Why Did I Start This Blog Again?

Wow! Teaching kindergarten, decorating a new house, and just life in general have really gotten in the way of my updating this blog. I've spent more time and energy in the past few months lesson planning than cleaning the house so I have ZERO house update photos to post. Lame, I know. But, I have been feeling especially nostalgic about our wedding so I thought I'd post a few of my favorite wedding pics. Is nostalgia allowed after only a year and a half of marriage?

Fake Books?

In my search for chocolate brown color schemes, I found this inspiration pic. Love everything about it, but check out the bookshelf. What in the world?!?!

As Soon As School Starts...

"You're a teacher? Wow, you must love having the summer off." Right. Actually, most teachers either work all summer (i.e. teaching summer school, tutoring, working another part-time job) or they are broke for three months. I'm working a bit this summer, but definitely have to rein in spending during these months. So, here's my "As Soon As School Starts" wish list. Good thing we live 20 minutes from IKEA! :-)

1. New Kitchen Light Fixture

Ikea FADO Pendant:

2. Shoe Storage

Would love to get two of these to put side-by-side on our front porch.

Ikea GREVBACK Bench:
3. Living Room Rug

Haven't decided on one yet, but here is the current favorite.

From Dash & Albert:

Or maybe this darker gray...

4. Curtains!! I'll wait on these until after we have new windows installed throughout the house. Fun to look though!

IKEA Vivan curtains for the living room: 

Living room window inspiration:

Just realized my blog has turned in to a way for me to manage my world of lists. Nice. Happy 4th of July! 

The Someday List

I guess all new homeowners have one of these. Some call it the 5 or 10-year list. We call it our Someday List because we have no idea when we'll actually be able to do these projects and if we'll even live in our house long enough to get to them. But it's sure fun to dream! And now, a few entries on our Someday List. I'll admit I've been collecting pics for our Someday List for awhile and can't remember where I got most of them. If I used your pic, let me know!

1. Butcher Block Island

We have a fabulous (huge!) island in our kitchen, but the tiled surface is dreadful for baking, cooking, etc. and it's really dark so it sucks a lot of light out of the room. I'd love to replace the top with sealed butcher block. Perfect for baking loads of Christmas cookies and it would look lovely with all the natural woodwork in our home.


2. Tile the Kitchen Floor

Right now we have hardwood floors throughout the main level of the house. They are in pretty good shape, but there are sections in the kitchen that look a little rough. We'd like to lay tile to define the kitchen area and create a more cooking/baking/messy-friendly space. I'd also like to install a nice wood transition piece from the tile to the hardwood. Isn't that pretty? If Andrew can build a canoe, surely he can build this, right?


3. Kitchen Backsplash

I love me a white tile backsplash.


4. Recycled Concrete Patio

Ok, so this might actually happen this summer, but I have a feeling it will be more of a Someday type thing. We jackhammered our broken sidewalk and steps and plan to use the concrete chunks to build a patio.


And the list continues...but I'll stop there for now.

Long Time No Blog

Wow. The past month has been insanely busy. Andrew & I both interviewed for (and got!) new teaching jobs, I went to NYC for my college reunion, we spent a weekend in the Boundary Waters, and we've done a ton of work on the house.

And now, a month in pictures.

Friday night happy hour? No, we like to stay home and play with a jackhammer.

Goodbye ugly concrete path.


Hello lovely brick path and landscaping. I did all of the tilling, planting, and mulching. Andrew did the (almost finished) brick path. Our 4th of July project is to rebuild the steps. Say hi to rain barrel #3 too.

Beastly bushes before.

I dealt with this mess for seven hours one Sunday afternoon. I have never been so sore. What a workout! I found the following hiding in these bushes: a dozen empty booze bottles, tennis racket, child's shoe, glittery pink squirt gun (too bad it was broken), handful of barrettes, bottle of Gatorade (still 1/2 full), four pop cans, dead bird, compass, three flip flops, and a variety of other treasures.

Zen-like bushes after. I was originally planning to plant daylilies between the bushes, but the soil is really poor quality and there's landscape fabric dug down into it. So, I'll eventually get a truckload of river rock to fill it in.

Yay! A weekend break to the Boundary Waters. Where did THAT canoe come from?

Back to work.

A tilling party.

Veggies galore. You can also see the sight of a future brick path and MORE veggie space. Pretty much all grass in the sun will be turned into veggie garden. I'm hoping to put in raspberries next year. This year's transplants didn't make it.

Bad picture, but look! Peppers!

And lettuce!

I had a fabulous weekend in NYC catching up with my dearest friends at our five-year college reunion. Go Barnard!

What's next? Window treatments for the living room (I can't wait to rip apart these ugly mini-blinds!) and a new couch. Andrew did not want his picture taken :-)

Let's Take It Outside

Progress:


Up next: Till this area for raspberries.

And prune these beasts:

Productive Weekend

What a weekend!

Rain barrel #1 is set up. Still need to figure out where to put #2.

Started a veggie garden. So far I've planted tomatoes, cabbage, spinach, lettuce, a few Vietnamese herbs/lettuces, jalapeno, cayenne, basil, mint, thyme, and sage. I also found a strawberry plant near our garage and moved it in to this bed. Next step = raspberries!

Almost finished the extra room in our basement (aka the brother-in-law suite). I know the picture doesn't look like much, but we've put a ton of work in to this room so far:
-tore down two walls of paneling
-used hydraulic cement to waterproof foundation block
-ripped up a row of floor tile (following all Health Department guidelines of course :-)
-sealed floor tiles
-used LevelQuick to even out floor
-cleaned a zillion cobwebs off the ceiling with the shopvac
-tore about 200 nails out of the ceiling (I did this myself and surprisingly my neck doesn't hurt)
-painted remaining paneling (color is Behr almond cream)
-painted exposed brick walls with masonry waterproofing paint
-cleaned out the entryway to this room & painted the cement floor
-installed new carpet

We still need to rebuild the ledge above the blue foundation walls, put in a carpet runway in the entryway to the room, and put up some curtains. Someday we'll dig an egress window too.

This was the room at our inspection. Yes, that's a tanning bed.

And here's the room now. I know, doesn't look too impressive, but it's been a lot of work!

The carpet plan:

While Andrew and "the boys" were putting in the carpet, I went upstairs to paint the door in our living room. As soon as I was ready to do the first coat, I accidentally scraped the door with my nail and the existing paint came right off. Hmm, previous owners obviously used the wrong kind of paint. So I started scraping away. Here's a mid-scrape photo:

Busy weekend! We're loving our house a little bit more every day.

Fire!

We had our first fire in our fireplace last night. The great state of Minnesota is clearly confused because it's May and last night it was in the 30s. Brrr. The fireplace works great!

I also re-painted our living room this weekend. Love the new color. It's Behr Ocean Foam. Next step is to paint the crown molding white because it looks very yellow (read: gross) next to the new paint color.

Reason #981 Why I Am NOT A Designer

So I painted our living room what I thought was a nice terra cotta color (see my post below for living room inspiration photos). Turns out it's more of a mauve. Not exactly what I was going for. My mother recommended green to contrast with our natural woodwork, but I wanted to do something different. Mother always knows best, right?

The tricky part is our very open floor plan means you can see pretty much everything from anywhere in the house. We love this "lofty/warehouse" feel, but it makes decorating a bit difficult.

The color is cayenne by Martha Stewart. Lovely color, just doesn't work here. Do I leave it and keep decorating the room or find another color? I'm thinking a green or gray.

BEFORE shot looking from kitchen in to living room:

Same view after paint job:


Looking in to office (aka room of randomness):


Love our fireplace and bookshelves. All of this furniture (expect the coffee table) will head downstairs soon.


View from living room looking in to kitchen/dining:


Whether I paint again or not, I'll be decorating the living room pretty much from scratch.
Things to do:
1) move couch to basement family room and get new loveseat
2) find fabric to reupholster two chairs I have
3) buy area rug
4) arrange furniture with loveseat floating and facing the fireplace, two chairs facing in towards loveseat, and coffee table in the middle. perfect for cuddling in front of the fire!
5) decorate mantle
6) paint entry table, get new lampshade for entry table lamp, decorate entry area/wall
7) paint front door
8) remove mini-blinds and make curtains
9) get rid of creepy eyeball-looking spotlights and find new light fixtures

Suggestions for color palettes etc. greatly appreciated! This decorating novice needs all the help she can get :-)

It's The Little Things

The littlest things make me happy. Like the new door stopper we put on our front door so we don't smash a huge hole in the plaster wall. Yes, that makes me very happy. This photo makes me realize how dirty our door is though. Gross. Another painting project!

I Love

This Chair. So fun. It's from Crate & Barrel and a bit expensive. I do, however, have two great chairs that need to be reupholstered. Now to find this fabric....