One Year In Our House

    Thanks to the Timehop app that I have on my phone, I was notified that today marked 1 year of us living in our Italian house. I realized that I never shared pictures from the rest of our house, so today I am going to show current photos from of our house. It's so different living here, so I want to make sure I remember every bit of it!

Kitchen:

Italy House: Kitchen

    The kitchen is open to the living room, which is why I freaked out when we saw that it had BLUE cabinets. None of our stuff is blue, so how were we going to make it work? Well, we really didn't have a choice but to use what we already had. I wasn't going to buy all new stuff for a kitchen that I am only going to have to live in for 3 years. Other then the blue cabinets, it's not too bad. Since there is hardly any counter top space, I have to use the table as my prep area. Good thing we have a bar height table!

Why they couldn't make them all like the white ones on the top, I have no idea!

Italy House: Living Room

    The living room is the first room you see when you walk in through the front door. We usually use the kitchen door, but this room is my favorite. Partly because it has my first big purchase from here: an antique Persian rug, which I am in love with! Thankfully everything we already had matched it. I really like how bright the room is when the shutters are open, yet we can make it pitch black if we close them. Since we have a one year old, we have to have an area for him to play down here. We put a small table for him in one corner, and a cube shelf unit in the other.

Our {Not So Quick} Trip To Ikea

   This past Saturday, we made a trip to Ikea. Little did we know, it would turn into an all day affair! Of course we had to walk the upstairs showroom for the second time this month just to make sure we I didn't miss anything. We needed several things for our house, so with my list in hand, we shopped. 

     Most of the items we needed were for the kitchen. One thing we don't have much of is storage space. We don't have very many cabinets, so I knew I had to work with what I've got. I found these shelf inserts that would allow me to stack my china and pantry items. I am so glad I got them because they sit in the cabinets perfectly (probably because the cabinets are from Ikea).

Working On The Yard

    When we first looked at the house, we had no idea how much work we were going to have to do on the yard. We requested a privacy fence to be put in and some flowers to be planted in the flower bed, both of which the landlord did. However, there were weeds galore! Since the weather was nice tonight, we started pulling some of the weeds. 

 Connor helped.

Casa de Olson

   Yesterday we got the keys (22 to be exact) to our town house in Italy. After spending 41 nights in a hotel, we can finally say we have a home!

    We looked at two houses and called this the "blue kitchen house." It was Aaron's favorite, but I was torn between the two. Even thought I HATED the kitchen, we ended up picking this one because it has 3 bedrooms, a front and backyard, and a big garage. Now that we moved in, I am so happy this is the one we chose.