Here’s the secret to unpacking your house quickly: plan a housewarming party with a set date. Nothing like knowing a bunch of friends and family are going to come through for a tour to motivate you to unpack and clean and purge. It was a challenge, man. The weather, the combining of two households, the weather…the problem of too much stuff. Did I say the weather? Why did I choose to move during the dog’s breath days of summer? I do not know!

But we did it! We even fixed up a lot of things nicer than they were before I moved in. I love our house now. I was so worried that I wouldn’t fit in. That our two styles of decorating would clash but that is not the case. I love our combined style. It’s different, a little eclectic and silly but then so are we.

The party was nice. We almost didn’t pull it off. We were so busy fixing up the house that we left grocery shopping and food preparation to the last minute. Like down to the last half hour last minute! We pulled up into the driveway with the car full of groceries and Payam’s mom was already there. But then that’s kind of normal for family, right? They’re allowed to see the underbelly of food prep—the chopping and various plastic grocery bags strewn all over the counters.

A fiesta theme is my all time easy, go-to theme. I may or may not have used these peccadillo garlands more than once. For once it pays to be a hoarder saver! Tacos are super easy and so is a tequila bar.  (Between you and me I am never going to choose bottled juices over fresh squeezed again. Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice for a Paloma is SO MUCH BETTER!)

And now to the house tour:

I don’t have pictures of every room in the house. I’ll get to that someday maybe. But what I am most excited to share is this giant print of my friend Deb’s work. It’s not an actual painting but actually a Mettaprint on cardboard. I’m super privileged to get one of these because Deb’s work is very sought after and limited (of course). I printed it as big as I could. Mettaprints maximum size is four feet by eight feet so this print worked out to be four feet by five feet. That seems huge but Payam’s walls are so big it almost doesn’t quite seem big enough! Crazy, no?!!

I think at some point I’ll add something contemporary to the sides of it. Hanging light bulbs or air plants? Muted watercolor prints? I don’t know. I’m just super happy that Payam is cool with my kind of art.

And the kid’s rooms you ask? They turned out pretty awesome. Bug loves her mosquito net thingy that I’m not allowed to call a mosquito net thingy.  She says it’s some kind of princess protection net or something. It keeps the good dreams in and the bad dreams out. I just smile and nod and hope she doesn’t roll over in the night and rip the hook out of the ceiling with a giant piece of sheetrock.

Joon is super stoked on her room. She’s a One Direction fan as you can see, much to both me and Payam’s chagrin. But she makes up for it by choosing that awesome paint color. It turns out I do get to have a turquoise wall and Joon picked it all by herself! Here I was moping about losing my turquoise wall. Silly me.

The pets on the other hand are not doing so well. Ty (the dog) is fine. He loves me. The cats are plotting mutiny. I’ll catch you up on that in my next post but let me just say this: I’m considering letting Aqui become coyote bait with the way she’s keeping us up all night with her blood-curdling, hunt-Lucy-to-the-death battles. Of course that won’t happen but we are not too happy with their co-mingling skills. Send all your best cat advice.