Okay, okay. I said I would write this post this morning. But then I spent all day reading about AI technology and drones for grad school because, ya know, priorities. So I swapped my mug of coffee for a glass of red wine. [P.S. did you know you can get a pretty solid Cabernet Sauvignon at Aldi for $4.49? Producer is Burlwood Cellars and you. are. welcome.]

So three years ago as Adam and I were house hunting for our first place together, there wasn’t a whole lot on the market in general where we were looking and definitely not anything that fit the aesthetic we preferred. If you’re from Oklahoma, you probably have the same skin-crawling shudder when I say “craftsman” or “French country” since it’s a plague in home design here. I’m not sure who went to the French country and confused it for the overly-spackled homes littering Oklahoma, but I digress. After searching and searching, we really came up empty. Until we discovered a builder that had some slabs poured in an appealing neighborhood and suddenly it just made so much more sense to design our own house. The floorplan was already established, but everything else we got to customize. As a young couple, we were told that building a home together would cause all kinds of fights, but we literally did not argue or disagree. Thankfully, Adam is just as bold and fun with design as I am and even on things that he couldn’t necessarily visualize (powder bathroom lol) he was so sweet about saying “go for it” and then loving what I came up with.

Needless to say – we love this house. We love every piece of it. But being outside of Oklahoma City and so far away from everything we do is really challenging. Our family, our friends, our church, shopping, movies, restaurants, etc. but most importantly Adam’s work. The poor man drives over half an hour to and from work every day, which doesn’t sound like a lot but as a partner in his firm and a CPA that goes through tax deadlines, he works really late, really often. We decided living in the city was the right thing for us so we bought an incredible Cape Cod style house that we’ll be renovating over time, turning it into a Tudor-style “cottage” oasis and I’m beyond excited. In a few weeks, we’ll pack up our house on Red Oak and head out for a new chapter on Maple Hollow and so the finality of our last days here has me incredibly reminiscent on building our beautiful first home.

Let me virtually walk you through our home in pictures, pausing here and there to recall special stories or pointing out specific design decisions we made. If there’s anything you’d like more info on or a link to shop (if I can still find a link to the item) please drop a comment and let me know, I’d love to help!

I’m not a huge fan of brown brick and to be honest, I’ve always regretted going with brown for our garage door, but looking back I’m glad we decided to use white rock to cut up all the brown and added pops of blue! Although don’t ask me which paint we used because I cannot remember for the life of me.

I really can’t say enough about this entrance. I’m charmed by it every time I walk by it. There are so many special pieces right as you walk in our house. To the right of the front door, hidden behind the staircase rail so you can’t really see it is a gold, old-fashioned cash register that used to be my grandmother’s. I had coveted it my whole life and when she passed, she left it to me. It’s proudly displayed in a prominent position in my home and next to it is a gold Hollywood Regency hotel lobby rotary phone. That piece of art above it is from Old Quebec – yes I’ll do a travel guide on it soon, we loved it so so much. We love to buy art when we travel. The other piece you see on the walls here, the champagne glasses clinking, is from our honeymoon in Maui. That little hippo plant stand next to the green bench is also a cool piece that holds a lot of memory. I had seen it in a shop and just went goo goo ga ga for it but didn’t leave with it as it was a little pricey. But Adam brought it home and surprised me with it. Not the first or the last time he’d done something like that, the little sneak.

Are you not completely heart-eyes over this study?? Obviously I’m biased but WOW. Still impressed with this room. Adam and I painted the walls ourselves. I also do not remember the name of the color we went with, but I hunted down my perfect shade of hunter green and am so pleased with how it turned out. The antiqued map on the wall has hand-painted lettering done by my sister. You can barely read it, but it’s a portion of The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus. You might recognize it as the poem etched onto the base of the Statue of Liberty. It says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The other map is where we stick pins on all of the places we travel to together.

Ah, the powder bathroom. My favorite room in the house. Also probably the most expensive LOL. If you’ve read my 20 Things post, you know what Africa means to me and you know about the work I’ve done there. This is my Africa bathroom with some beautiful trinkets I picked up in Malawi and South Africa. The wallpaper is Serengeti by Hygge & West and it’s beyond perfect. Also, this sink….I wanted a standing bowl sink with brass detailing and man if we did not TRACK THIS THING DOWN. Seriously. We had to have it shipped from New York City. Because we’re extra like that. The little fiddle fig and wicker elephant are both from Target!

Peep that gramophone and record collection. Also, I believe the one that’s visible enough to read is “Best of Blondie” aaaand now I’m gonna have to go put that record on.

That hutch in our dining room was a treasure picked up during First Friday in the West Bottoms in Kansas City, MO. Inside is my collection of Currier & Ives dishes my parents have been collecting for me since I was a little girl (anyone else have a hope chest??) and is definitive proof that I have loved blue and white since I exited the womb. I’ll probably do a whole blog post dedicated to my Currier & Ives and other sentimental dishware we own.

Kitchen, blessed kitchen! The original plans for this kitchen did not include that cutout in the island but I knew I needed shelving for my hoard of cookbooks, so it was a special request. Also you cannot see this very well, but our backsplash is marbled tiles with gold grout that we had to absolutely hunt down, came at a much higher cost and I had to fight our builder’s designer on it because she told me it would look horrible. Well, it doesn’t look horrible and the building company wound up using pictures of our kitchen as advertising for their company so….y’all go with your gut on design.

Relatively boring, but I couldn’t not include at least one picture of our laundry space.

I love how crisp and clean our bathroom is and I loved the tile detailing in the shower. That canvas hanging above our bathtub is actually wallpaper we bought and glued to a canvas from Hobby Lobby. When all was said and done, I can affirmatively say that little project was not worth the cost. Seriously we have like gobs of left over mermaid wallpaper.

I’ve always felt like our master bedroom didn’t ever really come together. The walls are shockingly bare and the mirror is just kind of awkwardly stuck on the ground, but other than that it is cozy, comfortable and the blush pinks make me incredibly happy. Our bedding is from West Elm and those little end stools are from Target! Late night impulse buys that worked out perfectly. And now let’s go upstairs…

^ The “what do we do with Adam’s bachelor pad bedroom suite” guest room

And that’s a wrap! I think given more time in this house we would have filled out more of the bedrooms, but thankfully moving is a good opportunity to parse through things you own, get rid of anything you don’t love or don’t need and gives you a fresh design slate. And yes, I’m just itching to get my hands on this new house and start curating and designing.

Like I said, if you have any questions about certain things we did or didn’t do or would like more information about anything you see, please just let me know!

XOXO, Thessali

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