We Got Professional Photos Of The House

The following images make me wish I could carry a professional photographer around in my pocket at all times. But since I cannot, at least we had the pleasure of having one over for the afternoon. Local-ish photographer Andrea Hubbell (she’s from nearby Charlottesville, VA) is doing a series of “living spaces” photo shoots and asked if we hoped to participate for lively. Since we are (a) not too camera shy – at least when it comes to our house and (b) consistently excited to see our home through someone else’s eyes (especially someone a lot better with a camera), we gave an keen yes.

And boy are we glad we did. Not only was Andrea especially pleasant (and quite stealthy too – we nearly forgot she was here a couple of times) but her photos are striking:

Of course we enjoyed seeing the wider-angled full room shots, but what was most amusing for us was seeing all the little details that Andrea picked up along the way. You know, the things we hardly notice and never think to shoot and share. So we thought you folks might get a kick out of that too. What is a trip to the house team without a shot of Sherry’s pile o’ paint chips after all?

Be sure to hit up Andrea’s journal to see the rest of her photos of our house (barely half of them are shown here). They were taken about three weeks ago, which is why some rooms (ahem, bedroom and living room) are already looking semi-out-of-date and others (this means you laundry room) are not shown (since our little built-in shelves were simply getting began when she arrived). Oh and here we are with Andrea. Most surprising thing ever? Sherry’s not wearing a black shirt. Crazy, right? I hardly recognized her.

But wait – there is more. Andrea was not the only person to capture our house lately. We got a quite sweet email the other day from a 16-year-old reader from the Netherlands named Karlijn. She’s an avid fan of the video game The Sims, and thought it would be funny to use her Sims-ing skills to virtually recreate our house. And considering the limitations of the game (she said she would have brought in a Burger if she could have), we are fairly darn impressed by how close she got!

First we have our guest room with the teal walls, green headboard, and two slipper chairs that look nearly exactly like the ones we have:

We chuckled at the accuracy of the “alley” on the left side of this screen capture of our living room (complete with a big gray sectional, a green rug, the bedroom door, and a giant paned window simply like our house):

And how true-to-life it is that our windowless kitchen is fairly dark with the lights off? Perhaps you do not know that so I will answer for you: quite true.

Our go-to is likely the Sims-ified space that is Clara’s room (although the highway that leads into her window kind of cracked us up, since the view is a little distinct in real life- but we are sure Karlijn did not have much control over that):

And perhaps Karlijn was dropping us some decorating “hints” along the way too. Like perhaps we should add a zebra rug in the bedroom? Ooh la la.

Or some outdoor lighting to the patio? (Totally agree with her on this one, btw – we are thinking about big bulb string lights).

Perhaps some Sims players out there can find Karlijn’s place in that giant Sims universe to virtually drop in on on our house. Is that how it works? I am so video game dumb it is not even funny. Last time I played The Sims it was called Sim City and I think I gave up after a tornado and a monster attack simultaneously took out all of my skyscrapers. Anyway, we are sending out a big thanks to both Andrea and Karlijn for taking the time to capture our home using their respective talents. It is consistently lively to see a familiar place through someone else’s eyes. Have you folks ever tried to recreate your house in a video game or with online room-planning software or anything? Or seen photos that someone else took of your house that make you take notice of little things that you’d never truly “see” on your own?

Psst- We announced this week’s giveaway winners. Click here to see if you are one of them.