Our New Place...

I know you've all been waiting on pins and needles for pictures of our base house! ;) Well, maybe you really have been if you hope to make Hickam AFB your next assignment and are considering living on base. Before you look at the pictures below, let me warn you that we still have SO much to do in the house, but I want to get these pictures on here so that you can see where we live, even if it is half-decorated...

This is the view upon entering the front door. To the left is the living room, which leads into our office, and to the right is a hallway that leads into the dining room. I plan to paint that big white wall in the living room and office; I just haven't decided what color yet. I would like to find a color that accents the blue that is already there.

This is the hallway and view of the stairs from the front door. There are a couple of closets and a half bath in this hallway.

This is our living room...which has been extremely frustrating when it comes to decorating and arranging furniture. I'm not sure the furniture will stay this way, but it's working for now...and I've moved these couches a million times now and don't want to touch them again. We also want to mount the television on the wall, but I'm not optimistic we'll ever get to that. :) Notice the "stylish" vertical blinds that protrude from the wall at least six inches...it's nearly impossible to hang any type of window treatments. We're making it all work, though!

This is our "dining room"...yes, the floor plan calls this little nook a dining room. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why on earth you would carpet a dining room. We have decided not to use this as our dining room. It has, instead, become our office. This floor plan has really required some creative thinking on our part!

Just another angle of the office...you can see where it is situated with regards to the living room. I must comment on our desk here. Blaine's late Uncle Bob gave us this desk. Uncle Bob was an amazing man with even more amazing life experiences. He was from England and spent a significant amount of his life in Africa, where his children still live. I should probably write an entire blog entry on the life of Uncle Bob sometime, since he deserves way more than a couple of lines in this paragraph. Anyway, I'm not sure how he acquired this desk, but we do know that it came from the USS Alabama, a WWII battleship. It has a metal seal with a serial number and everything! The desk was an orangeish-yellowish finish, but we had it refinished in this espresso color. And we love it!!

This is our kitchen, looking into the office and living room. It's not too exciting, but it gets the job done!

Another shot of the kitchen...yes, I know I am missing some cabinet doors. :) The couple who lived here before us wasn't crazy about the "pickled oak" cabinets (imagine that!) so they took the doors off for more of an open shelving look. They also painted the inside of the cabinets, which actually goes very well with our cobalt blue Mexican glassware! We like it, and it's unique, which isn't a bad thing when you and all of your friends on base have the SAME house.

Here is our "family room", as described in the floor plan. We are using this as the dining room, since that makes the most sense to us, being that it is not carpeted and is located right off of the kitchen. If you look closely, you will see the light sitting in the hallway. This is my proud Craigslist find...it's an iron and wood chandelier and I got it for $20! While I like the shell chandelier that is currently in this room, it doesn't really go with my decor. So, as soon as I can talk Blaine into hanging it, we will have a new light!

You may have noticed that there are no upstairs pictures on here...that's because there isn't a whole lot to take pictures of up there yet. I've just started decorating the bathrooms, so two of our three have nothing more than hand soap and a hand towel...not picture-worthy. Our bedroom is not even near completion and one bedroom is completely empty! I promise to post those pictures as the rooms come along. I will also post some outdoor and patio pictures in a later entry...this post is long enough as it is.

I know I'm putting too much thought into a place we will only inhabit for two years. The last thing I want to do is be stuck indoors, trying to overcome my "decorator's block" instead of enjoying this beautiful island! That said, I am planning to get out this weekend for some snorkeling while Blaine spearfishes. It will be my first time at the beach in over a month! And I could use the break from organizing and decorating...