Nate Berkus & a Video

I happened to catch Good Morning America this past week and guess who was on? Nate Berkus! 

He was on promoting his new book "Things That Matter". He believes that interior design should tell the story of the people who inhabit a space. He spoke about your home should tell a story about you; because you are the one who lives there. He said if something in your home don't have meaning to you then get rid of it. He advocates a mix of old and new in the home; and discourages running with every new trend, to give your home a lived in feel.

Our New House!

We're leaving San Antonio today. The moving van has come and gone and we are headed south to visit family in Houston and Baton Rouge before heading up to our new house Oklahoma.

Con- Man was a big help with all the packing

With all the excitement of moving, building a coffee table, fixing up the bathroom, ect. I realized that I have never showed pictures of the house we found in Altus, OK! We never actually made a trip up there to house hunt; we decided it would be best just to rent since we may only be there for 2 years.

I told the Hubs that if the Air Force is forcing us to live out in the boonies with not much to do we need a nice house to live in. Turns out housing in Altus is really inexpensive (Score 1 for living in the middle of no where!) So one morning I happened to hop online and find this beauty up for rent:

It has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a formal living and dining room and family room. I was sold and emailed and called the owner right away. Lucky I did because later on the owner would tell me that 10 other people called her later that day asking about the home (we noticed while we were house hunting that there is not a lot of housing available in Altus; so I was super excited to get this one.)

I'm picturing our giant LSU flag right here. (Gotta let people know where you're from right?)

Nice patio in the backyard. I'm trying to come up with a temporary solution to make some shade back here. I hear it gets into the 100's pretty regularly in Altus and I dont think there are any trees in the yard.

And the kitchen! Bigger than what we have now, I'm excited to have a bar counter. I'm envisioning many meals being cooked in here. Yum!!

There were a few other pictures in the ad but I wasn't sure how the current owner would feel about me posting her furniture all over the internet. So I'll give a full tour later on.

I'm excited to start decorating it and have some ideas already in mind. Since we're renting there won't be any huge renovations like the kitchen or bathroom we did in our old house, but I'm already thinking of how to use the stencil I won from Made By Girl, how to rearrange our furntiture, mentally preparing myself to reupholster those orange chairs, and wondering if I should give Con-Man's room a more big boy feel since he'll be 2 soon.

Hopefully all the uppacking will go smoothly and we'll be all settled in in no time!

House Hunters: Altus Style

Someone asked me today if we had gone house hunting in Altus yet. 

My answer? Nope, and we probably aren't going to. We've talked it over and we're probably going to rent in Oklahoma. I'm kind of bummed out about this but it makes the most sense. We're hoping to only be there for 2 years, and lets face it- Altus isn't exactly the real estate mecca of the world. So we don't want to be stuck with a house we can't sell.


But that doesn't mean I haven't been looking.  Most of the homes for sale are new construction. The town has grown recently (21,000 and growing!) and new homes have been built. It seems to be mainly military families buying and selling these homes.

The other side of the coin is older homes- seemingly from the 70's and 80's era. Possibly from when the town experienced a growth spurt at the time. And from what I can tell from the interiors most have not had any updating to them.

I don't have a problem with houses like this- they intrigue me actually. Looking at the pictures gives me all sorts of ideas on how to update and modernize them. But- since our stint in Altus is short all the hard work wouldn't really pay off.

There is a historic part of town. I saw two house for sale in this area. They look cool and are inexpensive for the size. Which surprised me because homes like this in San Antonio cost a lot more. It seems like most people don't live in the older part of town, most have been moving to the newer areas.

Can you tell which one is my favorite? The interior looks like it needs some help. Hopefully someone will buy it and give it some love. Sadly it's not going to be us. 

We're most likely going to end up in the new part of town.

I'm kind of freaking out about moving to a new construction home. I've gotten so used to living in our 1930's cottage house I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. How will I know if the mailman is at the door if Gracie can't run under the house and bark at him (our house is pier & beam). Because our house is pier and beam it tends to shift with the changing weather. How boring will it be to always come home and not have to jiggle and shake the lock a different way each day? And what will I have to worry about with new non- leaky plumbing? And how can I dream about tearing out walls if the home already has an open floor plan?

Seriously we've put a lot of hard work into this house and we love it. We installed the insulation in the attic, replaced all the lighting, had cable run, painted all the walls, not to mention the kitchen remodel. And besides all the hard work this is where our first child was born- Con-Man! 

We've learned a lot and grown a lot in the short 3 years we've been here- no matter where we end up living in Altus I know we'll have even more good memories to share when we leave.

I've Been Floored

There is a secret I've been keeping from you, and it lived in my living room. My old, ratty, could never get clean no matter what I did to it rug.

I've had it since college and it's been spilled on, partied on, animals sleeping on, ect. I've been embarrassed to have people over and I'm embarrassed to show it to you now.

I've been wanting to get a new one for a while now but haven't found one I liked in the price range I wanted to stay in. 

But this past weekend I finally lucked out! I went to a Homegoods store here in town and hit the rug jackpot!

Yay! New clean rug! It has the colors I was looking for (greenish to match the curtains, chocolate brown of the couch, tan, and even some blue in the mix.) But the price is what really sold me- It was originally $300 and it was on clearance for $99! Score!

I love it, and Con-Man loves it too- when I rolled it out he said "Oooohh!" then proceeded to run and roll all over it.

See him checking it out? And notice my still unfinished coffee table. I'll get to it one of these days but for now I'm just enjoying my new rug!

Hope everyone is enjoying the New Year!

1930's Home- A Love/ Hate Relationship

The fam and I live in a cute litte 1930's cottage in a historic neighborhood in San Antonio. 

We had family in town the past 2 weekends, so our guest bathroom got a lot of use. We don't usually use that bathroom because the shower tends to leak (even though we've had plumbers work on it a few times).


Well with the extra wear and tear of the past weekend it's leaking again!!! Ugh! We hear it dripping all night long.

This got me thinking about some of the things I love; and some of the things I hate about living in a vintage home.


First lets start with the LOVE:


I love the location. We are central to everything and can walk to a neighborhood coffee shop, an awesome sushi restaurant, the yoga studio, and can ride my bike to Whole Foods and lots of shopping. There are lots of shady trees and some of our neighbors have fruits trees- we picked pomegranates, lemons, and pecans this weekend alone!


And just look at it! It looks like a little cottage. Aw!

I know I was complaining about the bathroom earlier but look at the cool tub! It's like the first version of a jacuzzi tub. And look at the cute penny round tile.

And check out our Kitchen Remodel. It's now a love.

I love the architectural features:

Glass Door Knobs:

The fireplace and the shelving beside it.

I like the arch leading to the dining room and the large scale par quay wood floor throughout.

Our Sunny Sun Room. The stair lead up to a loft that we use for an office.

We also like to hang out on the deck when the weather is nice. Here's the Hubs and Gracie showing it off.

Ok, and now for the HATE:

It's pretty drafty. We blew insulation in the first summer we moved in but air still creeps in. I've been secretly thankful for the mild weather we've had here this winter.

The plumbing issues I mentioned earlier. Our "master" bath has issues too. It was an addition apparently from the 70's judging from the decor. I can't even bring myself to show you a picture.


Ok just a peek but please don't laugh.

Oh ya, it's as bad as your imagining.

We don't have a garage. :( It was converted to an apartment before we moved in. But we're able to rent it out and make some extra cash. So I guess that's a love too.

(Disclaimer: this picture was taken during the severe drought we had last summer, we do have green grass now!)

And not to mention the closets, or lack thereof. My clothes are in our room and the Hubs clothes are in ConMan's room. We deal with it though.

And lastly everytime the weather changes our doors stick. Our front door is the worst, we always have to jiggle the lock or reposition it.

So is the give worth the take? I think so.