keep livin' man

Did everyone have a nice weekend?! What about your Monday, everything Mondays are made of? We spent our weekend in Cleveland! One of my dearest friends got married this weekend! I’ve known him since elementary school and he is one of my oldest (longest?) friends! It was a beautiful wedding, the bride was breathtaking and groom looked handsome as ever. I LOVE weddings, the happiness is contagious and you can’t help but have a happiness hangover for a few days after.

bride and groom (obvi. duh)

DISCLAIMER: it looks like he has something on his face.. he didn't. (happy, honeyyyy?!)

some high school friends

Since I’m in a good mood, let's continue on with the next room, shall we? How about the living room? Where all the living is done. Last week I mentioned that we are living like college students and I have the perfect example- We have a make shift TV console (an end table) and we only have our love seat in the living room. We put our couch in the basement and are planning on purchasing new stuff for the living room in a couple of weeks. Our current stuff is only a year old but it's not enough stuff for our big living room plus we quickly learned that the fabric has teeny tiny hands on it and likes to hold Tucker's hair as tight as it can. As you can imagine this is extremely obnoxious since the couch is brown and the monkey is white. So please ignore the makeshift furniture!

walking in from the front door.



by the front window



standing in the kitchen

standing at the front window looking towards kitchen

beautiful tv stand

one of my best purchases... ever.

close up of the pretty brick

As you can see, we still have some work to do! We bought an entertainment center that should be here by the end of the week. RC has been on a mission to buy an entertainment center, he pretends it’s because he knows how much it bothers me to have our TV on an end table but in reality I know it’s because he just wants to set up his new stereo equipment and test the in ceiling speakers. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again- I’m not as dumb as I look. I just play along, I get what I want, he thinks he's doing something nice. Nobody gets hurt.  

Next time I’m show you our first DIY project. Guesses on what it was, or which room it was for?!

Until next time my pretties…   

COLLEGE

I’m going through this internal struggle of wanting to show the house off but then not wanting to. I want to show everyone how awesome it is but I don’t want people to see how it a little bit looks like a college house. You see, we moved from a 1 bedroom/1 bath apartment into a 3 bedroom/3 bath house and even though we had a ton of sh*t it still doesn’t really fill or finish off the house. We managed to have something in every room but it’s not “done”. Example, we have our love seat in our living room, couch in the basement with no TV and a desk in the upstairs spare bedroom with no chair. Stuff like that. And you see, stuff like that irks me. I want it all to be done. I want an endless supply of money to buy towels, rugs, chairs, curtains, boots, plates, bed spreads, etc. I just want it to FEEL like home. Are you picking up what I’m putting down? It still doesn’t feel like mine and I don’t know what will make it feel like that, pictures on the wall maybe or some furniture so the slight echo goes away? I’ll show you what I’m talking about, this is the front bedroom/office/work out room/my 2nd closet..

where do you sit?!

So you see, we still have a few boxes to unpack and some pictures to hang on the walls. The blue dots that you see on the wall behind the dresser are painters tape. We had to mark every spot in the house that needed to be touched up by paint/spackle. Pretty handy right?

The rest of the room looks like this

walking in from the hallway

almost entire room

Quick side note, check out the hardware on the doors. I LOOOVE the dark color (technical name TBD), it's different than most houses you see with nickle or chrome or gold.

Moving on to more pictures in the front bedroom:

standing at the front of the house/bedroom looking back

standing in the tub

Obviously we still need a shower curtain and some color in that bathroom. Is it giving you the shakes yet? Just me? Fine then. Another cool detail that I love about the house is the transoms (window things for the blondes) above each door. It lets natural light flow through the house soooooo nicely. I would never have thought to do that or that it would even make that much of a difference but it 100% does. It’s pretty amazeballs and I would suggest that anyone ripping down doorways to think about it!

I've had a ton of comments on the bathroom mirror and how much people liked it. We bought two of the bathroom mirrors from Home Goods. The price of the mirrors is about 1/3 of the price of the ones from home improvement store and I think they look higher end and more custom. This bathroom vanity is from Home Depot- it's actually from the Martha Stewart collection! She can do no wrong except take part in some insider trading! Doesn't make her any less of a decorator!

So that's 1/3 of the bedrooms/bathroom. Thoughts? Good size right? It's about 11'x12' and has it's own bathroom. anyone want to move in? I'll cut you a good deal if you bring a chair for the desk..

xo

E

 

moving on up.

Have you missed me?! I’ve missed you! I’ve been dying to blog for the last week but unfortunately it has been an insanely busy week. We moved in last Saturday!



storage unit



There is so much I want to tell you. I want to tell you all about the move, the week leading up to the move and all of love we were received the day of the move and the days leading up to the move. So I think I’ll start there. We had so many people offer their time and their well wishes, it was extremely overwhelming in that awesome, heartwarming kind of way! My parents drove down from New York, our friends Jess and Alex came over and RC’s parents came down as well! See! So much love.

surprise from my brothers and sister!

Even though I was on the receiving end of some flak from a bunch of people for the lack of posts since the move it was still sooo nice to hear that people care THAT much. You really know how to make a girl feel special!

Enough of the sappy stuff, let’s show you some house! Let’s start with the kitchen. I think you’ve waiting long enough but first let’s take a trip down memory lane. This is the kitchen that the house came with…

Totally not my style or functional for that matter. It’s really not a real comparison because where our new kitchen is was the new addition to the house so it technically didn’t exist in those original pictures. Remember, we added this extension?

The new kitchen is in the new part of the house and the new stairs are in the old kitchen. Totally easy to follow, right? I’m so excited for you to see the kitchen but I did want to start  by saying almost every single person that saw the cabinets in real life said “oh they look whiter in the pictures" so I took this picture of a white paper towel next to the off white cabinets..

Now you can’t say I’ve never did anything for you! I'm not 100% sure that even does the color justice but at least you can see how not-white they are.  Let's see more!!! Here is a shot of the kitchen if you’re walking in from the front door.

We’ve since put in appliances, here are some pictures I just took. They still have to fix the top of the range hood but we’re getting there!!!!

We have over the cabinet and under the cabinet spot lights and I LOVE it. It wasn’t something that was on my must have list but I think it makes the backsplash pop. Speaking of backsplash, this was something that RC and I splurged on. It’s a natural stone and I really think it polishes off the kitchen. I took some close up pictures because I don’t think the above pictures do it justice and it’s just to pretty to not mention in detail.

So what do you think of the kitchen? Worth the wait or what? I LOVE it, it’s my favorite room in the house. RC even loves the off white cabinets and I love the 32” inch TV in the kitchen. EVERYBODY WINS! I have so much more to tell you and show you so keep checking back, I’ll work through a level or room at a time. We’re pretty much completely unpacked but we’re still in the market for furniture for our bedroom and the living room. It’s coming together, slowly but there is definite progress!

xoxo

E

everybody on the floor

We have floors, people! It finally doesn’t look like a construction zone! I loooove them! Like I mentioned a few weeks ago, we went with the handscraped hardwood floors. You can see in some of the pictures that they have a texture to them!




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There was a lot going on at the house today. Multiple people were there and everyone was busting their butts to help get the house done and get it ready for move in! We are so thankful for everything they’ve done!

1.       Drywall

2.       Decks

3.       Paint

4.       Trim work

5.       Lights installed

6.       Flooring in bathrooms

7.       Flooring on first/second floor- TOMORROW wed 4/11

8.       Basement flooring

9.       Bedroom doors hung

10.   Kitchen cabinets

11.   Bathroom cabinets- Thursday 4/4

12.   Granite Countertop in kitchen- TODAY! Monday 4/9 (happy bday RC)

13.   Plumbing fixtures installed- toilet, sinks, shower heads- Friday 4/5

14.   Closet shelving/bathroom mirrors hung- Friday 4/5

15.   Security system installed

16.   Appliances installed- next week

17.   Backsplash

18.   Cornice

19.   Touch up paint

Now that almost everything is checked off the list there is still one thing that we need before we’re allowed to call it home… an inspection. Dun dun dunnnnnn.

a cucumbered pickle

Starters, this post’s title is a nod to my baby sister. Cait is extremely smart and she is the kindest, sweetest, most kind hearted person you will ever meet. For example, she didn’t wear shoes today to bring awareness to under privileged kids in Africa, or wherever. See:

TOMS

I didn’t mention common sense in the things I love about her for a reason because, well, there’s not much to love. Caitlin recently learned that pickles are cucumbers and that you can pickle just about anything. She was completely in shock about it and I found it hilarious.  Now, that brings me to the cucumbered pickle we faced today.  Our appliances were delivered and our beautiful fridge was um, juuuust a few inches too big to go through the front door or through the back door and up the stairwell. I always knew football was a game of inches but I never know home building was as well! Since the doors weren't big enough, out came the front window and in came the “2^nd heaviest fridge at Sears”. Which is typical and I should have guessed this would all happen. I didn’t take any pictures of them bringing in the fridge because I was trying not to vomit, pass out or cry but here is the fridge in the kitchen/dining room.

I’m still not ready to show you the kitchen because I want to devote an entire post to it so unfortunately I can’t show you the rest of the appliances, just know they’re in there. SORRY! You already see some of the granite up there! How about if I show you a close up of the backsplash? Good compromise? Here is it!

Still want more? Fine, here is the island complete!!!!! Few call outs- the pendant lights will be shortened and there is about 4 layers of dust on there. Ahhhh I’m so excited to show youuuuuuuu

Ready?!

Readyyyyy…..

Aahhhhhhhh!!!! I LOVE IT. Can’t get enough of it. What do you think?! I even cropped this picture just so you couldn’t see the backsplash and granite and cabinets together because I’m sneaky like that! muuhahah. In other house news, we have stair banisters!! They photograph super dark and almost look black, but again, I promise they’re not that dark!

Up next- floors will be installed TOMORROW!!!!!!!

ROLL CALL:

1.       Drywall

2.       Decks

3.       Paint

4.       Trim work

5.       Lights installed

6.       Flooring in bathrooms

7.       Flooring on first/second floor- TOMORROW wed 4/11

8.       Basement flooring

9.       Bedroom doors hung

10.   Kitchen cabinets

11.   Bathroom cabinets- Thursday 4/4

12.   Granite Countertop in kitchen- TODAY! Monday 4/9 (happy bday RC)

13.   Plumbing fixtures installed- toilet, sinks, shower heads- Friday 4/5

14.   Closet shelving/bathroom mirrors hung- Friday 4/5

15.   Security system installed

16.   Appliances installed- next week

17.   Backsplash

18.   Cornice

19.   Touch up paint

We just need a few inspections after that and we're good to go...or something like that! fingers/toes/eyes crossed!

xoxo

e