New home....Part I

I've been promising pictures of our new home, O'Hara Manor, named after our lovely friend who actually owns the house and is renting it to us while she lives on the other side of the world for a few years.

My understanding is the house was built around ten years ago, but as our recent guests aptly pointed out, it doesn't have the feel of a "new cookie-cutter McMansion."  Nor is it the size of a mansion, Mc or otherwise.

I thought it might be nice for people to see what we've done with the place.

Here is the view when you walk in the front door:

The couch is new and is called "The Cloud."  We didn't name it, but we sure agree that sitting on it feels like sitting on a cloud.  It's a reclining couch in microfiber and it's heavenly.

You may notice there are a lot of doors at the back.  The double doors lead out to the patio, and the door at the far right corner of the picture ALSO leads out to the back patio.  Why two doors, separated by two and a half feet?  Well, the rationale is that the stairway to the upstairs is essentially behind the couch, directly facing that far door.  The double doors allow a moving crew to take a large item into the back and then bring it back in the far door and up the stairs rather than attempting to make a tight turn into the stairwell.  Ingenious, eh?

The house is notable for several things.   First, apparently the people who built the house felt that many places don't have enough electrical outlets, so they put outlets absolutely everywhere.  Second, there are built-in shelves in just about every room.  We are using the shelves around the TV for decoration mostly.  Highlights are our old New Mexico license plates, the (real) Australian emu egg given to us by Doug's aunt and uncle as a wedding gift, a fabulous silver bowl also given as a wedding gift, our "wine box" used in the wedding ceremony, and an old beer stein that used to be my grandmothers.

Above is the view facing the front door.  We have a real kitchen table now and no longer have to eat meals on the couch, hunched over the coffee table.  Other notable pieces are the New Mexico themed wall art, a fabulous tin mirror with our names etched on it, given to us by one of my internship supervisors, and a New Mexico cutting board with a heart carved in it at Albuquerque and our wedding date etched in it (given to us by my lovely bridesmaid).  Doug liked it so much he didn't want to "ruin" it by using it as a cutting board, so we hung it up instead.

This is the view facing right from standing in front of the table.  Obviously it's a kitchen.  There isn't really enough cupboard space for all of our things, but we'll manage.

At the end of the kitchen, where you see the mask on the wall, there is a bathroom on the right and a bedroom on the left.

The bathroom is yellow and green in theme.  

The bedroom is called "the brown room" because it's the only room in the house with painted walls, and they are (duh) brown.  This is our guest room and where we keep our games.  There's a little reading area by the window, though the cat has clawed up the red chair something awful.

I found some framed art for really cheap at a furniture store trying to clear out their summer stock, and the big wall painting here was one of my finds.  Of course we must have a bit of Arkansas strewn around, so the Razorback pillow my mother made me is prominently featured in the center of the bed.

Next time I will give the tour of upstairs and the back porch!!