I have to admit, when we were shopping for houses this past spring, one of the things on my mental checklist was where a Christmas tree would go. If there’s not a good central location for a Christmas tree in a house, then it’s a no go! haha! So when we bought our cute little craftsman home this past May, I couldn’t wait to turn it into a cozy Christmas oasis!

Ever since buying and moving into this house back in May, we really hit the ground running when it came to projects. I knew that there were certain things I wanted done ASAP when we were first getting settled in or else we would never do them. We started with painting the entire house (goodbye yellow and red walls!), then buying furniture and decorating, then making a dining room table, then redoing landscaping in the front and back yard and now finally redoing the back deck!

One of the things I hated about living in a tiny one bedroom apartment for 4 years was that we could never host many people, particularly for dinner. I’ve always dreamed of being able to have friends over for dinner and sit around a big dining room table together. So when we started looking for houses to buy, one of my top priorities was finding a house with a dining room that could accommodate a decent sized table. So once we found that, the next step was getting that table. I love the look of beautiful solid wood tables from Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware, but I certainly wasn’t willing to spend thousands of dollars on a table. So we decided to build our own! Super simple, right? Wrong.

I keep telling myself that once the house, or even just one room, is ‘done’ then I would share it on the blog. But really, when are you ever done settling into a home? We moved into our first home together almost 4 months ago and I still hadn’t shared any of the house on the blog! So I am now finally sharing the one room in the house that is closest to done- the living room!

Oh, friends. I can’t even begin to tell you how long I’ve been wanting to write this post. For the last few years, I have been wanting SO SO badly to own a home with my hubby. A place to make our own, a yard for our pups and front porch to drink coffee on and more! So after years of waiting, I’m so excited to finally announce that we have bought a home!!!