seeing the light

I promise I'll take pictures and post tomorrow but walking into our home today after being gone for the day was shocking.  It was like walking into a completely different environment.  We are about 90% done with our projects that need to be completed before the condo hits the market next Wednesday.  This weekend was a chaotic experience and we most of it packing tons of things we want to keep in boxes that were moved into a new storage unit, purging old items to go to Salvation Army (always my favorite part- simplifying), selling furniture, taking down personal pictures and wall art then patching walls, buying new furniture and completing the "some assembly required"process, cleaning upon cleaning and finally we had the place mostly ready to go just in time to enjoy some birthday cookie cake for a friend last night.

The changes are nothing short of amazing.  We look like we have double the space.  I've completely staged the second bedroom to appear as a bedroom/office instead of the giant catch-all for most of the crap we kept around.  Despite the fact that I am not normally wild about neutral colors, I am totally digging the vibe that we currently have going even though it sometimes appears hotel-like.  I walked in and felt at home in the space.  Any remnants of our single lives apart are mostly gone.  All of the major elements are things that we have chosen jointly and for some reason, that makes a huge difference to me.

The only thing that makes me feel really weird is that I usually made fun of people on HGTV when they do things like putting up floral arrangements for staging.  As of yesterday afternoon, I am the proud owner of two bud arrangements and a larger piece in the living room.  While perusing the fake flowers section of our local Michael's yesterday, aside from feeling like a tool for being in the fake flowers section, I was desperately wishing that I'd fought harder to get into the very-hard-to-get-a-seat-in floral arrangements class at A&M.

Don't laugh.  This was really my best effort.