Show Us Where You Live Friday

Kelly, over at Kelly's Korner started a bloggy tour of homes yesterday. I'm one of those people who loves to tour model homes just to get fun ideas, so I thought this might be kind of a virtual "parade of homes". I've spent much too much time browsing all of the fun kitchens and decorating ideas on every one's blogs today, so I thought I'd join in the fun.

And... it gave me an excuse to clean pick up my house, well at least my kitchen!

And after all, it might be fun to look back in 15 years and see what all the rooms in my house looked like at the time. Hopefully I won't loathe my own decor as much as my mother laments her choice of bright orange, green, and yellow from the 1970's!
We seriously had a bright yellow fridge... yuck!

Kelly declared today "The Kitchen Edition", so....

Welcome to my Kitchen!

A view from our living room.

I love my "two-tone" cabinets in the kitchen. It was probably one of the main reasons we chose this home.

A view from my "hearth" room as we call them in Kansas. My my, all I can see is the cluttered refrigerator! I need to clean that off! I do enjoy pictures of friends and family on my refrigerator, but that just looks cluttered!

Standing in my kitchen, this is the "hearth room" I referred to above. When we lived in Minneapolis and Texas, the homes didn't have "hearth rooms". I like it a lot... it's where we spend most of our time. I just wish it were a tad bit bigger!

My oven hood is my most favorite part of my kitchen. When we looked at this home, it was a model and therefore, it had some "model decor" in it. I thought that clock was the best part of the kitchen and so we "negotiated" it into the purchase price. I thought it was some kind of heavy, duty, really expensive clock... something worth "negotiating". Little did I know you can pick one up at Bed, Bath & Beyond for less than $30!

Both ends of my island have this decorative element. The other side houses the many, many cookbooks I rarely never use! I took a picture of this because one of my favorite decorating trends is those neat glass domes. I love how they create a "splash of color" by what you put inside of them. And I especially like the glass domes sitting on a pedestal. Of course, these combinations are courtesy of a little company called Southern Living at Home, of which I have been addicted to for the better part of the past 7 years!

Here is another pedestal and dome combination! Oh, and I adore fun and pretty napkins. I love having them out all the time and even if I make something from the freezer for lunch, I can pair it with a pretty plate and a pretty napkin and it somehow feels less "freezer-like" and more gourmet!

I've had this cabinet since I was in college! I painted it black and all of a sudden, I love it! It displays some old antique china that belonged to my great aunt. Oh, and tassels... I love tassels! I can find a million little places to hang a tassel!

This is a little corner in my kitchen and I took a picture of it because I love the little lamp. I have the installed lighting beneath my cabinets, but I really love the softness of a little lamp. The other reason I took a picture of this little corner is that it houses the speaker thing that plays my Ipod. I got it for Christmas and I LOVE it! I can listen to music from my Ipod all day!

This is our informal dining area, of which we rarely eat.

I really hate to cook, so we do lots of grazing and eating at the island!

See that little ribbon dangling from my pantry doors? Well, that was my attempt to keep my little Emmie Kate OUT of the pantry! I'm going to have to find something a little more professional, because this isn't doing the trick as evidenced by the following pictures!

Please excuse that "yellow blob" in the above photo! It is that sticky putty and why it is on that little step stool, I have NO idea... GROSS! I'm going to remove it right this instant!

And I did wisen up and move the suckers (left over from Noah's birthday pinata) up a shelf, but now she just climbs higher. And the trash can has become a 2nd favorite play spot to the step stool! It's time to go professional with my lock because I can't stand the trash being drug out all over the house.

I'm drawing the line at that!