I thought it might be fun to walk around the house with the Flip cam and show you guys how each room can look on an average day. You know, before we pick the clothes up off the floor, put away Clara’s toys, and fold the big blankets that we snuggle under on the sofa. So here’s an impromptu house tour (while John and Clara ducked out to the post office and grocery store) in all of its average everyday glory:
Things to note:
- Ugh, I have a cold. Sorry about my annoying voice. Who am I kidding, my voice annoys me even when I’m not crazy congested.
- I’m terrible at walking around, talking, and holding a camera (too much multitasking, pardon the Blair Witch Project-esque jolts).
- For those who requested updated office photos in this post, you can see it in 3-D (well, almost) in the vid.
- Burger is so cute. I love how he comes running in and steals the show (and is later seen relaxing in the window).
- I have no idea why I take the time to explain Clara’s music class kit. It’s so weird what you think is noteworthy.
- You can sneak a peek at John’s behind the sofa console project’s progress. Oh and when I say it’s not level and it slopes away from the wall, it’s because our floors are slanted, not because John’s work is shoddy (more pics and details on the big console build this afternoon).
- Yes, my ceramic pooch is still sitting on on the back patio. I just can’t bring myself to let go of him yet. But I’m working up to it. One day at a time.
- You can sneak a peek at the two 30 x 40″ canvases that we got super cheap at Michael’s (more details on our plans for them soon).
- I have no idea why at the end I’m talking about other rooms while walking back through the house and aiming the camera at the dining room and the kitchen (it’s just odd to show the kitchen and say “the messy playroom”). It’s official: I’m no Spielberg.
- My dramatic ending on my purse is beyond weird. What is wrong with me?
Here’s some bonus “ordinary day” behavior. We always tell people how Burger sleeps like a human (with his head on the pillow and his body tucked under the covers) but people rarely believe just how hilarious this is. So here’s some visual evidence that I snapped this morning. I promise this isn’t staged. John got up first today, so I reached over and took some pics after Burger crawled up from the bottom of the bed to “steal” John’s place and sleep in at least four more hours. What a life.
What about you guys. What would people see if you randomly shot photos (or a shaky nausea-inducing video) of your house before cleaning up? Anything embarrassing out there like a teddy bear in the bed or a man-thong on the floor? Thank goodness I put John’s leopard one away before filming that video. Haha. Kidding. Sorry honey. I know just reading that is gonna make you all flustered.
Love this! I was almost starting to hate you guys… you seem just too perfect… make the rest of us just-gettin-by folks feel bad about ourselves. Just kidding! but really… thanks for keeping it real.
Love the tour! You have a very pleasant narrator voice Sherry!
Hahaha I love it. I recently took a picture of the livingroom with my new Nikon and was impressed by how much more room it picked up that the point and shoot. I was also distressed by the same feature, why on earth was there a towel hanging on the boot rack, and why did I not notice it until I took a picture?
Did I see Sue the Napkin in your purse or am I imagining things? I love knowing that you guys don’t always have everything in its place. I definitely relate to that :) And those pictures of Burger sleeping in the bed cracked me up! Hysterical!
Oh yeah, that napkin goes with me everywhere- haha. That way I can be quickly tell if something works with the colors that we have going on or not. Very handy. She’s like my security blanket. Haha.
xo,
s
I spotted that and it made me giggle too – you got your dramatic ending in the form of Sue.
My old family dog used to sleep with his head on the pillow next to me :)
My dog sleeps the same way as Burger! I kinda enjoy waking up to her sweet little face!~ I think Izzy and Burger would be great friends. :)
Sherry, you’re voice sounds EXACTLY like Mila Kunis! That’s a good thing =)
Haha, I hear that and Natalie Portman a lot. I’m like the cast of Black Swan. Ironically this video got a lot more Natalie reactions. Maybe when I’m sick I go Kunis. Haha.
xo,
s
Holy junk, you do sound just like Natalie Portman.
Thank you for that! I love your blog but sometimes it comes off as “look how prefect we are”. I honestly didn’t know that your home ever would look lived in. Great to know that your’re human after all…LOL.
I disagree! While ‘you’ do always look so put together and organized, you don’t come across as ‘look how perfect we are’. It just makes all of us strive to be a little more organized ;) Thanks for making the rest of us feel good about our chaos though!!
Did I spy and apple green slipcover on one of your new parsons chairs?
Nope, that’s not a slipcover. Details soon – we’re still in progress with that crazy project.
xo,
s
Wait- I don’t see the slipcover! When in the video?? My eyes were peeled the whole time.
Burger is the most adorable dog in the whole, wide world.
Cute tour. And, with your cold, I think you sound like Natalie Portman.
There it is. Haha. Scroll back to see me saying I usually get Natalie Portman with the voice. But sometimes Mila Kunis. This is hilarious to me for some reason now that they’ve both been in Black Swan together.
xo,
s
I also thought you sounded just like Natalie Portman, too. I just saw Black Swan and am still freaked out by it.
Haha, I thought the same thing about Mila Kunis … the very day after I saw Black Swan I found a small white feather in my four year old’s ear!!! Talk about freaked out, but I think it was from a down pillow he was resting on during his nap. Thanks for keeping it real YHL! :)
Haha so cute! I have a manchester terrier (looks like a min pin) that does the SAME thing! She loves buring herself under blankets like Burger (I love your prior videos of him tearing up your bed), and gets pretty upset if the bed is made too tightly. She usually starts out the night buried at the bottom of the bed and gradually sneaks up to put her head on a pillow and sleep like a human by the end of the night. :)
The tour is great. Love the mess, it just makes you house look more real, alive and full of love. The photo wall is superb!
Seeing your dining chairs in video, yep I agree they need to be one colour they channel a rather hotel conference dull room vibe.
Small typo: Blair *Witch project :) Love the tour!
Fixed! Thanks!
xo,
s
lol…it is nice to know that your house isn’t always as pristine as it looks in the pics you post!! totally makes me feel better about the schoolbags and shoes strewn all over my house!! also, i love that you carry Sue in your handbag!! hysterical!! thanks for sharing!!
Burger is too cute for words!!!!
Thanks for sharing this. Your house is still beautiful, but it’s actually lived in and I love that. It’s also a good reminder for me to not get all up in arms if things in our house spend a little time away from their designated “home.”
OMG. Our dog, Sophie sleeps like that too. It’s hysterical. And BOY! She is NOT a morning dog. You wake her early and it’s like the flames of hell shooting out of her eyes at you… LOL
My pup too! You’d think you are asking the moon just to get our boy out of bed before 9 AM.
thanks god! I was beginning to feel like a slob for never having my house pristine.
You know it’s kinda like magazines where you think you’re “supposed” to look like those models, and then you see them w/out makeup or airbrushing and you think, “Oh, they’re normal! Why was I beating myself up?” So thanks, YHL, for keeping it real. That’s why we love you.
My favorite comment so far!
Is that a different dog statue in your dining room?
Loved the tour!!
Oh yeah that’s our concrete greyhound. John surprised me with him about 3 years ago for Valentine’s Day. Love it!
xo,
s
Loved the dramatic ending to the video – I think the cold meds were kicking in, lol!
lady, you’ve ruined the dream! just kidding! its truly a relief to know that i’m not as imperfect as i thought i was and you guys don’t live in an oasis of calm happy tidy perfect space all the time :-)
“You can sneak a peek at John’s behind…”
I really thought that bullet point was going somewhere else for a moment! ;)
Haha, he’d probably kill me.
xo,
s
Actually, you shouldn’t have shown that video! Now, I am not going to try as hard to be so kept! ;oP
Also, do you ever disclose to your readers when you have a yard sale? That would be a yard sale worth going to! (For obvious reasons, like 20 million people showing up and shoving each other, I understand if you didn’t.)
We’re really protective of our address for obvious safety reasons (even though we have a pretty Fort Knox-like alarm system) so we don’t share garage sale info except for a post about it after the fact. We do have dreams of hosting one in a more neutral location (like the parking lot of a local church or school or something) but we’re not sure if we could cart all of our stuff over there and find someone who would donate their lot for us. But it does cross our mind from time to time…
xo,
s
If you two ever get sick of blogging I could totally seeing you opening a high-end home decor/furnishings consignment shop together. It would fit right in with your frugal thing and then we could all come to your permanent “yard sale.”
And, for some reason, my kids LOVE your videos. They are now begging me to replay the one of Clara and John from the other night. Maybe I need to break out some of the toys that are in storage or something . . .
Loved the tour….and Mila Kunis for sure!
Hi Sherry,
Sorry you’re sick! :( Feel bestter soon!
The sofa console project look like it is really coming along. Any idea what color it will be?
Deb
The top will be rustic and varied wood tones (we’re adding slats of wood from old pallets that we have) but we’re thinking that the shelving on each end of the console will go rich and dark so the top can “be the star.”
xo,
s
Thanks for keeping it real!
And I love the Burger pics! Our dog sleeps just like Burger – he loves sneaking into one of our pillow spots the minute we get out of bed. I even woke up to him spooning me this morning!
Look forward to seeing what you have in store for the art pieces in your bedroom!
Thank you so much for sharing this video! I have two kids (2 & 5) and the house is rarely picked up while they are awake.
Love it! Love seeing toys out and a house that is lived in!
I couldn’t watch the video yet since I’m at work, but that picture of Burger sleeping with his head on the pillow absolutely cracked me up! He is just like a little person! Hahaha.
that’s nice consolation seeing your house like a normal house…
as for mine, i still gotta find a way to get rid of the day-in-day-out ironing board in the guest bedroom… in my defense, it’s a pretty heavy one that I don’t want to fold out every time we need it…
In the words of my favorite “real” New Jersery housewife, Theresa Guidice- I “love love love” this post. Glad to know I am not the only one with random article of clothes all over the house! Thanks Sherry!
I love this! Thank you for showing that your house does not look perfect all the time. I honestly love seeing the clothes on the floor and the tp on the window :0)
I had no idea about dogs being so human-like. Cracked me up that he snuck under your comforter. & now that he sleeps like a person, my life is forever changed!
Love the yhl tour. Feel better soon!!
Our dogs totally sleep like that too. We have a king sized bed (had to upgrade because two dogs in the bed were kicking us out!) and at any point in the night I can look and see my husband, two pups on pillows, then me on the edge.
I was just walking through my house and thinking that a video tour of the current mess would be hilarious since my family knows me as a little OCD when it comes to neatness. Lately I’ve just been so tired that I’ve let the house go.
My favorite part is the Burger pics at the end. My cat does that too. :)
Burger is so cute! My whippet does the same thing, it never stops being hilarious!
The living room light is no longer blue?
Oh yeah I wiped that down with a moist cloth a while back. It was casting an odd blue haze on that corner of the room in pics, so it had to go. Thank goodness it was so easy to undo!
xo,
s
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this!!! It is wonderful to see your staged in-process and finished product posts for inspiration. But this was for reassurance that you guys also really *live* in your home. It makes me feel sooo much better about my piles of folded laundry waiting to be put away, my gardening magazines sitting out in a pile (I’m getting inspired to work on a few beds and my veggie garden) and our baby girl’s toys and feeding paraphenalia. Keeping up with all the stuff of life being lived is a constant project, but I take it as a sign that my life is full.
And I completely agree that you sound like Mila Kunis in this video!
Love you guys even more now!! Maybe I’ll quit stessing so much about everything being in it’s place so much now! Thanks for a glimpse into your ‘real’ life!
Ha! Your comment about the teddy bear in the bed made me laugh. When my husband and I redid our bedroom and I posted pics on facebook, my own father called me out on my stuffed dog that I had tucked behind the pillows and had not even noticed! I am 27 and married and yes, I still sleep with a stuffed animal! No shame here…
Haha, I love how you own it! Go girl!
xo,
s
I’m 26 and married and both my husband and I sleep with teddy bears! So no shame there! Our dog always ends up stealing them and using them as pillows for himself.
thank you! I look at your blog all of the time and think “why does their house always look so perfect w/ an almost 1 yr old???” I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one w/ discheveled pillows on my couch and clothes tossed on the floor…
p.s. – don’t you just love the oversized dark brown basket from Target? I keep all of my 2 yr olds’ family room toys in it, and sometimes him – he loves to take everything out and climb right in!
Yes! Best. Basket. Ever.
xo,
s
I have that basket next to my fireplace for wood! Very convenient to carry outside to refill :)
When I saw your post about the baskets I ran out and got two of them! I was going nuts trying to figure out a spot to stash toys and like a lightbulb, voila! Love those baskets!
Wow, your house is so neat day-to-day compared to ours!
Especially my bedroom. As the only teenager still living here I find it my duty to create as much mess as possible. You can barely see my floor right now and my parents are TOTALLY not happy with it… :P
looks just like my house…glad to know that you live in your house too! I love her crib!!!!
Haha at “after an archaeological dig we’ll get to the floor”. Great any given day tour!
Thank goodness for this post and video! I have three kids under three and always fighting the toy battle and always think, “how is their house always neat?” Glad to know I’m not the only one!
I love the shots of burger sleeping on John’s pillow: soo cute
My dog (a 35-pound Staffordshire terrier) also thinks she’s a human – head on the pillow, body under the covers. So funny!
I thought Mike and I were weird because we’re adults that always have blankets around us. We each have a twin sized comforter (hideous ones at that, mine’s from my college dorm) that we snuggle up with on the couch at night. They go in our storage ottoman, or they’re supposed to, but most of the time we’re too sleepy to care when we make our way to bed!
And John doesn’t read your posts, so he won’t even know that you revealed his leopard thong ;)
This is true. Haha. He might see that line in a week or two. Maybe never. Haha.
xo,
s
I think I spotted Sue the Napkin in your purse! Sleeping Burger is so funny…our mini Dachshund does the same thing! What a life….
lisamanderson.tumblr.com
I hope you feel better soon Sherry! And it’s good to know that my husband isn’t the only one leaving clothes all over the house (pants in the living room…yikes).