Meet Our New Kitchen and Dining Nook

 It seemed fitting to show you the kitchen and dining nook today since you already saw a sneak peek of both yesterday in the living room pictures!

I fell head-over-heels in love with the kitchen the minute we walked in the front door. It had everything we loved from both our most recent kitchens. It had the espresso cabinets we ended up with in Kokomo after Ryan refinished them from oak. And it had an island with a breakfast bar, just like our kitchen at WillowBridge. We just loved everything about the kitchen the moment we arrived. Because we spend equal time in the kitchen and living room, it means everything to us that we can be in both places and still be in the same place. 

Here are the pictures I took the day we closed:

And now...it's home!

Those three stools actually go with the sofa table we bought when we moved into WillowBridge. It served as our desk at WillowBridge, but we used it in a different way in this house, as you'll see in a coming day. We did not need the stools for it in its new use, but they were a PERFECT fit for our breakfast bar! 

This island is one of our favoriate spaces in the whole house. It's perfect for everything. Cooking, eating, projects, you name it. And you can't tell from the pictures, but the sink is SO deep. Love it! I also love the pendant lights over the island. Someone else chose them, but they did a great job! 

Our coffee bar is back in its original glory! Ryan was inspired by shelving at the coffee shop in Grabill and put these up to hold our mugs! Everything else is the same as what we had in both Kokomo and Grabill. 

And here is our dining nook!

I will tell you the story behind our table. The official dining room table we've had for the last seven or so years (which was a hand-me-down in Ryan's family) just didn't fit in this space. At its smallest, it was too big to fit comfortably in here. So we returned it to his family and got a counter-height table instead. This is the table without the leaf, but there is a leaf that we can put in to make it a full square size. I love the bench seat! We've loved the chance to eat our meals at the table each day, and when our buddy was here last week, we all ate right here, and he loved it. When he was hungry, he'd go to his chair and pull on it, showing us he was ready to eat!

As with every room, we have so many dreams for this space. We hope to use it as a place of ministry, where friends and family can come to share meals, have some coffee, and leave well-fed and happy. I've already enjoyed cooking, not just for the two of us, but for others as well! 

Meet Our New Living Room

 Hope you enjoyed our first glimpse of our new home yesterday. Today I thought I'd welcome you into our living room! 

This little corner is right next to the foyer you saw yesterday, and I love how it turned out. It wasn't my original vision for this space, but it's what seemed to work best here. Ryan and I got this little bench for our guest room in Kokomo and used it again in our guest room in Grabill. I'd planned to do the same here, but then I thought it fit so perfectly right here. If someone needs to sit to put on or take off shoes when they enter, they can use the corner of this bench for that!

The clock was a gift I gave Ryan our first Christmas together, I believe. 

Here's a closer look at the decor on the bench:

One of our favorite things about our home is that our living room is open to the kitchen. You might remember that we took down part of a wall in Kokomo to achieve a similar look, but this one is completely open. I know that isn't everyone's favorite, but we love it.

I took these pictures from the kitchen. The first one was from the day we closed, and then you can see it now!

It's the coziest space, and we love being in it!

This little spot was my original vision for the place where the black bench is, but I moved it over here, because it felt like it was meant to be right here. 

We ended up taking one section out of our couch to make it fit more appropriately in this space. You'll see that section again in another room. In the background here, you can see the kitchen area, and I'll show you more of that tomorrow. 

Our rug that we got while we lived at WillowBridge was equally made for this space and warms it up so beautifully. Our big window overlooks what will someday be our backyard. We were able to reuse every single curtain from our WillowBridge apartment in this house, so I am excited about that!

A little peek at one of the shelves beside the TV:

This wall leads from the living room to the hall, and we made it our little photo collage space. We've always put these photos behind our couch, but we no longer have a wall behind the couch, so we shook up the location a bit!

This rocker belonged to Nita, and Ryan brought it home to live at our house late last year. We didn't originally plan to have it in our living room, but this is where it fits best, and I'm so glad. It was meant to be here. 

I ended up getting a coffee table runner with a gift card I had, and it ties the living room together so well. This is the tray my friend Amber made for my 40th birthday, and then the vase of flowers Ryan gave me for Easter. They fit perfectly right in that little spot!

Ryan and I have thoroughly enjoyed resting in this space over the last month. We've napped on the couch. We've watched movies. We've studied our Bibles. We've played with Lexi and Braeya. And last week we had our first opportunity to use this space in welcoming a guest. Our little godson spent an entire week here. He played for hours on this rug. We rocked him in that chair while praying over his life. It felt like our dreams for this house were already beginning to be realized. We had a space that was quiet and peaceful that we could offer to him. 

There are still a few things to update as we have time. Most of them are pictures I need to print and put in frames. I also have a request in to Amber to paint me a little ornament with Lexi's face on it to coordinate the one she painted of Braeya. (I told her we would wait until Lexi is a little more grown up and we know more what her face will look like with her hair grown out!) 

We are eager to see how God allows us to use this space. We have our dreams, of course. Small group gatherings, friends for dinner, kids and pets having fun, good conversations, and so much more. May His dreams be grander than ours! 

Meet Our New Foyer (and Our First Project!)

Alrightie! I think we are finally ready to do some house touring here on the blog! Are you ready??

Before I begin this little mini-series of posts introducing you to Shafferland 4.0, allow me to say this. I wanted to wait until we were settled enough that you could see our personalities in this place. There will never fully be an "after" to this home, because we always want to make changes and allow life to unfold in this space. So if you're looking for a completed home, you're about to be disappointed. But if you're looking for the beginning of a story, settle in!

When we first started looking at houses in preparation to move, the main thing we did not want was a fixer upper. If you've been reading here long, you know that Ryan and I are most certainly not afraid of a good house project. In fact, we've worked hard to make each of our homes our very own, and we have great memories of the projects we've done in each of those spaces.

But we knew we would be coming into this new house on the tired side from our last couple of years. We didn't have the stamina for big projects. So we were excited to find a move-in-ready home, brand new with no true need for projects. To be fair, all the paint throughout the house is a soft beige, but even so, we decided to leave everything as it was and just move in and make it our own with our belongings rather than paint colors and projects. 

Except...

...Ryan decided to do one tiny project. ;)

Back when we were at WillowBridge, Ryan had borrowed a table saw from his dad - for a couple of projects he needed to do there. His dad needed the saw back, so Ryan decided to use it one more time before returning it, so we could put some finishing touches on our little foyer. Not long before we left Kokomo, we had put up board and batten in our foyer there, and we both really loved how dramatically it finished that space. Ryan wanted to add it to our foyer here, too. It was a small project, really, requiring only the purchase of the wood. (The builders left a decent amount of trim paint behind, so we used that for this project, which saved us even the cost of buying paint.)

So! Here is a picture of the foyer on the day we closed on the house. (Note: the light fixture is incomplete in this photo. When the builders took it out of the box, the globe was broken, so they had to order a new one. It hadn't arrived by the day we closed.)

I love our foyer, mostly because it simply exists. Our Marion house opened right into the living room, so in rainy and snowy weather, that meant dragging wet coats and shoes into the heart of the living room. Our Kokomo house had a foyer, and I loved it that our guests could have a space to remove wet shoes and coats if needed! I was happy this house also has this space. It's not huge - in fact, it's not as big in real life as I think it looks in the picture above. But it is plenty spacious enough, and I love it. 

Here are some photos from our project days:

Ryan did the installation/mudding/sanding, and then we worked on the painting together. We had it finished up pretty quickly! 

And here is the after version! (Well. Mostly after.)

Let me tell you about this side! The white wall hanging on the left contains verses from Lamentations and was a gift from our real estate agent. 

The wreath was our gift from Gateway when we left there. Our coworker, Sarah, made it, including the actual wreath itself! The darker hanging underneath the wreath was a wedding gift from Ryan's cousin, and we've had that metal monogram since our Marion days!

The table belonged to my Grandma Freelan, and I just love it. It's a perfect fit there! 

Here's the not-quite-completed side! We always get watercolor paintings made of the homes we live in. We have completed paintings of the Marion and Kokomo homes just waiting to be hung here. My friend Amber is going to paint WillowBridge and this house for us, and once we have all four, they'll go up on this opposite side! 

I have more dreams for this space. Maybe a rug someday...maybe a plant by the window. But for now, I'm content with this cozy and hopefully welcoming spot for guests to enter our home. And our prayer is that all who enter here will know they are loved by us and by the Lord! 

(Haven't decided which picture I want to hang on that frame yet.) 

Come back tomorrow for another room tour!

Sunday Sentiments

 It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL here yesterday. We have not had a warm and sunny spring this year. It feels like most of March and all of April has been filled with some combination of cold, wet (be it rain or snow), gray days, and I'm know I'm ready for some version of warm and sunny to show up and stay a while! 

Yesterday was one of those days, and at least in the Shaffer household, I must say we needed it.

Though right now we are still in an in-between state, it really did feel like a good, old-fashioned Saturday, and I was surprised at how much my heart drank up the goodness of the day.

I knocked out a decent amount of scrapbooking.

Ryan was able to complete some touch-up projects around the house.

We ate our first meal on our porch - which, by the way, we have officially decided to name the lanai. (We watch too much HGTV.)

We didn't get ready until late in the day, and we only did so then because we had a small group gathering to attend. 

At the small group gathering, it was warm enough to eat outside and enjoy conversation around the fire once the sun went down.

A day of normalcy and good at-home rest spoke so much to our hearts and souls, and we loved it. We were both extremely grateful for what the day had to offer and the freedom we had to enjoy it.

Today is supposed to be pretty again, and I'm glad, since it's Ryan's birthday!

If you missed it, I did his official birthday post on Friday, but I want to once again wish him the happiest of days. I'm so glad we're here together to celebrate him and enjoy the day. 

This is our tenth opportunity to celebrate together, and I also paused in my relaxation-laden Saturday to look back at how we've celebrated over the years. I think I'll close today by throwing back to each of those occasions!

* The first year, his birthday fell on a work day for both of us, so we celebrated by going out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, and then after an unfortunate event at Starbucks, he had to pay for his free birthday drink! 

* The next year, he turned 35, so for 35 days leading up to his birthday, I gave him cards and notes I had collected from friends and family. It was so fun to watch him read those each day! Then ON his birthday, I gave him his "big gift," which was a spot on a whitewater rafting trip for that fall. From there, the birthday looked remarkably like the one from the year before: dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and coffee at Starbucks - but I believe it really was free that time! 

* We switched up the restaurant of choice the next year and tried Tucano's! His one request was a "festival of meats" for his birthday, and indeed he received it. I think this may have been the time I went into a food coma on the way home and didn't wake up again until the next morning! Even so, he said he loved his birthday experience!

* We must do things in pairs, because Tucano's was on the menu again the next year! This time we actually celebrated by eating out the day before his birthday and then enjoyed a low-key day at home (including a walk through the neighborhood) on his actual day. But I will show our "big" celebration at Tucano's - because that year it included his mom and Allen!

*Sometimes, though, we three-peat, and that very next year we ended up at Tucano's again, but this time with our friends Mike and Angie. Such a fun evening. We used to double-date with Mike and Angie a lot, but they ended up moving to the Pacific Northwest not long after this birthday date, and we miss them so much! (Also, she posts the most beautiful scenery from the area where they live. We HAVE to go visit sometime!)

* This next birthday nearly undid me. I had planned to take Ryan to Lucas Oil Stadium for a tour and at the last minute, they said they weren't doing tours that day! I was so devastated! He was a great sport about his ruined birthday, and we still spent the day in Indianapolis, enjoying lunch at Giordano's, walking around downtown (in the cold and rain) and having a coffee/ice cream date at a little local spot. 

* That brings us to Ryan's 40th, which was spent somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean! We went on a cruise for that birthday, and his actual birthday was an at-sea day. We did all his favorite on-ship things that day and even had a birthday-in-a-box delivered to our room! It may have been his favorite birthday since we've been married. (Certainly an improvement in weather over the year before!)

* From the Caribbean to stay-at-home orders the next year! I had a lot of fun trying to make this birthday special for him. I ordered Giordano's pizza and we had our own little makeshift restaurant in the sunroom at our Kokomo house. I think he had fun with it!

* Last year we celebrated his birthday with a trip to the RV museum in Elkhart, and that was a really fun day! (And it was a good thing it was an indoor activity, because: rain.)

So I'm excited to celebrate this favorite person of mine again today. I'm grateful for a chance to be together, to celebrate, and to hopefully do so with SUN AND WARMTH!

The Saturday Six

Now that we are in our new home, I wanted to come up with an idea for a guest book! In our Kokomo house, we used a Jenga game and had our guests sign a block when they came to see us. I wanted a different idea for this house...so I started researching! I know what we'll use here, but I found some other fun ideas along the way that I thought I'd share with you! Maybe you'll want to use them for your house - or for a wedding or party idea! 

One.

This link is for a wedding guest book, but I think it could work just as well for a house. Quilt squares! You could get some fabric that matches your home's color scheme and some fabric markers for guests to sign the squares. If you aren't a quilter, you could hire the official finishing work done once you get enough squares! I've developed a love for quilts in recent years (thanks, Little House!) so I think this is a really sweet idea. 

Two.

I'm typically too impatient to put together a puzzle, but I do love what puzzles represent: many pieces coming together to make a complete picture. Whether you purchase a regular puzzle and ask your guests to sign pieces or you purchase a blank wooden puzzle like this one, I think having guests sign puzzle pieces is a perfect way to remember the people who have come to visit your home! 

Three.

I love it when I visit coffee shops or other businesses and they have maps on the wall where you can add a pin to show where you live! You could do the same sort of thing at your house if you have a US map (or world map if you have international visitors!) for people to mark. I've also seen the idea of an atlas for people to sign, which would allow them to be much more specific about smaller towns!

Four.

I keep a handmade serving tray on the bed in our guest room, so our overnight guests can put drinks or snacks on the bed with them if they want. (The tray was gifted to me by a women's retreat group, and it had been made by one of the organizers' husbands!) I found this idea for people to sign a tray, and I loved that! Whether or not your guests spend the night, you can have them sign a tray you use to serve your guests! 

Five.

If you don't care if people write on the walls, you could have a graffiti wall guest book! I'm not sure I would love this one in our home, mostly because our walls are brand new and I want to keep them all pretty for now, but I do think after a while, it would be so neat to see all the signatures of people you've hosted! 

Six.

Interestingly enough, I'm actually not going with a picture theme for our guest book, but I do love this idea of using a Polaroid camera to capture pictures of the guests who come through your home! (If you have particularly personality-laden friends, this could be extra fun!