At long last...The House.

I've put this off long enough.  People have been wondering and asking about our house but I've kept thinking that I would take pictures once it was DONE.  After having lived here for two months now, it's becoming clear that it'll only really feel done once we have gone through every room and made it ours.  But that could take a while (hello, BUDGET!) so I finally just bit the bullet and took pictures this morning.  I didn't clean, I didn't set anything up.  This is how it looks in the middle of a day of playing!  Enjoy!

This is the front of the house (in summer, can't WAIT!).  The door on the right is the one we use.  The other door goes into the living room.

This is the first thing you see when you walk in the door. That's the door you see on the left...attached garage is to the left of that yet.  This window faces west.

On the right, where the jackets are hanging, is the rest of the entrance.  The door you see is into the garage.  Two steps up brings you into the house.  On the right is the desk you just saw.  On the left is the family room.

This is the family room.  Gas fireplace in the corner is the heat for this room.  That window is opposite the window above the desk and faces east (beautiful sunrises out there!!).

More of the family room.  The door you see at the back leads onto our deck.

Walk straight into the kitchen and this is what you see on your right.  The door at the back is the master bedroom (which I'll not share a picture of today...I'll wait until that one is done!)  The kids bedroom is just around the corner by the fridge, straight ahead.  The bathroom door is just to the left of that last cabinet on the left.

Walk to the fridge and turn around and this is the rest of the kitchen.  Bedroom doors are right behind me.  Family room is to the left.  The opening you see on the right is the dining room/living room.  The bathroom doorway is just to the right of that doorway.  This window faces south.

Living room is on the north west corner of the house.  The window faces west.  There is SUCH good light in this room during the day!

This is the dining room.  Excuse the mess on the table.  We were busy doing crafts this morning (Levi's favourite activity these days!).  Plus, he and Kayden were having lunch while I was taking pictures.  Also excuse the placement of pictures!  After we moved in, I just took random pictures and put them on pre-existing nails just to keep them safe and we haven't moved them yet.  The photo wall in the living room is the only place where we actually have put in our own nails!  This window faces south and the entrance to this room is just out of sight on the left hand edge of the picture (the exersaucer is right in front of the doorway).

The bathroom is huge.  I believe the previous owners took out the third bedroom and made both the master bedroom and bathroom bigger.  While the third bedroom would have been nice for us, I do enjoy having so much space in the bathroom!  And, we do have some plans up our sleeve for creating two more bedrooms in the hopefully near future...stay tuned!

This is the kids bedroom (remember, right off the kitchen by the fridge?).  We painted both this room and our bedroom before we moved in.  While we were at it, we painted the oak trim and doors white and replaced the hardware/plugs/lightswitches.  As we work our way through each room, we plan to paint trim and replace hardware/plugs/switches.  We're also on the lookout for good deals on light fixtures but no hurry.  The kids enjoy the fans :)  The spots on the wall are removable so it'll be easy to switch up the look in this room whenever the design bug hits.  The pictures are Dick and Jane photos of the siblings playing.  I thought it would be fitting for a shared bedroom.

And that's our house!  The basement has our guest bed, laundry and storage but is mostly unfinished/wood paneling and has no heat/windows so there's not much to show.  We might do minimal work to the basement but it'll likely just be painted and decorated a bit so that company doesn't feel like they're staying in quite a...BASEMENT.  I believe Nathan's brother has officially refused to ever sleep down there, though both of our parents and my sister have spent a few nights down there with no complaints.  Maybe they're just being nice...though apparently you can't hear the kids from down there so I'm thinking about booking myself a night down there for a little "getaway" one of these days.  Oh, the possibilities!

This house is situated on a 10 acre yardsite with ALOT of grass, some pasture, some old corrals, a shop (where we park our vehicles), and some trees.  It's beautiful out here and we LOVE being here.  We can't see any neighbours by day and at night we only see lights in the distance.  We're 12-15 minutes from town and on a quiet road so we don't even see vehicles going by every day.  I can't even describe how much like home it feels already.  I've loved our homes in the past but this place...it just has that staying quality.  I feel like I'm finally HOME.

Town House Tour!

When we first moved to this house, I posted pictures and promised that I would continue to post pictures once I completed each room so you could see how we were making it ours.  Well...I'm pretty sure I haven't posted any house pictures since then, probably because I haven't felt like any room has been ready to be labelled "done!"  But we have made some changes in the two years we've lived here so I figured I'd share pictures of the house as it was when we listed it!

Dining Area - beautiful south facing windows in dining room and living room, possibly my favourite part of our house!  They let in the most beautiful light!

Kitchen - new white cabinets - love it!

More of the kitchen

Living room - this is only half of it!  But there's not much on the other half.  It's just a long, rectangular room...so hard to put furniture in but nice to have extra space for toys!

Main floor bathroom - teeny tiny...but it works :)

Main floor laundry...I will miss this! :)  We also painted these cabinets when we were doing the kitchen.

Master bedroom - we did the least to this room, I think.  We finally printed some pictures this summer to hang, but realized as soon as we hung them that it still needed something to make it look "finished."

Master bedroom

Kids' Room

I decided to do Dick and Jane pictures on their walls.  Kayden's walls have pictures of little sister Sally.

Levi's walls have pictures of big brother Dick.

Love the rocking horse my dad built for Levi's second birthday!

Screened deck off main floor

Back yard

Perennial Garden I dug and planted this summer

Basement guest bedroom - we did the least with this room, though after 8 years of having guests, we've FINALLY gotten an actual box spring for our mattress!  Next up?  Maybe a bed frame??

Basement Pantry/Storage room OR potential bedroom

Basement

Other side of basement

Basement hallway (bedrooms at end, stairs to right of this picture, bathroom through door to left)

Basement Bathroom

And that's our house!  Lovely isn't it?  We're sad to leave it but SO excited about the next place we're going that it's a small price to pay for 10 beautiful acres of Saskatchewan back country! :D  I'll be sure to introduce you to the next house just as soon as it's officially ours...

What's new?

There have been interesting things happening for the McCorkindale family lately and I figured I should probably share before the rumours get out of control.  ; )

Nathan and I have always dreamed of living on an acreage one day.  We weren't sure if it would ever be possible because being a pastor often means that you don't stay in one place long-term, not to mention the simple fact that living in the town where the church is often just makes sense.  People can drop in, you can easily make it to church-related events, etc.  It's easier to be a pastor when you live right there.  So, after having been pastors/students for our entire married life thus far, we had pretty much put the thought of an acreage out of our minds.  Retirement, maybe, but not now.

Jump to this summer. We've lived here for two years now and haven't really felt like living IN town was a huge advantage in the pastoring game (the church is about 15 minutes from town).  That said, we weren't looking for a new place when we happened to hear about an acreage that was for sale. We went to look at it but mostly just put it out of our minds because it was a big chunk of change and the house didn't seem workable for our family.  But a month later we started thinking about it again and couldn't get it out of our minds.  We went to see the house again and, with fresh eyes, it seemed very workable indeed!  We fell in love with the yard and location all over again (between town and the country-church where Nathan pastors - perfect!) and really started looking into how we could make it work.

We had the dreaded meeting with the bank and they gave us the go-ahead to pursue this property.  All we needed was to sell our house.  The market in town seemed to be at a stand-still with around 80 properties for sale in a 10km radius of town and few of them moving.  But everything so far had been falling into place so we decided to list our house and see what happened.  We met with an agent a week ago today, Friday.  Our house was listed the next day, Saturday, with one showing that day and another one the next.  Low and behold, Monday afternoon came and we had an offer.  Now, if all goes well, conditions will be removed in a few days and we will be moving to the country at the end of the month!

So that's what's happening.  If you've noticed that our house is on the realty site, no, we're not leaving town...well, we ARE...but not really. : ) No, we're not building.  We're just living the dream!

This just seems to be such a God-thing.  We had a dream; God knew that dream.  He brought the perfect property at the perfect time.  Our house sold in record time for more than we'd been hoping for.  And now we'll be spending Christmas in our new home.  What a blessing!*

Today I took Levi and we picked out kittens that will become farm cats once we move.  But they were available now and my inner child came forth and claimed two of the cutest little 8 week old kittens for my very own.  I had been hoping that Levi would just be naturally gentle and nurturing with them.  He loves animals so much so I'd love to see him be good with animals...a born animal-whisperer if you will...but alas, it has been a day of explaining time and again how kittens don't like to be fenced in, how they don't like to be picked up by the tummy all the time, how they don't want to be forced to eat or forced to sleep or forced to do anything.  He'll learn.  Maybe.  Hopefully before we move out to the farm cause otherwise it'll be a long month!

*Yes, I realize that there are some questions that come up when God makes some people's dreams come true while others are praying for more "serious" things with (seemingly) no answers.  I've got nothing except that I can't NOT thank God for this blessing when it seems so much like He's making it all come together. 

It's beginning to look alot like baby...

I mentioned in my last post that we put up the crib the other day.  I thought I'd share some pictures from that because hey...what's more adorable than a boy helping his daddy?

It's especially adorable when it's YOUR boy and the daddy is YOUR husband :)

Also, don't forget to leave your baby guesses here on the blog (boy/girl, size, date)!  I've made a handy-dandy poll so it's easy to vote, but if you're SURE that you'll be right, leave your guess in the comments (I've made it so that anyone can vote, even without signing in) so you get due credit for your prediction :D

clean and tidy

Tonight as Levi has been falling asleep, I've been tidying the house.  Not cleaning, per se, but just putting things back into their place.  I've been working my way from one end of the house to the other, top floor and basement, just straightening and organizing and setting things right again.  And here's what I've realized:

I've become way too accustomed to seeing things out of their place.  

For example, I tidied the basement rec/family room and thought, "There.  That's pretty good." And then I stepped back to look at it again and saw that there were still two or three remotes laying around, one right there in the middle of the floor.  There were still a couple of alphabet blocks scattered along the walls.  And I hadn't even touched my desk!  Wow.  I came upstairs and there was still a pair of Levi's socks in the hall that I'd meant to take to the "too small" box downstairs.  Levi's belt was still sitting beside the dryer where it fell as I did laundry today.  I just have gotten too used to seeing random things around the house in random places.  Now, that is partly due to having a son who loves to carry things around the house and drop them wherever he sees something more interesting to pick up.  It brings me great joy to find some of these treasures (broom in bedroom, hairspray in living room, cup at the end of the hall by the deck door).  But I bet that's not the whole reason.  I think I've just become a bit lax when it comes to keeping the house tidy. Instead of putting things away when I'm finished with them - like my mom tried to teach me over and over again growing up - I've gotten into the habit (anyone else tend to spell "habit" like "hobbit" with two "b"'s?) of just moving on to the next thing and leaving my project sitting on the floor for days or putting something in a pile to be dealt with later.  I still have Christmas cards/letter sitting on the microwave from December for crying out loud!  It's been two months!  And yet, I am just so used to seeing them there and have no idea what to do with them, so there they sit.

Today I was watching Levi play, like I often do.  He was playing with his Little People Barn that he got for Christmas.  It is interesting because, when he plays, he is very intentional about all his animals standing on their feet.  If he puts the goat in the barn and it falls over in the process, he'll carefully reach in and set it back on its feet.  Seeing this got me thinking about whether this will be a life-long characteristic of his...will he always be particular and want things to be proper and in their place?  I have had phases in my life where I have been like that.  Everything had to be in its place, facing the right direction, and no clutter piles whatsoever.  (My dorm rooms at Bible college, both first and second year, were amazingly clean and tidy ALL.THE.TIME.)   And you know, life is alot less stressful like that!  I enjoy having a place for everything and putting things back where they belong as soon as I'm finished with them (or at least at the end of the day).  But it's easy to get lazy when there is a house full of people (and animal) who don't necessarily have the same vision as you.

Well, all this is to say that yes, my house can get untidy.  It is usually clean (enough), but the clutter builds up.  I'm human.  I admit it.  BUT, my goal after this evening, is to designate a place for everything and then, instead of just getting lazy and making piles everywhere of things to be put away, I think I might actually try putting stuff away right away!  Could you imagine?  Putting something away as soon as you're finished with it instead of just setting it aside to be cleaned up later?  Oh, what freedom the evenings would bring!  haha.  Well, it's been nice to dream.  Back to tidying the house...!

Levi's Room!

I got the fabric for Levi's room last week and put the finishing touches in today!  It still feels a tad bit bare, though.  I guess a few more toys will gradually make their way in there as he starts to enjoy playing on his own a bit more. : )

This is what it looked like before:

 Because I forgot to take pictures truly before I started, here are some picture of what the skeleton rocking chair looked like...and just for fun, I included a picture of what it looked like before I recovered it the first time, back in January of 2009!

And this is his room after!

I ordered 7 yards of fabric and with that I made:
-  2 book slings (I've only put one up)
-  duvet
-  recovered the rocking chair and foot stool
-  valance for window
-  covered 3 canvases for the wall
-  one white crib sheet

There has been overwhelming interest in the book sling that I made.  Unfortunately it was not my own awesome idea.  I followed the tutorial HERE.

Kitchen Re-Organization...part 2!

Well, the past two days have been spent primarily in my kitchen, emptying cabinets, reorganizing the contents, and putting everything back.  Though if I'm going to be completely honest, Monday was spent doing what I just said, Tuesday was spent wondering why I tore my kitchen apart and sitting there staring at it, lacking motivation to finish the job, and today I kicked my butt and quickly whipped things together and took pictures so I could show you some of what I've come up with!

It hasn't been the amazing transformation that I dreamed it would be, but, on a very limited budget and when working with less than ideal cabinets, I'd say that is certainly better than it was!  Some cabinets really didn't change much at all, so I'll just share with you some of the highlights : )  Enjoy!

Baking utensil drawer.  I found these great clear plastic containers at the local Bargain Shop!  They were only $2 so I bought them out.  Literally.  I'm on their "call list" for when they get more!  These originally had lids attached but the ones with separate lids were $5 and I didn't want to pay that much so I just cut the lids off!  I didn't want the lids anyway!

Spice/knife drawer.  So, this drawer isn't completely finished yet.  When I get more of those containers, the spices will go into one of those and then I'll be able to see what they are more easily.

My lazy Susan has become my baking supply cupboard.  So far Levi hasn't figured out how to get into this one, so these things are safe for a while longer...  Also, as many things as possible went into canisters.  Little items (like food colouring, etc) are grouped in bowls or containers so they're not floating around aimlessly.

This is my weird corner cupboard.  I find it far more useful now though : )  The top shelf is placemats (rarely used).  I've made use of the depth of the cupboard with those long, flat margarine containers.  They act like drawers so that I can just pull out the container to find what I want instead of digging to the back of the cabinet.  Eventually I'd like to have two more of the Bargain Shop containers, one for the middle of each shelf, and then two additional margarine containers for the other side. 

Baking central.  I moved my beaters to be with the rest of the baking stuff (they used to be top shelf in the cupboard with all the plates and bowls).  Also, I bought grippy shelf/drawer lining so that I can stand everything up.  The lining is also helpful in my one drawer that has a hole right through the bottom.  Did I mention I would love some new cabinets?!  Eventually my dream may come true...

Casserole dishes/slow cooker.  The slow cooker used to be in my "random cabinet" which had my blender, slow cooker, mixing bowls, strainer, and pitcher.  I think this placement makes a little more sense.  I also added two nails into the cabinet door to hang my oven mitts and hot pads.

The fridge hasn't been touched yet, but my freezer is getting better.  I abhor plastic bags in the freezer.  They are nuts.  When trying to find something in the freezer, I've often just gotten so frustrated that I'll just shove everything in with disgust and slam the door, only to be greeted by my overzealous ziploc bags of bread, chicken breasts, and peas the next time I open the door.  Unfortunately, bags are just the easiest way to store things in the freezer...they take up the least amount of space.  Well, remember those Bargain Shop containers that I mentioned?  Three more in here!  I've labeled them "meat," "bread," and "veggies" so that I can easily pull out the container that I need and find what I'm looking for without half the freezer landing at my feet.  Brilliant.  The freezer still has a ways to go, but I do think I'm well on my way to actually enjoying a good ol' freezer dive every now and again.

Pantry.  Top shelf - least used appliances.  Second shelf - cereals and snack foods (also corralled by boxes/containers to sort types of snacks).  Third shelf - pastas, soups, baby food, etc.  Fourth shelf - bulk spices, graters (this is a no-play zone for Levi so I don't need to worry about the graters being within reach...I just make sure the door is closed at all times), baking stone (because it's the only cupboard where it fits), Levi's bibs and wash cloths (again, in a container of their own).  Floor - bags of flour, sugar and oatmeal to re-stock the canisters, and a larger appliance.

These little containers were also $2 at Bargain Shop.  (The woman working there knew me well after 3 separate visits to buy containers in the span of just a few hours!)  It helps so much when everything has it's own place : )  I think I could be a great salesperson at The Container Store...

Cleaned this up a bit...

And voila!  That's my kitchen, on its way to being organized.  I spent a total of $25 on containers and drawer/cupboard lining.  I'd call it well worth the investment.  Now, which room should I tackle next?  Levi's bedroom, perhaps???