I've lived in our house for about 4 years now.  When I moved in the house was never supposed to be a permanent thing, too close to the parental units for ANYONES comfort.  Much to every one's surprise, especially my own, I decided that I liked the house and once I adjusted to my parents being able to see into my backyard during the winter months it was all fine.  Luckily Spencer agreed that he liked the house, and so we decided to make this a long term thing.  For several years I rented rooms in the house to supplement income, which also led to me not wanting to do any real projects on the house, because lets be honest, renters do not generally care for things the same way that the owner does. 

 We have been focusing on the interior of the house for a while now, little things like painting and also the floors etc.  What I have ignored up until yesterday is the yard.  We have a huge front and back yard.  I fear we have been "that" house on the block.  Lots of weeds in the flower beds, our house REALLY needs a new coat of paint etc.   Yesterday we (I really) bit the bullet and went to Home Depot/WalMart and purchased 15 bags of mulch, 7 bags of top soil, and about $60 worth of plants and bushes to make the front of the house look not quite so bad.  We started at 10am, and worked until 7pm.  We hauled, poured, dug and planted until my mom and I were literally hobbling like 90 year old women and covered in blisters. 

I don't have any before pictures of the front of the house, mainly because I'm embarrassed at how it looked!  In the pictures, anything you see that is covered in mulch was covered in weeds.  The red bench was an off white color that looked like it had been primed and then forgotten!  The bench came from another property my parents bought to use as a rental.  I decided the front of the house could use a pop of color to go against all the brown we have there.   The other things that got painted were the window planter boxes.  They were an unfinished wood, and got a healthy coat of white to help them pop against the brown.  Now I know that the front of the house still looks pretty white trash.  As soon as the weather breaks a little bit and we get some less than 90 degree temps the plan is to paint the outside this fall.   

The front of the house was so neglected, we have these viney weeds that pretty much strangle anything else that may want to live around it.  Once we got rid of those little guys we had to fill in the low areas and try to block off this low area at the side of the house that pretty much just hemorrhages soil anytime it rains.  I found some paver stones on the side of the house that worked well, and so we decided to incorporate them into the rest of the front as well to tie it all together. 

The only thing I didn't get to that I really wanted to finish yesterday was staining the Adirondack chair on the porch.  We have another one that we need to put together and until we put the second one together I don't want to take the stickers off the one on the porch (just to be sure that everything comes together correctly).  I did find this stain by Krylon that comes in a spray can! When it is time to get those 2 chairs stained I think it will make the process a lot easier!  Spencer put the other chair away when we got it, and I have no clue where it went!  Since he is away this weekend I will just have to be patient and have him look when he gets back from the bachelor party!

Next weekend the plan is to stain the back deck.....hopefully I can move by then to work on that!

projects, flowers and 50% off sales....

Well yesterday I was over at my parents house for dinner (BBQ ribs, yum).  I talked to my dad some more about the floors, I think we can have the main part of the floors done this weekend, which leaves the trim and all the detail work to still complete before the shower.  He's not convinced that we can be done by the shower, I think its doable as long as its a focus for us both.  We shall see, I really hope we can have most of it done, so at least its not screaming "half done project". 

This weekend Spencer is gone at a bachelor party like I mentioned yesterday.  This weekend I'm planning to prettify the front of the house.  My mom told me that Westlake hardware is having their 50% off plant sale now and suggested that I head over there to check it out.  I found the coolest little plants!  They are decorative peppers.  Yes I said peppers.  Here are some pictures of what I bought for the front of the house.  I have no idea why I was so excited about these pepper plants, I bought 3 of them for the flower bed in front of the house, and then bought some other plants with some nice red blooms on them.  The red flowers will go very nicely with the red and white bench that I'm going to paint in the front of the house.  The other thing I'm going to do in the front is weed (much needed) and mulch the front area including around the 2 large bushes in the front.  I feel like it will finish off the front and make it look like I actually care, ate least a little.  All in all we are talking 6-7 bags of mulch, at least 2 kinds of spray paint, some stain for the chair, and some weed killer.  Home Depot and I will become very good friends this weekend! (while my wallet and I will probably not be on speaking terms when its all said and done...) 

date night

Well last night we went and had a date night at the movies.  We saw Toy Story 3 and it was super cute!  We saw it in IMAX 3-D, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well behaved all the kids in the theatre were!  I am usually the movie snob who wants to go see movies in the Cinema Suites at AMC because there are no kids allowed in the theatre....I know I know I wonder why my in-laws think I hate kids.  Spencer takes off tomorrow morning for his best friends bachelor party.  They will have a fun filled weekend of golf, beer, golf and more beer.  As long as they all come back alive I will consider it a win.  While he is away I will be working on the house (shocker I know).  We currently have a (very) ugly bench on our front porch that I plan to revamp and also a chair that needs to be stained/sealed on the front porch.  I'm also hoping that my dad can come over and help me finish up the floors.  I would REEEAAALLLYYYY be excited about that. 
I took a little quiz on-line about my design style, I think it came out pretty accurate, I think I may be a little more Rustic Revival than traditional country but.....here are the results!
Sproost says my interior design style is:

50% Traditional Country
50% Rustic Revival


Traditional Country

Even if your backyard isn't acres of farmland and you don't actually have a chicken coop, your house sure brings you back to a time when that was the case. You love spaces that feel casual and lived in. Furniture is practical and comfortable, and yet at the same time its very stylish. The best part of country style is how much it highlights collection and found objects. Antiques here, garage sale finds there and Aunt Milly's hand-me-downs throughout. Unique items that used to serve very practical purposes are now on display, and their history seems to permeate the home. Each space in the home seems to invite friends and family to come in and stay a while. There is a true sense of home felt throughout.
For color, spaces can go either bright and airy or soft and muted. Think of the countryside in spring and summer with yellows, bright greens and blues. Or you can go for more of a fall country day, and go a bit darker but still stay in the earth tones. Dark browns, reds and greens. Either direction you go in, be it light or dark, the key is warmth. Traditional country rooms rarely, if ever, feel cold.

Rustic Revival
You can take kid out of the country but you can't take the country out of the kid... or is your theme "you can take the kid out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the kid?" Either way you play it, you are one of the unique individuals who loves a mix of modern and country. The clean lines of the modern softened by rustic /vintage elements is the perfect mix in your mind. And can we blame you? You've taken the best aspects of two popular designs and mixed them in a manner that appeals young and old alike. A subtle background of white or light colors provides a nice canvas for all the wonderful flea market, eBay or garage sale finds as well as the classic modern pieces that you love.

When it comes to color, think light, casual and airy. White, pale gray or beige, khaki and sage; all of these colors make nice, subtle backdrops for Urban Country style. Think of the colors of natural linen, concrete, and if you'd like to go dark, use the dark brownish-black of iron or the deep burnt orange of rust. The key is to keep the spaces feeling open (go modern!) and yet warm (yay for rustic!), and by going light on the walls and major pieces and more color on the accents and accessories you can achieve this mix really well.

This is my excited face

I have been wanting to buy a Kindle or Nook or some other e-reader for a little bit now.  I like the idea of not having to lug books around in my purse, car or suitcase on vacation.  I'm an avid reader and can breeze through several hundred pages a night if the story keeps my interest.  Going on our honeymoon last year I took literally 8 books on our week trip and read them all.  My bag was heavy!
I am a little hesitant about the whole e-reader thing though, what if after spending (at least) $200 I don't like not having an actual physical book in my hand to read, and turn the pages etc.  I would be so upset with myself for wasting that much $$.  Its kept me in the research stage of this process for longer than normal for me.
Yesterday I discovered that the IPhone has a Kindle app! 
Now apparently this was common knowledge for the rest of the world because no one I expressed my excitement to seemed nearly as thrilled as I was.....or maybe it's because I'm a little bit nerdy and was REALLY excited about it?
So I downloaded the (free much to Spencer's pleasure) app to my phone and set about deciding which of the many thousands of titles available to me I wanted to try out.  I decided to go with The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan.  Its a YA novel (same guy who wrote the Percy Jackson series) because I figured it would be an easy read that if I couldn't really get into the whole "book on IPhone" deal that it wouldn't be too much of a disaster.  I tore through it in a few hours after work and have decided that I could get used to this whole thing......
Now I just have to decide which kind I want to get when the time comes!

oh the weekend.....

Well this weekend was a lot of fun, and 0% productive around the house.  It was one of our (many) wedding filled weekends this year. Since we got married last Sept we have been to 5 weddings, and have 3 more to attend this summer/fall.  Next year so far we only have 2 that I know of....I'm hoping that we are nearing the end of the time in our lives that we spend 1/2 -3/4 of our summers at weddings and other wedding related events.  Don't misunderstand me, I'm SO excited for the 3 weddings we have coming up, 2 of them are Spencer's best friends from elementary school, and the other is one of my best friends from college, I'm just looking froward to being able to take a summer vacation next year! 
The floors are coming along nicely, I really think that we should be done with them in the next week or so.  We are at the point we need to remove the railing around our living space in order to keep going forward, I worry about this because George is not the smartest puppy in the world, and I have visions of him skidding off the edge of the floors and falling down the stairs.  So we are going to need to find a day that Spencer and I can both be home to just knock it all out and be done with it.  Then we just have to enter into the "finishing stage" of putting down the "shoe" so there isn't a gap between the floor and baseboard.  It all has to be totally done by the 7th so I can put the house back together before Megan's shower at out house on the 10th. 
Yesterday was Anna's birthday, Megan and I met her out by the pool and spent the afternoon soaking up the sun.  Megs and I soaked up a little more than we needed to, my shoulders are a bit fried now.  I went home after the pool and pretty much fell asleep on the couch.  It was a much needed restful day after the crazy weekend!

Long Day

Well yesterday was the day that would not end, not in a bad way I just feel like I was up for a long time! I'm currently in training at work for my new job, and all new classes have to do a community service project during training. Since it's summer and everyone and their mom apparently does community service during the summer weekends (who knew?) we did ours during the work week!

 

We left Olathe at 3pm and drove out to Harvesters (www.harvesters.org), a food bank that serves 26 counties around the KC metro area and feeds over 66,000 people weekly. We worked there from 4-8pm, sorting food and other products and then took a tour of the facility and watched a video about some of the programs they have for kids in the area. My group sorted proteins, anything from meat in a can (I had no idea so many different kinds of meats came canned until yesterday), beans, to ravioli and spaghetti O's It was really amazing to see the amount of food and the space that they have there. Over 200,000 square feet of space and 40k of that is a huge freezer/fridge area. We left there at about 8pm, a little tired and sore but all glad that we had helped give back to the community. The Dole boxes you see in the photos are the boxes we filled with the sorted food, the large blue bins are what the other volunteers fill with the donated food and then we sorted down into more specific categories.

I got home to find my dad hard at work on the floors! *happy dance* He got the part of the dining room done that we needed help with and an additional few rows done as well. You may or may remember a previous post where I mentioned that my dear little dog George does not like my dad at all....so George was stuck in his kennel while Tom was working. So when my dad left at 10:30 we stayed up for a while to get George out and let him run around and stretch his little puppy legs. I was a tired kiddo this morning let me tell you! On a positive note though we are at a place we can continue to work on the floors this week. I'd really like to have the dining room done by the weekend.

The Lost Weekend....lost in books

Well the progress on the floors has come to a halt. We reached a point where we need my dad's help and he is at the lake for a few more days with my mom and nephew. Once he gets back we should have one or two more evenings of work and then we can start the fun part.....decorating!
This weekend I holed up in my house with an awful headache. I have a history of migraines, and was really apprehensive that one was coming. Luckily for me it stayed at a dull ache for the most part. The only bright side to the headache that wouldn't die is that I spent the weekend on the couch alone and got to read to my hearts content.
On Friday I started a new book, The Passage by Justin Cronin. I really enjoyed it, it was totally up my alley. I'm a sci-fi kid at heart, aside from the lack of dog dying it reminded me a lot of I Am Legend. I am at work and don't have it with me, but here is a plot summary I found online.... http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/2435/The-Passage “It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

After reading that (770 pages approx) I started on the Tres Navarre series by Rick Riordan -- who wrote the Percy Jackson books. The Tres Navarre series is a mystery series set in TX. I'm enjoying it so far, I think that Spencer would like it as well and I'm going to try to get him to start this one when I'm done! Here's the plot summary for Big Red Tequila, by Rick Riordan http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Big-Red-Tequila/Rick-Riordan/e/9780553576443
Meet Tres Navarre...tequila drinker, Tai Chi master, unlicensed P.I., with a penchant for Texas-size trouble.
Jackson "Tres" Navarre and his enchilada-eating cat, Robert Johnson, pull into San Antonio and find nothing waiting but trouble. Ten years ago Navarre left town and the memory of his father's murder behind him. Now he's back, looking for answers. Yet the more Tres digs, trying to put his suspicions to rest, the fresher the decade-old crime looks: Mafia connections, construction site payoffs, and slick politicians' games all conspire to ruin his homecoming.
It's obvious Tres has stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble. He gets attacked, shot at, run over by a big blue Thunderbird—and his old girlfriend, the one he wants back, turns up missing. Tres has to rescue the woman, nail his father's murderer, and get the hell out of Dodge before mob-style Texas justice catches up to him. The chances of staying alive looked better for the defenders of the Alamo....

So that was my weekend, my dad should be back in town soon so we can finish up these dang floors! I cannot wait to start the next project I have slated for us, re-staining the deck and doing some work on our closet!

Progress!

Last night was an amazing success. Spencers parents came up at like 2 in the afternoon and stayed until after 7pm. Most of the hallway is done and we are almost ready to move into the dining room and start that space. Steve (Spencers dad) was able to cut around the doorways and get the hall closet at the end of the hallway done too.

I know I sounded like a brat yesterday about how the house looks and Spencers parents coming up, I just want to reiterate that I am SO grateful for the help on this project; but there is this part of me that feels the need to prove that I am a good wife and that we have a nice home. I know its silly, and that my FIL/MIL would never judge based on the house being in dissary like this, but its in the back of my head.

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday we installed some more of the floors, I love seeing the progress and I cannot wait to see how it looks when we have an entire room done and can really get a vision of how it will look. The curtains I ordered should be in this week as well, I am so excited to see how all of this comes together, and to have time to read a book! I actually went out and bought a few new books yesterday to read; I came to the conclusion I need a break for my sanity! I got a book by Rick Riordan, Big Red Tequila, the first book in the Tres Navarres series to see how I like it since I really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series he wrote; also a book by Jennifer Weiner, Best Friends Forever that I’ve been eyeing for a while.
Last night AnnaB and I got the invites to Megan’s shower addressed and almost ready to go out, AnnaB is getting postage today and some inserts for a game we are planning for the shower as well to include. Yesterday we also finalized the plans for Megan’s bachelorette party; we are going wine tasting in this super cute little town in MO, staying the night in a house we rented out and driving back the next day. I think it will be really fun and a good way to relax a few weeks before the big day!
Let me preface this portion by saying, I got lucky with my in-law's, I really do enjoy seeing them and spending time with them, they are wonderful. My only issue with them is that in the year + that Spence has lived in the house (he moved in when we got engaged Feb '09 and we got married Sept '09) my in-law's have not once come over to the house at all. We have invited them up for dinner on several occasions and every time they say something along the lines of "why don’t you guys come here instead", which we do every single time. Spence asked his dad to come up and help us with part of the hard wood floors tonight, he is good with tools like I’ve mentioned before and we have some intricate cutting that needs to be done for the hallway and closets tonight. Great no problem he will be up after dinner......and so will my MIL and SIL. I am (irrationally I admit) not happy that they have declined to come up every single time we’ve asked when the house was put together and looked nice, but now that the house is in shambles, our stuff is all strewn about, shoved into random rooms and we have scrap wood and sawdust all over the place of course they'd like to come up. I love that they want to help (and do REALLY appreciate it, they are super nice and I know they wont be judging the house and how it looks etc), but I wish that the first time they saw our home it didn’t look like crap.
On a sadder note, a wonderful lady that I’ve known for a majority of my life passed away and we went to the visitation Sunday. It was amazing to see how many people were there to celebrate her life with her family. I saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager, it was wonderful to catch up with them, but at the same time I wish it had been under happier circumstances. She was an amazing person, and based on the number of people we saw there Sunday she will be very greatly missed.

Progress!

Today my poor puppy was stuck in his kennel all afternoon while my dad came over and helped us with the floors. George (dog) and my dad have a love/hate relationship, meaning George hates my dad and my dad is amused at the fact that George wont go anywhere close to him without barking and being his 15 lb ferocious self. I think the stress of all the extra people we've had over to help with the floors, the shop vac running overtime and the complete turmoil that our house has been for the past week has taken its toll on the pool little guy, hes a ball of stress lately!

On a positive note we did get the floor installation started! We currently have about 4 ft of floor installed, and most of what was done was the hard part, cutting around the entrance to the kitchen, fireplace etc. Seeing it down is really exciting and I'm even more anxious to see how it will all look finished.

Glass is half full!

Well last night was a half success! Met up with Anna after work at the gym and got some cardio in, then we headed for Hobby Lobby. On my lunch break I found a super cute pillow at Target that I decided to use as inspiration. We found 5 different fabrics to use in the living room. I also bought 3 over sized pillows to use as well, and the other 2 fabrics will be used to recover the pillows that we already have on the couch. All in all it was a fulfilling trip!

The other half of the night, however, did not turn out quite the same way! I called my dad to find out when he was planning to come over to the house to work on the floors; he informed me his work schedule changed and he wouldn't be over till SATURDAY! I'm starting to get very frustrated trying to work around so many different schedules. Granted, I know we signed up for this by asking my dad to help us instead of hiring someone to do it for us. My dad is infamous for having his own mental idea of how long something"should" take and not letting anyone else in on that, which leads to frustration to those of us around him who are trying to not live in a construction site! (and yes, I've tried asking him for some more info on his schedule, the overall project outline etc, its useless he doesn't give answers. But like I said I knew we signed up for this and it is saving us well over 2k so I'm smiling. very. big. grin.) Here are some pics of the fabrics and pillow from yesterday. The brown and red with the circle pattern will be used for pillows that people can sit on the floor with and are a really heavy upholstery, the orange pattern and green will re-cover the 4 pillows we have on the couch now, and the gold will cover the other large pillow I bought and go on the couch as well!

Well here it goes!

This is my new blog which will contain posts about my life and activities. The basics, what books I'm reading, trips that we're taking, friends and fun! Right now we are in the middle of a rather massive project on the house, so plan on hearing quite a bit about that as well! I'll also try and post some pictures of the process! I'll start this post out by giving some basic information about me, in case we aren't already good friends!

I married the most amazing man, Spencer, on September 25, 2009. I have an amazing group of friends who are a constant supply of laughter, support and inspire me to be a better person. I would LOVE to be a stay at home wife, not mom. We have a fur baby named George, who also answeres to the name "butthead". Having a dog is a good thing for us, reminds me to be a grown up and act responsibly, but not 100% of the time! Every now and then I can stand in a huge group of people and feel totally alone, but not in a depressing kind of way.

We are currently installing hard wood floors in the main part of the house. Approx 600 square feet of flooring, we are running into issues with the way the house is set up and that there are a lot of areas we arent sure how to cover. The carpet hangs over some areas, and underneath some of those areas is just not in good shape. Thank God both my dad and FIL are handy with tools! Spencer and I are especially grateful for their skills right now. We are still in the prep phase of the process now, removing the carpet and treating the sub floor with Kilz to get rid of the animal smells courtesy of the previous owners. We are trying to work around my dad's work schedule, Spencers work schedule and the fact that we have no idea what we are doing! Last night we did one more coat of Kilz on the floors and I started priming some shelves we are also going to install along one wall. We have this one area in between the wall and the fireplace that is wasted space about 2 feet wide and all the way up that we are going to store our DVD's/games etc, I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would build the living room that way but this is one less thing I have to have out in the middle of the room. Spencers dad (very kindly) built us a shelving system that will allow us to install the shelves and make them adjustable so we can customize them if our needs change. I tell ya, having a cabinet maker in the family is REALLY helpful!

Tonight I'm off on a decor finding mission with my friend Anna, she has a fantastic eye for color and I'm hoping that we can find some really pretty throw pillows for the couch, a rug for under the dining room table and for under the couches. Our floors are a really dark brown, we have white trim and a green wall in the living room. I am looking for some reds, golds, coppers and overall really warm colors to complete the look.

Here are some pictures of the project so far, I'll update more as we get more done. Hopefully tonight we will be able to start laying the floor!