Our House

Jeff picked out our house. He did a decent job. I had made 2 house-hunting trips to Seattle and we really scoured the area. Lots of great houses for way too much money and lots of really dumb houses in our price range. We bought this house after he had already started his job. The house he chose was WAY out of our price range but in the right neighborhood, in the right school and in a great ward. We felt good about it so we knew Heavenly Father would somehow take care of us.
The thing we learned about new Seattle houses was that the color they painted the rooms was an ugly mustard color to supposedly brighten things up with the gloomy weather. To me, the color wasn't cheery, but ugly. It would be the first to go along with the hospital white walls above it.
Ok then, so Christmas was a week away and I was feeling overwhelmed with the house. We had been in it now for over a month and I wasn't in the mood to decorate since I pretty much hated everything about the house at this point. I needed to feel "at home" pretty darn quick especially with Christmas coming. So, I looked in the phone book and started calling...I just went down the list asking people to paint that week...the week before Christmas. Everybody said no except for this guy who said, "I can come over now and give you an estimate." I was excited but also worried that he was so available he could be there right now. A nice Korean man came over and looked around, gave me a decent estimate and said he would be back tomorrow to start painting. He also said, "Sister Slichta, I am Brother Young." That stopped me and confused me for a second. I said, "What? Really?!" He knew we were members of the church because of our picture of Jesus on the piano. Woah! Come to find out Brother Young just got done painting for the Seattle Temple renovations. He must be good. He was and for the next several days before Christmas we all bonded...he and his friend who spoke no English from the Philippines. I had gone to my neighbors, a lady in our ward to get my hair done. As I sat in her kitchen and looked around her house for 2 hours I fell in love with color of her walls...."Moose point." I had to have it. I actually went and bought 6 gallons of it the next day and finally we had in on our walls. Oh, the house felt so warm and yummy to me. There were many who felt the color was too dark especially for living here, but I loved it! Now, the challenge came to decorating. I was overwhelmed. Never before had I had such a huge home with huge ceilings. Our stuff just looked midget in the rooms and I was frustrated. So, who to call when you need a home decorator but the queen herself...Lorey Beck, Jeff's sister. She is supreme with ideas and designs. She and Kelley came out to assist and Grammy came with them to be the other assistant and the babysitter. They came Thursday afternoon, gathered thoughts and ideas for the day and Friday and Saturday was spent shopping, shopping, painting and putting together.

This is us smooshed into the car after 1 day of shopping. Can you see we had lots of good luck? We had lots of fun too but hardly had any room for our bodies in that car.

Ok, now I didn't want to be a complainer, but the color of the kitchen and family room had gradually worn on me over the 2 1/2 months while we had been there. It was a green, the same green color as our couch. It had a grey tone to it which bothered me more and more. Fortunately, Kelley, Lorey and Grammy agreed with me 100%. So, what did we do? We painted. What started out as a "let's paint 1 wall so we can see how it's going to look," turned into a whole job completed except for 1/2 of a wall. Peanut Butter was the color and boy was it yummy and cheery.

BEFORE

AFTER

The top of our kitchen cupboards

Another thing with new homes in the Seattle area is that they put white carpet in the homes to "brighten them up." Well, we think it should be called "pain-in-the-rear-carpet." Talk about a pain to keep clean and vacuumed. So, we ordered new carpet and had that put in only in the family room. I think we bring the vacuum out only every other day now instead of 3 times a day. The first couple of weeks I had a handy-man guy come out. He put a counter and cubbies in the laundry room, shelving in a big closet in the office, made cubbies in the kids closet with hooks and things and put extra shelves in the master closet. We also had a company come out and install a built-in desk in the office.

Custom designed. It's a beauty.

Now we have places to put stuff and we have 90% of our boxes empty. We just need to organize ourselves. I forgot that we painted the office which used to be a super bright forest green and the upstairs bathroom which was a super bright, obnoxious blue. So...we are doing good. We are liking our house more and more and still have a ways to go with it. I need to figure out a way to get the maid to clean the toilets more often and the laundry lady to put the clothes away after folding them. The butler needs to have a healthy warm mealed prepared closer to 5:30. The Nanny would do well to get the children to pick up all of their toys and shoes and backpacks and paper creations and to make a little less noise on the wood floors. The housekeeper needs to get the finger prints off of the windows and to prepare Jeff's slippers upon arrival home from a stressful day at work. The tutor would be wise to have all the kid's homework done before dinner receiving only A grades. Other than that we are doing a pretty great job! After 5 months of being in our home we've come along way and we're liking it more and more.