La Settanta

First I was planning on blogging about Halloween. But then I thought: boring. Isn't it pretty much always that same?

We carved some pumpkins. (Read: I gutted and carved every pumpkin while the kids ordered me around. I am abolishing this tradition until everyone is old enough to do their own.)

Lila dressed as an ice cream cone.

Noel chose at the last minute to be spider man.

 Jonah was a skeleton. Again.

 We wadered the neighborhood.

 Knocked on some doors and got some candy.

So instead I though I would give you a little virtual tour or our new house.

When Amy and I were house hunting, we saw a lot of homes. But as anyone who has house hunted knows, when you walk into the right house you just know. And when we walked into this home, we were giddy and could hardly contain ourselves.

It is a really cute 70s split level on a quiet street in a great neighborhood. Because it was built in the 70s (OK. 1969) and has some fun 70s flair, (and because I have always have wanted a house with a name) we call it La Settanta. It is Italian for "The Seventy."

The yard is charming. Well taken care of with beautiful mature trees. And lovely little details like this:

And a basketball hoop. (I'll get that tree pruned before next summer.)

Here is the view as you walk up to the front door.

Look at those big windows! That is why the split level rules. Lots of windows on every floor.

The entry is typical 70s split level.

The light outside is old and globey and 70s and I love it. 

The first room you see when you come in is the living room. 

It's cozy. We tried to find furniture pieces that were modern, but seem like they really could have been in a house in 1969. The leather chair, rocking chair, coffee table and end table are all vintage from local consignment shops. The art is either stuff we made, or J. Kirk Richards. 

The console table is my old office desk from when I needed a home office. The fantastic sunburst clock was stolen from Amy's Grandma's basement. It will cut you. Literally. I punctured my hand with it while installing it. The pink bird, which earned so many comments when featured in our blog about selling our home, is from TJ Maxx and is literally the greatest thing that store has ever had. And Amy found him in the clearance section.

Across from the living room is the kitchen.

Its nothing fancy, but was in great shape when we moved in. We decided to pain the cabinets apple green, because why not? They make me happy.

Attached to the kitchen is the dining area, featuring the great consignment bench we got.

And if you follow the little stair up, you get to the giant bonus room above the garage.

We all spend a lot of our time up here and it is the kids favorite room to mess up, even though they have the whole basement to themselves. It is a combination library/office:

(Please note the books are sorted by color)

Kids homework area (really I should call it the kids YouTube watching area, because they do a lot more of that here than homework:)

And TV viewing area:

(please note: the sparkly skulls are not usual decor.)

It also has a secret door that leads to a cabinet where we keep board games and the previous owner kept his gun collection. To each his own!

Also on the top floor is our room:

And Lila's room:

That bed is the bed that Amy's Mom slept in growing up, and was also stolen from Amy's Grandma's basement.

Downstairs is a floor devoted entirely to Jonah and Noel. Amy and I feel very little need to go down there, and also it sometimes smells bad. They have a family room with a TV full of annoying shows (Pokemon, anyone? Why won't that one kid open his eyes!) and all of their toys. 

It is a little lacking in decor - it is kind of a furniture graveyard where everything we don't need elsewhere in the house goes to die. But it works for them and we don't have to worry if they destroy things. 

When we moved in we told Jonah and Noel they could paint their rooms whatever color they wanted. Noel chose green and Jonah chose red. So we backed out of that promise and told them they could get decals instead.

Jonah chose vintage video games:

 And Noel chose this lovely Arctic scene:

It is fitting because his room is the coldest in the house. It must be because of the ghosts that haunt it because of the murder/suicide that happened in there...KIDDING. I hope. Actually it is because strangely, his room has no heat vents. 

Last, but not least, is one of the best parts of this house. The backyard.

It is big and beautiful, has lots of shade (including an giant apple tree with really great apples) and tons of perennials and spots for a garden. Also, see that fence on the back? That is what separates us from a huge, amazing park. And there is a gate to get to it right from the backyard.

This is where Amy spent every warm afternoon, reading a book and enjoying a caffeine free Diet Coke watching the kids play on the trampoline. She's told me many times it is her favorite spot in the new house. Mainly because how cool is this trumpet vine?

But also because who doesn't want to sit on a chair on a shaded porch and read a book?

Of course, that was all several weeks ago. Recently the yard looked more like this:

What you can't see hidden in the trees just behind Lila is our ENORMOUS 12' satellite dish. Remember when you had to have those if you wanted satellite TV? We can't even begin to figure out how to remove it, so we may just hang fabric from it and call it a playhouse.  

So that is La Settanta. Come visit. We'll feed you good food. And we can skip the tour, because I feel like maybe I have been a little too thorough with this photo essay. I almost took a picture of the storage room. Because I love it. But I refrained. I am classy that way.