fall's coming and our house isn't quite ready.

even though the temperature's still in the 90s lately i can feel that fall is coming.  it's getting cooler at night, darker earlier, and well, it's september.  after moving into this house charlie and i knew that there were a few things we wanted to get done to the house before winter came.  we wanted to get the deck professionally sanded and painted this year, since it was a mess, we wanted to replace the concrete patio in the back (yes, we have a patio and a deck, which personally i think is a waste) since it was cracked and sloping towards the house, and we wanted to get the driveway mud jacked.  so far we haven't done anything although the deck is getting done tomorrow and we've been getting estimates for the concrete and mud jacking.  why didn't anyone tell me that owning a house isn't fun?  oh wait, they did but i didn't believe them.  one thing that i really, really want to do is finish our family room before fall really happens.  i know that we'll be spending a lot of time in here come cooler weather and the room still feels so empty since we have nothing on the walls.  i really want board and batten in that room, with a pretty thick shelf on top to prop pictures and other things but i haven't had the motivation to start measuring and figuring out how much wood we need, in what quantities, and what measurements.  math and being precise have never been my strength.  i'm more of a 'round to the nearest number that's easy to remember', which is why i've been trying to convince charlie to take over the board and batten with little success.  i was tempted to scratch the board and batten idea for a wall of picture shelves but this seems like it might be a small disaster with small children in the house.

this is our family room that has nothing on the walls.  the wall on the right and the one you can't see are the two walls that i was thinking of doing the board and batten, although i'm sure it would look better if i actually did the whole room.

i also want to finish our living room, which at this point just means getting some pictures on the walls and some curtains.  the curtains need to happen asap because our neighbor kids love to peer through the window on our front porch into the house while they ring the doorbell repeatedly.  i'm sure you can imagine how awesome this is when you have a baby who boycotts naps.  let's just say that i'm not the most friendly neighbor right now.  

this is our living room.  i've moved a few things around so that plant and and the air purifier aren't in the corner.  curtains are a must and once we get those the bench will make it's way into the basement.  eventually we'll get a rug in here but i'm fine without one for right now especially because it's easier to keep clean and avery loves to scoot around on the hardwood floors.  also, i love these floors.  i could stare at them all day long.  we read a lot of books in this room and that love seat is surprisingly comfortable.  gotta love ikea.