Today’s post is coming to you from my handy dandy iPhone. Photos, typing, links and all. Why? Well, we don’t have internet quite yet. Our cable guy came on Monday to set everything up but didn’t have a our Tivo cable cards listed on his service slip. Therefore, he didn’t have the cards with him which consequently moved out cable/phone/internet hook up to a later day. But no worries! Our handy dandy iPhones (and the WordPress app) save the day.

Sunday night, we made the big move from my parent’s guest room to our new (to us) house! With countless trips back and forth between their house, our house and the storage unit… we were quite tired. But the adrenaline was keeping us going. Bentley on the other hand, had no earthly idea what was going on. Nevertheless, he found a cozy spot on the dash of the Yukon (which we borrowed from my parent’s to haul our stuff) to hide out and keep an eye on everything:

By 11:00 that night, we were unloaded and ready to start living in our new abode. Well, sort of ready. We needed to unpack all of the tons and tons of boxes first to start officially living.

We decided to make the guest room our “moving headquarters”. We put aaaaall of the boxes in that room. We did this because we are pretty sure we will be unpacking boxes for the next few days — if not weeks. Whenever we get to a stopping point for the day, we want to be able to shut the door and not have to look at the craziness.

We failed to take a photo of what it looked like when it was full to the max (yeah, I know, what kind of bloggers are we?!), but here is what the scene is looking like now, three days later:

Needless to say, we still have a ways to go. I promise it’s organized … organized chaos.

While we’ve been busy bees unpacking, we’ve come across stuff that doesn’t really fit in our home’s “design plan”. I mean, come on, it’s been sitting in storage for 8 months. That’s plenty of time for someone’s style to change. And that is has. Not much though. Though we still have a great love for contemporary and modern design, we’re leaning a little more towards rustic revival meets vintage modern these days — with a touch of traditional (we even took a design quiz to help us figure that one out, remember? Check out our his & hers quiz results here). Kind of like… if Martha Stewart and Jonathan Adler had a baby. But that’s another post entirely. Obviously.

So as we’ve been unpacking, we’re making a pile for a yard driveway sale. Seeing as how Christmas is fast approaching, we will be holding off on that until after the first of the year. Not to mention it is absolutely freeeeeeezing outside. In the mean time, we are going to store the loot in our attached (soon to be climate controlled — hopefully) storage shed outside.

The Christmas tree is up but yet to be fluffed and decorated. I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on that thing and Christmas-fy our new nest. Ordinarily, we are totally decorated for Christmas by Thanksgiving day. Yes, we are those types of people. But this year, we’ve obviously had a lot on our plate

…is the average amount of time a person spends in the bathroom during their lifetime.

As I type, our plumber is installing three brand new toilets in our almost-ready-to-live-in house. Is it weird that I’m excited about toilets? Probably, but I’m guessing you would be, too, if it meant you were going to be in your house soon. Toilet shopping isn’t as glamorous or exciting as picking out tile or cabinetry, but everybody has to do it at some point. You’re going to spend thousands of hours using this fixture in your lifetime. Therefore, make sure you get one that not only looks great, but functions well.

With that said, when deciding on our toilet of choice, we didn’t really have that many requirements. We wanted our toilet fit in well with the overall feel of the house, so bright white was a necessity. We also prefer an elongated seat as opposed to the “standard” circular toilets that were in the house when we purchased it. The process was far from simply walking in and back out with a toilet 10 minutes later, but it’s nothing to be scared of.

Like I said, we wanted something that would contribute to the overall feel and design of the bathrooms and house as a whole. We went to several places looking for the perfect toilet. While we were shopping around, we stumbled upon one that really fit well with our bathroom, Kohler’s Memoirs Two-Piece, elongated, comfort height toilet in white:

Another thing we like about this particular toilet is that it matches the under-mount sinks we purchased for the master bathroom and hall bathroom. We normally don’t like things all “matchy-matchy” (as Ashley says), but we thought this subtle similarity would be a nice cohesive touch.

When we first decided on this toilet, like any responsible, budget-conscious homeowner, we searched for a better price online. Our initial find was listed at $365. After some Googling, we found listings for the same toilet from $1,303 down to $255. So we marched back up to Home Depot with a printout of our $255 listing in hand, and just as we were hoping, they gladly sold us three toilets for our newly found price of $255 – no questions asked.

One thing we love about this toilet is that it comes as a complete kit in the box. We highly recommend this because it puts everything you need for a clean, tight install right in the box. If you decide to get a plumber like we did, he might use some of his own materials, but it’s nice to know he won’t end up having to stop because he ran out of something or didn’t have a part that fit.

On he plate for this weekend: moving our stuff from Ashley’s parents’ house (where we’ve been living while the renovations have been underway) to our house. We couldn’t be more excited to spend the first night in our new (to us) home! And now we even have new toilets! Woo Hoo!

Toilet shopping photo found here.

‘Tis the season for holiday baking! For this week’s edition of Etsy Thursday, we decided to round up a few of our favorite baking-related items found on Etsy:

Even Donna Reed herself would have to approve of this festive Vintage Poinsettia Pleated Apron from CoffeeKlatch Vintage Linens.  Straight from the 1950′s, CoffeeKlatch has a very good selection of vintage linens. Including a few seasonal options to bring that vintage charm to your holiday baking rituals. Just browsing through all of them will take you right back to the days of Lucy Ricardo, Donna Stone and June Cleaver. If you rather have a vintage apron to use year around, no problem. Etsy has 4,983 (and counting) search results for “vintage apron”. Needless to say, you have a wide selection to choose from!

Cookie Exchange Parties are so much fun! I’ve always wanted to host one but have never gotten around to doing it. Maybe next year when we aren’t in the midst of unpacking. Fingers crossed. With this kit from Did Someone Say Party?, you will have everything you need in order to host a memorable Cookie Exchange Party (just add cookies!). The kit comes with handmade vintage-style invitations with custom lined envelopes, table tent cards, gift tag favors in custom made pillow boxes, recipe cards, adorable bags for your cookies and even bags for your guest to take home their delicious loot. With all of that preparation done for you, all you have to do is bake the cookies!

Sometimes the old way of doing things is the best way. Kind of like this nifty Appalachian Broom Style Cake Tester. This handmade tool is not only unique but really handy too. Just break off a straw and insert it into the center of your baked dish. If the straw comes out clean, ta da! It’s done. This would be a great stocking stuffer!

Next week, we’re going to showcase some unique gifts for HIM found on Etsy.

7th House on the Left does not accept payment or perks for anything in our Etsy Thursday features. We simply have an obsession with Etsy that we want to share with everyone : )