When Ray and I got married I owned very little home-y things. I didn’t have a Hope Chest or inherited china or a couch. I know the concept of Hope Chests is a little amish-y, but they’re actually a great idea. I have friends who had Hope Chests filled with towels, George Foreman grills, waffle irons, and even, like, Christmas decorations. When we got married I had bedroom furniture, 4 bowls, 4 mugs, a mini cookie sheet, a boxy tv, a VHS/DVD player combo situation, and maybe a muffin tin. Ray lived on his own for 7 years before we bought Big Brown and had a hodge podge of weird hand-me-down / yard sale furniture and home goods. Black oxagonal plates, semi-broken bed, gigantic ship paintings, a coat of arms, empty fish tanks, an amp used as a coffee table… you get the idea.(this is what our dining room table has looked like for the past few weeks)
When we moved into Big Brown we didn’t have money to purchase all new furniture, so we just kind of worked with what we had, albeit a little tacky and dated. We were given a few pieces of furniture that weren’t exactly our taste or style (ahem, king size waterbed) but tried to utilize them as best we could.
We’re slowly (very slowly) purchasing new furniture and home-y items and getting rid of the old ones. I wouldn’t say our style is majorly changing, but it is evolving. We now have a better idea of how our home works and how we want to utilize our space. (Functional Record Shelving)
(pops! on display in Ray’s studio)
We’re converting one of our upstairs bedrooms into an organized storage space. We have a rather large home, but almost zero storage space and awkwardly small closets. We also don’t have a garage or utilities room. We only have a crumbling car port type area that we refer to as Little Brown. It’s open to the elements and certainly not the space I want to store decorations or, like, blankets that aren’t being used. Since we already have a guest room, making the second upstairs bedroom into a storage space is the best decision for us. Organization isn’t either of our strong suits, but we’re trying to work. I lean towards wanting to throw everything away and Ray leans towards saving everything… So, as you can imagine, figuring out our storage room has been a struggle.
We’ll definitely keep you updated on all the changes!
Tag Archives: house
4 years at Big Brown
Guys, it’s been exactly 4 years since we bought Big Brown. 4 YEARS! Being a home owner, especially to a 100ish year old house, is a weird thing. We love it. And sometimes we hate it. But mostly we love it.
I’ve told the story of our first visit to Big Brown a million times and at least twice on this blog, but I’m going to tell it again. It was September of 2010. Ray and I were not married, engaged, or even dating. We were “just friends” who sent hundreds of texts messages to each other during the work day and spent every single afternoon and evening together eating dinner, watching movies, and hanging out. Ray’s apartment had reached the max level of disgusting and it was time for him to find a new place. One afternoon Ray asked me to go with him to look at a house. Here’s where it gets weird – Moments before I get to his apartment a drunk driver (going extremely slow) hits our church van which was parked behind Ray’s apartment and an adjacent fence and then pulls over into some bushes. We chat with the police, the driver continues to yell “that’s drunk” over and over, and in about 20 minutes everything is back to normal. Strange, right? After the commotion we headed to Big Brown. It looked like a ginger bread house and we instantly fell in love (with the house). A few months later we also realized we were in love with each other.
Here are some blurry iphone pics taken during that initial meeting with the realator:
Big Brown is forever a work in progress. Over the last 4 years we’ve painted, repainted, scraped wallpaper, cried over leaky roofs, added furniture, taken away furniture, added cats, taken away cats, and the list goes on. We have soooo many ideas and dreams for Big Brown and we can’t wait to see them come to fruition.
Around Big Brown
Around Big Brown
Lately, Big Brown has been filled with the scent of Marshmallow Fireside and the sounds of a nerdy podcast. We’ve been staying in and making meals at home. Some of those meals being rather, um, experimental. We’ve been watching weirdo netflix docs. Life has been pretty nice around here.We miserably failed our first attempt at making break. 1. It turned out incredibly ugly. 2. It tasted really salty. 3. 1/4 of the loaf stuck to the pan. Boo.
We started organizing our china cabinet. Notice we don’t have any china.
I finally took down all our Christmas decorations. For our small silver tree I made ornaments out of a few of Ray’s heroclix.
And finally, after going through our pot holder collection I realized I’m 28 going on 70. I’m not even mad about it.
What’s been going on around your house?
Happy Anniversary Big Brown!
Today is the 2 year anniversary of us becoming home owners! The first time we walked through Big Brown (before we were married or even dating) we were both in awe. It was September of 2010, and at the time the plan was for Ray to purchase it and have lots of roommates, communal living style. I was part of that plan, but as a housemate not as a wife. Haha! Despite poor insulation, small closets, and only 5 kitchen cabinets, our house is pretty incredible. We feel so blessed to have been able to purchase Big Brown!