking the backyard.

at the moment, we've got a card table and folding chairs, but between the tasty food and the nice view, that doesn't seem so bad!

finally the living room, which can be accessed via the stairs you saw in the dining room, or by going around the corner from the eat-in area of the kitchen.

the only furniture we bought for this room is the entertainment center; everything else came from our apartment, where the sectional was a "space saver". weirdly enough, it somehow also works to anchor this much larger room. which is awesome because it's still in good condition and it's comfortable!

and YES, there's a spiral staircase. i mention it because whereas i find it somewhat disconcerting, everyone else LOVES IT! personally, i keep expecting hugh hefner to swan down it in his pajamas, but it *is* a nice shortcut to the master bedroom. and yes, there's a "regular" staircase too; much to the relief of our movers who somehow missed seeing it the first time they came through the dining room. you should've *SEEN* the look on their faces! :)

and now my camera and i are going to take a little rest, but we'll be back soon with some pics of the art lair and maybe the master bedroom? in the meantime, happy saturday, darlings!!! ♥

*we were expecting to tile our entryway. period. but when we pulled up the carpet and lino... SCORE! we found the same lovely hardwood that connected up with the two adjacent rooms. thus instead of covering it up again, and because the other two rooms had mysteriously been stained completely different colors with NO effort to transition neatly between them, we decided to make the leap and just do THE WHOLE JOB all at once. a vast (and seriously messy!) undertaking, but sooooooo worth the time and money! ♥♥♥