I'm in trouble

In addition to my regular part-time job, I just started a seasonal job at Crate and Barrel. It's one of my favorite stores on Earth, and where we registered for 90% of our wedding gifts. When I heard the discount for seasonal employees is 30%, I thought "I can do that for six weeks!"

Not wanting to waste that discount, these are just some of the things I have my eye on.

Possibly the cutest ornaments ever. Felt owls and little squirrels (which are already close to selling out. I better hurry!):




The picture of these snowflake mercury glass votives doesn't do them justice. They're so beautiful in person:


We watched a video about these wineglasses. They're handblown and it takes 20 people to make one! The $6.95 each price doesn't seem so bad once you know that.

While we're on the topic of booze, look at this pretty, pretty ice bucket. I think this one is a must-have for me:

I seem to have a thing for cream and sugar sets. I have about 5 now. I guess I'm unintentionally collecting them. Cute cream and sugar set:Olive oil cruet (love that shade of green!):



Recycled glass jars:


This hurricane is throughout the store with all different types of filler around the candles, like pine boughs, pinecones, cranberries, etc. There are a million uses for this one piece:

I need this decorative bowl:

I've been looking for a fireplace screen, and this is truly the nicest one I've seen. I don't like a huge pattern on there-I want to see the fire. This one is unfussy and timeless:

Geez, apparently I'm obsessed with lamps:

That's not nearly all of it! I swear I'm not going to be buying everything. This is still a recession, and with the new house we're pretty much broke as a joke. But, um, it's not looking like many of my paychecks are gonna be making it out of the store alive.

Dining Room Update

Last time I posted about the dining room it looked like this:

But with the in laws coming to stay with us last weekend, I had to kick it into high gear and empty all those boxes onto the shelves. I'm sure there will be lots of tweaking (and of course seasonal changes!), but here are the shelves now:






The sliding door between the shelves leads to what will someday be our rec room complete with pool table and bar. Right now it's our "wreck" room, complete with piles of garbage, good stuff that won't have a home until further remodeling, and crap that may never have a home since we gained house square footage in our move but majorly downsized the garage.


And the whole dining room currently:



We didn't continue the wainscoting around to the wall on the right because we plan to widen that doorway to the kitchen when we do the kitchen remodel.

Things left to do in the dining room:

• Hang a curtain rod and curtain panels above the sliding door before Thanksgiving. This view doesn't scream "relaxing meal":

• Upgrade the dining set. That's Mark's bachelor table and chairs, and while it serves its purpose, it's a completely different style than the rest of the room. I have what I want in mind and as soon as we can afford it, I'll be doing a switcheroo.
  
• Maybe an area rug, but I don't know how I feel about a rug under the dining table. When I think of spills and crummies and another thing to vacuum, it seems like an easy no. But then again, when I'm sitting on the couch watching tv, I'll sometimes see a beach ball-sized dust bunny tumbleweed blow by under there and that's not really appealing either.
  
  

I ask you, area rugs under dining tables: yay or nay?

Ready for the inlaws

Guest room before:

Guest room today:

There's more to be done. We still need artwork on the walls and once I get a nice chair I'll show you the other side of the room. There's a very hideous temporary chair in there now. But, it's done enough to accommodate guests pretty comfortably. It's way nicer than the master right now.

By the way, does anyone know how to put a duvet into a duvet cover? This is how we (well, Mark) did it:

Seriously! There has to be an easier way. Share your wisdom so we don't have this every time we wash that thing.

Happy weekend!

DIY Partay!

So when I got an email from Kim at NewlyWoodwards, asking me to participate in her holiday Dare to DIY blog party, you could say I was excited. I *may* have run a circle around my desk. She's one of my very favorite bloggers due to her mad creativity and organizational skills. She makes a list of goals every month and actually accomplishes most of them. Imagine! I'm thrilled if I can get a load of laundry done in any given week. And yet she asked me to join in. Pinch me.

Every week of the holiday season, beginning Monday, November 16th, there will be a different DIY challenge to complete and share on the blog. Then we will link to our posts on Kim's blog. We're encouraged to check out each other's posts and comment. It's a great way to get to know each other better in blog land and get loads of creative inspiration as well. Pretty awesome idea, isn't it?

The weekly challenges are:

Party Date: Monday, Nov. 16
Dare to… be thankful!
Take some time making your own DIY Thanksgiving project. It could be a fun Thanksgiving advent calendar, a banner or something completely unique. Post about what you made, how you made it and photos in its new home.

Party Date: Monday, Nov. 23
Dare to… entertain!
Show us your table! If you are not hosting Thanksgiving, take this opportunity to make your table look great. Bring out your dishes and napkins and set your table. I promise you that it will make you smile every time you walk by. Get creative and use new things. Or go true DIY and make something totally new.

Party Date: Monday, Nov. 30
Dare to… eat cookies!
As we begin to attend holiday parties, share your favorite cookie recipe for all to enjoy. It’s like a digital cookie swap. Share the recipe and a review of the cookie. If you can, add a picture. And don't worry about the extra calories. At Christmas, cookies are calorie-free.

Party Date: Monday, Dec. 7
Dare to… give homemade gifts!
Nothing is more special than a gift made by you. Try out something new to give this year - ideas include bath and body items, kitchen gifts, hand-sewn clothing or home decor.

Party Date: Monday, Dec. 14
Dare to… deck the halls!
Make something new to deck your halls. Did you find something in a catalog that you wish you had? Wreaths, stockings, pillows or advent calendars? Make it! Inspire us all to do the same.

Party Date: Monday, Dec. 21
Dare to… have traditions!
Everyone has traditions for the Holidays. Tell us all about your favorites or start a new tradition to share.

And this is open to anyone. If you've got a blog and want to participate, please do. The more, the merrier! Just hop on over to NewlyWoodwards to include a link to your corresponding DIY posts. I can't wait to see everyone's creative ideas. Now I better get to making something Thanksgivingy for the first challenge...

Buried in stuff

I had a different post planned for today, but I got into something last night, and it's taken over the house. So I thought I'd show you the mess I've created.

Yesterday I thought I would start filling up the shelves in our dining room. How hard could that be, right?

First let me show you the sort-of before pictures of the room. We had already put up test swatches of paint and started fixing cracks:

Now here's the "during" picture. I spent 6 hours (!) trying to put things in the shelves and this is what it looks like this morning:

How am I doing? :)

This shouldn't be this hard, but there are things to consider. Since it's open shelving, it needs to look attractive. But it also needs to be practical since it's primary function is storage, so it needs to contain things we will use regularly. And there's only so much space, so I have to maybe not use some pieces I'd like to, and I'm not good at editing.

I will post "after" pictures if we ever get to the after. I better do something quick though because we have Mark's dad and stepmom staying with us this weekend.

I'm ready

Bin full of costume stuff:

Check.

Candy for the trick-or-treaters:

Check.

Terrifying black cat:

Check.

Happy Halloween!

Have I mentioned I love Halloween?

I'm trying to think of costumes for me and the hubs for the party we're going to on Saturday. We have a bin full of wigs and hats and other bits of costumes, so I'm sure we'll be able to cobble something together. It gets harder every year though to come up with something. It's not like when I was a kid and knew before summer ended what I wanted to be.

This was my best costume of all time. I was six and my dad made this from a pattern. On a sewing machine! I'm still in awe. I don't think he's sewn anything since, but how could you top this? Behold my Cabbage Patch Kid costume...

It was the talk of the first grade, I tell you.

Then there was this year...

Whaaa? I think my face says it all. And no, that giant inflated pumpkin thing is not hanging on the door as Mark initially thought. It's on my head. A dollar to anyone who can tell me what I was exactly.

If you're dressing up this year, what are you going to be? Any best and/or worst costume stories?

4 Days Til Halloween!

We put out a few more of our yard decorations yesterday. We're not going crazy because we started so late, but I told Mark next year I want life-sized creatures! And animatronics! Let's build a haunted house maze! At that point he called a lawyer for divorce papers.

Our cemetery...

Gotta have bones in a cemetery...

This little table is on our porch. I also have a bowl full of shrunken heads that I'm going to fill with water and a couple of green glow sticks which I'll put on here on Halloween.

What are your Halloween plans? Partying? Taking the kiddos trick-or-treating? Handing out candy? Hiding under the covers until it passes? Do tell.

5 Days Til Halloween!

If I had to pick a favorite holiday, it would be Christmas, but Halloween is a close second. Very close. Like, Christmas needs to watch its back close.

And, if there's one thing I can't understand, it's adults that don't like Halloween. If there's nary a pumpkin on your porch and you turn off your lights and hide in the dark on the 31st like a big ole scrooge, I don't even want to know you. When I was a kid, we could trick-or-treat at nearly every house on the block, but it seems now that more and more houses are dark. Sad. So every year we make it a point to really decorate our yard and then we watch scary movies while we hand out candy. This year we're going to a Halloween party, but late, because I wouldn't miss handing out candy. It's my favorite part.

We've put up about 1/2 of our porch/yard decor. We're behind because of the moving (lots of house updates coming, too!). We're putting up more today, with a few things being saved until just before dark on Halloween. That day Mark will get on the roof to put our scary funkin on top of the chimney, we'll put dry ice in the mailbox and fire up our fog machine, and put the strobe light on the lawn to light up the whole scene in eerie flashes.

But we've already put up what I consider our big gun. This guy makes people that are walking or driving by stop and point.

We tend toward more adult/scary decorations outside, maybe because we don't have kids yet, but we've never had any kids, even the tiny ones, be too scared to come to the door. Nothing would keep me away from getting candy either.

More pictures tomorrow...

Happy 40th Mom & Dad

Forty years ago today, my parents eloped in Las Vegas.

They're one of the very few couples I know that have made it that long. How cute are they!?

Happy Anniversary! Love you!

Anniversary

We spent most of our anniversary day trying to show our old house to get it rented. It did not go well. But we managed to salvage the day by going to dinner at a great tapas restaurant near our new house...

I didn't save and freeze any of our original wedding cake, because, I don't know. I just don't believe in letting cake sit in a freezer for a year. So my mom kindly surprised us with a delicious little lemon cake (one of the two flavors of cake we had at the wedding) she made. It was a perfect ending to the night. And breakfast this morning. Thanks mama!

One year ago today...

I married someone pretty fantastic.

I love you, Baby Boo! (I saved the really mushy stuff for the card. You're all welcome.)

Ah, setbacks

If there's one thing I know for certain, it's that Mark and I do not have a future in floor refinishing.

We spent six agonizing hours on our hands and knees staining the floors yesterday, and when we went back this morning, prepared to put the first coat of polyurethane on, they looked like garbage. So terrible, I couldn't bring myself to take a picture for you. We basically stood there with our mouths open. Mark is taking it worse than I am. He said he wanted to cry, and for a minute I thought he was going to.

The problem appears to be that he didn't get up all of the varnish when he was sanding the floors. So, the stain didn't soak into those areas, leaving the floors streaky and blotchy. Soooo, Mark is spending the day re-sanding the floors, and (kill me now) I think we're spending tomorrow re-staining them.

I will be spending today in the fetal position with my blankie, and if you ever hear me say we're moving again, just punch me in the face.

Progress

Well, we're officially three weeks into Phase 1 (which we estimated would take two weeks), with about two more weeks to go. Why do these things always take longer than planned? The good news is that Mark and I have only wanted to kill each other one of those days. Not bad.

The worst part is finally over - the plaster dust. Holy God, the dust. Mark may loathe textured walls, but do I ever understand why it was invented. You just spray that crap on and call it done. Instead, we've spent countless hours plastering cracks and blemishes, and sanding them, and replastering them, and sanding again, and on and on trying to make them look perfect. And you know what? That's impossible, which is very unsettling for an anal freak like me. And we've sucked enough dust to have surely taken a couple of years off our lives.

I've finished staining and clear-coating all the interior doors. They look like this (which is also how the floors will look):

And best of all, we got our new refrigerator, courtesy of Mark's mama. It's a behemoth in our little kitchen, but it's oh so pretty. It will look like it belongs someday, when we redo the kitchen. Behold the dream fridge, surrounded by garbage:

Now we're on to paint! Then refinishing the floors which have already been sanded (by Mark) and taped for painting (by me, which resulted in numerous muscle aches and a 3-day limp). The joys of remodeling!

Phase 1 underway

Can I just brag for a minute? I have the handiest husband ever. He can fix, build, or replace anything even if he's never done it before. He just figures it out. I'm in awe of his man skills.

First up, he installed crown moulding (something he'd never done before) in the three bedrooms other than the master, which is part of Phase 2. He also skimmed this entire bedroom with plaster since it was the only room that was textured (weird), which to him was unacceptable because "it's so 80s."

Doesn't it look professional?! The moulding will be painted white, btw.

Then, he closed up a doorway from the kitchen into the hallway, because when we do the kitchen in a year (God willing), we plan to use that spot for more counter space. So we did it now so the hall can be completed.

This is our little entryway.

See that door on the left? That's our coat closet! I haven't had a coat closet since I've moved out of my parents' house. In every place I've lived, the front door just opened up into the middle of the living room. I'm so excited. No one wears coats in Southern California, but if they did, we'd be ready for them.

Mark already replaced the coat closet door (and all of the bedroom doors) from regular white hollow doors to that beautiful wood. Tomorrow I will start staining them all darker, to match the floors that we're staining when all the plaster work is finished. We also ordered a new wood front door, but it won't be arriving for 6 weeks.

And, I don't have a "before" picture, but he replaced a hideous gold light fixture that cleared the front door by less than a centimeter with a recessed light.

This is what every room looks like right now...

Filled with tools and sawdust and mess. It's chaos.

See those paint swatches to the left of the ladder? We've decided on the darkest one for the living room. It's Babbling Brook from Olympic, cause I just gotta do the no VOC thing, and I love it!

So much more to do before we can actually move in, but we're moving right along. Hopefully two more weeks!

We're In!

Well, not completely. After what seems like eternity, we were finally able to get into our new house on Monday afternoon.

It smelled weird, and the reality of all the little (and not so little) things we have to do really set in. But we're so excited. Luckily since we're renting our current house, there's no hurry to get everything out, other than the very real threat of two mortgages. Who needs money! So the plan is to do any plaster work, sand and restain the hardwood floors, and paint the main rooms before completely moving in. We'll see how it goes.

The kitchen is worse than I thought. I spent all of yesterday (minus a couple of swimming breaks!) scrubbing it, and I still didn't finish. I don't thinking cleaning was a priority for the previous owners. Seriously, my arms are sore. What I really want to do is take a sledgehammer to it, but alas, kitchen remodel is not in the budget right now.

On a positive note, we found lots of little gifts throughout the house left by the sellers.

Lots more pictures and updates to come!