a whole new level

Operation Domestic Goddess will be going to a new level on July 1. All this time, I've been in rented apartments, and now we're BUYING A HOUSE!!!! Closing is currently scheduled for June 27 - we'll be in Connecticut for about a month before that, but we're waiting for the family currently living in the house to have their kids finish the school year. Anyway, I've never been able to do anything with the structure itself, not even paint the walls. Now I can do ANYTHING I WANT! (And can afford. But we won't talk about that right now.)

Rule 1 for our new house: We are not college students anymore with a college student budget. We can buy furniture much nicer than cheapo junk at Walmart, or even Ikea. And heck - we're not even planning to buy everything. Adam wants to build pretty much anything made of wood, or get used items that we can fix up. The only things we plan to buy (new. No used.) are upholstery/fabric things like couches, chairs, and mattresses. No more pressboard bookcases! He has informed me that if I want bookcases and a butcher-block dining room table and other fun things, he first needs his shop set up in the garage, which means he'll get to spend a bunch of money on saws. Yeah yeah. Just build some darn bookcases because I'm not unpacking the books until they're done!

Rule 2: I want color. I am SO bored with the plain neutral-colored walls that we've been stuck with in all of our apartments, not allowed to paint. If we do have any white, it's going to be WHITE. No off-white eggshell or whatever it's called. It just looks dingy. I've been going through kid design ideas on houzz.com (basically pinterest for house design - good times!) and what strikes me in all the pictures is the COLOR. Really saturated hues. They're gorgeous. The house we're getting is currently painted all the same safe neutral boredom I've been living with for forever. I am so ready to shake things up, it's not even funny.

Rule 3: I need to keep a lid on all the accessorizing that's possible out there, but here is where my chronic indecision will serve me well. There's SO much cool stuff out there, and I'm not a big spender, that I never get around to doing anything about anything. I also have developed a pretty minimalist attitude about STUFF in general. I don't want more junk to have to clean and keep organized. I have enough already. But mainly - lamps and light fixtures, clocks, and curtains on the windows. Those are a must.

I'm still thinking this through, so I'll be back with more thoughts another day. But this is where we're starting.