I'm so glad you are here and my hopes are you find some inspiration and ideas from my projects. I know it takes time, ideas, plans, and most of all money to decorate or organize a home into a functional and comfortable living space. I hope I can show other's how to save money by creating things themselves or give advice on how to arrange or decorate a space to make it as functional as possible. I'm not a trained expert, but I want to share things that help us and our household.
A little bit about myself, my name is Jessica Petramala I was born and raised in Thornton, Colorado and will always be a Colorado girl at heart. I am a proud boy mom to my son Carson. He is my world and every day is a new adventure with him. He surprises me everyday with his learning and keeps me on my toes. I am also a very proud Air Force wife. My husband has been in the military for 9 years and is planning to continue onto retirement one day. I have many interests and hobbies. I enjoy doing different crafts using my Cricut. I enjoy crochet (especially small quick projects). I love decorating and thinking of new ideas to make our home more functional everyday. I love to exercise and be active. Every day I am getting out and doing something. I would say I keep a very active lifestyle physically and crafting gives me the mental satisfaction I crave every day.
I feel like my creativity has really blossomed over the last three years. Through different life experiences, I have grown as a person in many different directions, but I feel as though my core beliefs and values have become the strongest they have ever been. My many life experiences have come from being pushed way out of my comfort zone and when I had to either sink or swim. Those pushes have absolutely come from being a military wife and new mom with no family nearby to help.
Let's take it back some years to give you the full perspective. My husband and I first started dating in 2008 and became engaged in 2010. That is also the year my husband joined the Air Force. After highs and lows with various jobs in 2008 and 2009, the USAF was the best career path he could have decided to go on. To say I am proud of him is really an understatement. He had absolutely blown me away with how well he provides for our family. I am humbled to be on this AF journey with him. He has grown into an amazing well-rounded man. He is focused on work but as soon as he is home he is my husband and Carson's Daddy.
Our Air Force journey first began in 2010 after he graduated from Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB. His technical training was at Kessler AFB in Mississippi. We were set to be there for 10 months and I wanted to make the best of it. This was the first time we had lived together in our cute little two bedroom apartment. I was determined to make it our home. We were married legally but decided to wait and have our wedding back in Colorado after his Tech School training. So with a limited budget and not much to call our own, I did my best to make that apartment ours. I didn't work at the time because we were going to be there for such a short period, so I deemed myself the homemaker/housewife and kept that apartment spotless. Some may have called me OCD or crazy, but I was extremely prideful. That apartment is where I learned to grow up. I learned to cook, take care of adult duties like laundry, cleaning, dishes. We brought home a puppy and she taught me even more. The apartment was small and we really didn't have much at the time.
Our next stop on our Air Force journey would bring us back to Colorado. Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is where we purchased our first home and where we would spend the next 5 years. We bought a perfect starter home. Clean, basic, and move in ready. It was very much a cookie cutter home but I loved it and I was ready to make it our own.
These pictures are from when we first moved in. Again with a limited budget and our lack of wanting to do anything but neutral colors we made that house a fantastic home. We were so scared about resale one day we only did a few projects with paint. After our wedding, we had much more decor and furniture to work with so that was nice but I decorated the best I could with what we had.
We did paint the kitchen and install a tile backsplash.
At this time I did consider my self very crafty. I was scrapbooking and using my first small Cricut. This is about the time I learned how to sew as well. Pinterest just started to become popular, so I was gaining ideas for hobbies to try. I tried my hand at a few wine bottle crafts (many bottles of wine were drank to do those :)), a few crochet projects. A few scarfs, some baby hats, and a couple of blankets. That's when others started to take notice that I was getting pretty good at making baby hats. Though I wasn't convinced I was good enough to sell them. There were that OCD tendencies and self-doubt again? Perfectionist?that's me! I wasn't brave enough to jump into Etsy or any type of business. At that time we were newly wedded and off doing things with friends. I didn't have time to take orders and sit on the couch crocheting all the time. So about four years went by. I was working as a Dental Assistant and going to school. My husband was doing phenomenal in his career. Ranking up, awards, learning so much. I couldn't have been more proud. We were having so much fun with friends and going out to eat. Then life changed when I got pregnant.
We were overjoyed. After trying for almost a year, emotions were running high and finally! We were going to be parents!!! I had so many ideas about nursery decor running through my mind. Pinterest boards overload. I had a great pregnancy, no sickness, some cramping here and there if I slacked on my water intake. I was doing good, working away and waiting for our little man to make his arrival. The nursery was so important to me, I was determined to make his room the best room in the house. We started with the theme of Monkeys and it all took off from there. We painted the walls light blue. I bought wooden letters for his name and painted them green. I made him a pap
er mobile to hang above the rocking chair. I made another monkey mobile to hang above his changing table. He was going to have a lot to look at. We also purchased vinyl stickers of a palm tree and swinging vine monkeys to go above his crib. (I didn't have my fancy new Cricut at that time, otherwise I would have cut them out myself.) His room was perfect. My husband even built him a stuffed animal zoo.
Our son Carson made his arrive mid-October 2015 and wow I had no clue what love was until I saw that child. He filled every void of my heart and soul that I didn't know was empty. There is nothing in the world like hearing and seeing your baby for the first time. After my maternity leave was up I went back to work for about a month and realized I needed and wanted to be home with him. The moon and the stars aligned too cause the month after I quit my job my husband told me something that would alter my life forever.
WE WERE MOVING TO BELGIUM. You can see my reaction and how he told me here.
So we were set to move to Belgium July 21, 2016. Which meant we had four months to prep and sell our house in Colorado Springs. We also had to declutter, downsize the amount of stuff we accumulated over that past 5 years, and mentally prepare for what was about to happen. Air Force family lifestyle to the max. Oh yeah, and we were new freaked out parents all on top of that.
Fast forward to July. We sold our home in a blink of an eye, were packed, and living in a hotel a 2 weeks before we left and over a month when we arrived in Belgium. I will write more about European experiences in the future. I'm not going to go into too much detail in this post. I mainly want to talk about our house hunting and our quaint Belgium home.
Needless to say, we lived on a potato farm in the farm country of Belgium. Just let that sink in for a minute if you are a born and raised convenience loving American. It was a lifestyle change for sure. Lots to learn about this new country and lots to do to make this wee little home ours.
It sure is beautiful though, right?
With living in a smaller house I had to decide what to put out or what to put in storage. I would say we did very well with simplifying our living. Living out of suitcases for months on end really put into perspective what thing you need and what things you don't. I found myself getting rid of a lot of junk and decluttering even more than what I did before the move. I am a sentimental person and there are things that I hold on to. But let's be real, you can not hold onto everything little thing. And my thought was "I can't be hauling junk all around the world, just get rid of it." An interesting fact about Europe is the people are charged extra taxes if they have closets in their homes. For this reason everyone uses wardrobes. Our house was extra special because we had a coat closet and pantry downstairs, plus a storage room upstairs. We lucked out! Another fun fact is the walls were concrete to hold heat/cold in. Each room had its own radiator to heat the room. The radiator had water running through it, which the water was heated by burning oil. Each room also had a door so you only had to heat what you needed to. Old system but not as wasteful. Our house was built in 1984 and our landlords, the potato farmers, only spoke a little bit of English which made things a bit difficult. All in all they were lovely people and I LOVED that cute little house. It really made the experience of living in Belgium that much more unique. We lived in Thieusies, Soignies, Belgium.
I am glad we were able to find a home that showed the true Belgian character. This home was cute and had everything we needed. The views of farmland out every window were breathtaking. Our landlords harvested potatoes, sugar beets, green beans, and wheat while we lived there.
It was not large and luxurious, but it was adorable. This is the kitchen. It had a European refrigerator (which didn't have a freezer) hidden within the cabinets, with a laundry room off to the right equipped with wash and dryer (this is also not a European thing) hookups as well as room for an American sized refrigerator (which had our freezer). Also off to the right was my rare pantry. Such a spoiled American girl.
We were so excited about the wood burning fireplace. We could just see us making memories here and watching Carson grow. My mind was spinning with ideas on how to decorate it.
These are the stairs and yes they are a bit scary at the top. They were steep and made a sharp turn at the top, which made we nervous while holding Carson until I got more used to them. Carson wasn't allowed on the stairs. We were lucky that our landlords installed the carpeting. A lot of our friend's stairs did not have carpet which made for some stories about falling.
This is the master bath. Super spacious and luxurious. I.m totally kidding. This isn't the best picture, but the shower was tiny! I can't count how many times we smacked our elbows in that shower or how many times I hit my had on the ceiling while brushing my hair. Although it was small, we did love the window in there. Pulling down it completely opened.
Across the street from us was a dairy farm that produces butter. Every day we walked down the street to see the cow. Carson absolutely loved them.
Here I am sitting on a huge pile of sugar beets. They were massive and everywhere.
This was Carson's bathroom because it was the only bathroom with the tub. Yes, that is a bidet. No, it was not used.
I am going to wrap it up about the Belgium house. I could talk about it forever.
After our Belgium adventures were over the Air Force then and now has sent us to San Antonio, Texas. Here we have again purchased our home. Which by the way we did while still living in Belgium. Online shopping for a house is pretty nerve-racking. I wouldn't suggest doing this, but if you need to like we did, make sure you have a great realtor!
We closed and moved into our home on Halloween 2017. Another date to remember. We love this home so much. Knowing all of the things we didn't know when we bought our first home in Colorado Springs made buying this home a bit easier because we were now experienced homeowners and we knew exactly what we wanted. This home checked every single one of our must-have boxes. It was perfect.
Also homeownership felt a bit different this time around as well. I knew I wanted to be more risky with my decorating. I wanted to not just decorate in neutrals but I wanted to be bold and have fun with this house. Which as soon as we moved and got somewhat settled I started painting. My office and Carson's room. Which you can watch here.
These are the two biggest projects we have done to the house so far. We have lots more in mind and I can't wait to share as they happen. For now, that is a long enough blog. I hope that gives you a good insight to who I am. Thanks for reading.
Happy Homemaking <3
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