Five year house anniversary!!

We are celebrating our five year anniversary of living in our little home this month!!

I can't believe it's been five years.

When we bought this house, we had a five year plan. It's not a huge house and we thought we would be moving "up" after five years. I had no idea how attached we would get to our house, neighborhood, friends, ward, and school. I can't even imagine leaving! We really lucked out with everything. I put 0 thought into schools when we were house hunting (Tempe was only 2) but our neighborhood school has been great and is in a great location that allows my kids to walk to school (Juno's preschool is in an elementary school on a really busy street next to the freeway off ramp and none of the kids walk--it's made me really appreciate having a safe walking school!)

I have really come to terms with us staying in a "small" house long term, even with a fourth child. People raise bigger families in smaller houses all over the world--even in the US--and it's a really silly attitude to think we are outgrowing our home. I've learned to cut back on our stuff and really organize and use our space better and I feel like we fit just fine (for now!)

So, to celebrate our fifth anniversary I'm sharing some pictures of our living room. I have struggled with our living room, home to the giant mirror wall, but for the first time in five years, I really like it!

So since we've lived here, we've painted the room (Stone Fence by Behr) and built giant bookshelves (actually my dad did both of those things for us) and I have had a hard time committing to fabrics for the window seat cushions and pillows. I think I've finally found something I will be able to stick with!

Gold letter A hanging over the fireplace... 

New chairs, new pillows on the couch, and a view of the bookshelves. Also found wood window shade and birch tree curtains.

Gigantic bookshelves with my globe collection lining the top! I love my globes. I know that you can find tons of posts on Pinterest about how to "stage" bookshelves, but to be honest, we just have too darn many books and we need the space for them and not cute knickknacks. That's the mirror behind the shelves, by the way--people often think it's just a room divider and the wall is open.

These are the chairs that my mom got me last month!! We had mismatched, old, falling apart chairs that I hated so much and I think she finally got sick of hearing me complain, so she offered to buy me some new ones. I found these at Target for $70 each. 

I added the gold tips on the legs with metallic spray paint and I kind of love it!

View from the top of the stairs, just so you can get a better idea of the room. We love how much light this room gets and it's fun to sit on the window seats and read.
Overall, I love how this room has turned out--cozy, a great gathering spot for us to plop down and read our many books, but still presentable to guests when they walk through the front door!