A Family Lives Here

Happy Saturday to you all out in blog land!  Quickly to the point, my first post on this blog is to say, "A family lives here!"  My husband, my son, and I share a home that my husband and I decided to build a little over two years ago, in hopes of making it our family home.  Little did we know, how quickly that would become a reality.  Our son was born in 2012, only 10 months after we moved into the house.  As you can imagine, moving into a new home and soon after finding out that I was pregnant, well, I have to say, I had no interest in anything to do with décor.  My mind was focused on making sure I had the best pregnancy I could have.  We were lucky, and delivered a beautiful and healthy baby boy.  A baby that would only nap while you held him, mind you, but healthy and that's all that matters.  I had toyed with the idea of staying home with my baby before leaving on maternity leave, and after having him I decided to not return to work, and focus on being a Stay at Home Mom.  What a joy it has been!  I can only thank God, and my husband for working so hard to provide this life for our family.  Well back to the napping issue.  Some days it was a one hour nap, and some it was two, and most days he took multiple naps, so multiply those hours by at least two.  My first form of entertainment, other than sleeping during those naps, was to watch television.  I got sucked back into the world of Day of  Our Lives, watched a ton of talk shows, and always had HGTV as my go to channel.  That was entertaining, but you can imagine, I tired of watching television, and searched for some other form of entertainment.  Somehow, I found Pinterest.  Oh the joys of Pinterest!  I have been obsessed ever since.  I found the Home Décor category to be the most interesting and entertaining of all.  Over time I've searched ideas, and read what feels like thousands of blogs.  With each nap time I became more and more inspired to work on our home.  When we moved in we brought our furniture from our first house, which was half the size of the current one, so needless to say, we needed to fill up some rooms.  We did make an effort to purchase a few new pieces, like our couch and love seat for the living room, and our couch for the game room.  We also upgraded our bed to a king sized bed, because we needed our other bed to fill the guest room.  That was it.  Fast forward to 2014.  We have a established a routine around the house, so I have more comfort in placing some attention on something other than completely on my child.  Don't get me wrong, at 18 months old, he is rarely out of my sight, but I have been on a mission to make this house a home.  Not just a picture perfect home, but a home that a family lives in.  One thing I have found over time, and appreciate, is that many bloggers go out of their way to move baby toys, and tidy up for pictures that they are sharing.  I have to say, I have been inspired by a lot of these photos, and I have done the same, when I've attempted to take photos of things I have done, but one of my main goals is to make sure that each and every room is baby friendly.  Meaning that I've made specific decisions in the way I have decorated my house to accommodate our child.  The first room I'd like to share with y'all is our living room.  Only recently "finished", since I set out to complete this room in January.  You will see the bookshelf is full of toys and baskets holding smaller toys.  We have a parking lot next to the couch for riding and push toys.  The bottom floor, being wood and tile, is the only floor, other than outside, that accommodates these toys, so we are stuck with the parking lot for now.  I have tried to keep small items up on shelves away from tiny hand's reach, and left things for the lower level that he can touch and play with.  I mean, what 18 month old doesn't touch and play with everything they see?  He knows not to play with the vases on the fire place, and has no interest in the lamp on the table so I've been lucky in that aspect, although I still have to correct him when his interest in them peaks.  As for the style of the room, I'm normally inspired by all things Pottery Barn, and Restoration Hardware, so I think you will see elements of that throughout, although not necessarily from those places.  I love finding items for less, and frequent Home Goods, TJ Maxx, Marshall's, ROSS, and Target for décor items.  I'm going to guess that the style of this room is somewhat eclectic, but classic as well.  Here are two shots of the room from different angles.  Missing is looking into the dining/kitchen area, but that's only because I have a project hanging out on the kitchen table, and I'd rather not show that mess.  I'll upload more as time goes on.  I hope this inspires other families looking to create the same type of space for their children, but maintain a sense of style as well.