Our Tree

Here's pic of our tree, all lit and and full of Christmas spirit. (It was an excuse to use my new camera, please forgive me.) Isn't it pretty?

Happy New Year's Eve! Goodbye 2008!

So... what have I been up to?

Yeah, I thought you might be asking that. I would be too. I'm trying to be better about posting, especially because I sent out 75 Christmas cards with a note with our blog link. People may actually start reading this! gasp! I didn't want to post my Christmas crafty presents before Christmas because I love surprises, but here's what kept me so busy:

Sock monkeys for the nieces and nephews... they were pretty easy to make, and I loved the result. The one for the littlest nephew is even wearing a diaper... hehe.


Snowmen ornaments for my husband's siblings. Made from lightbulbs, these were fun to make. I made a snowman for each member of each sibling's family, they came out really cute, I think.


And finally, treats, treats and more treats! I made Oreo Truffles in Mint and Regular, Peppermint Fudge, chocolate fudge, and yummy sugar cookies. I had about twenty tins to fill, plus four party platters, so you can imagine...

My list for my life

If you know me at all, you know that I l-o-v-e lists. Here's a great one I stole from Jen who stole it from a bunch of other people. As the New Year approaches, and we set goals for 2009, this is a great review of your life!

Things you've done: bold
Things you want to do: italics
Things you haven't done and don't want to do: plain

 

1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars …yes please!
3. played in a band
4. visited hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more than you can afford to charity
7. been to disneyland/world
8. climbed a mountain
9. held a praying mantis
10. sang a solo
11. bungee jumped
12. visited paris
13. watched a lightning storm at sea.. as long as I am safe
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning
17. walked to the top of the statue of liberty (ok, most of the way)
18. grown your own vegetables
19. seen the mona lisa in france
20. slept on an overnight train
21. had a pillow fight
22. hitch hiked
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb
26. gone skinny dipping… hee hee!
27. run a marathon
28. ridden a gondola in venice
29. seen a total eclipse
30. watched a sunrise or sunset (both actually!)
31. hit a home run 
32. been on a cruise
33. seen niagara falls in person
34. visited the birthplace of your ancestors 
35. seen an amish community
36. taught yourself a new language
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. seen the leaning tower of pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing
40. seen michelangelo's david in person
41. sung karaoke
42. seen old faithful geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance
47. had your portrait painted
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the sistene chapel in person
50. been to the top of the eiffel tower in paris (I was at the bottom, but I think it still counts!
51. gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. kissed in the rain
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theatre 
55. been in a movie
56. visited the great wall of china
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class
59. visited russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold girl scout cookies
62. gone whale watching
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood
65. gone sky diving
66. visited a nazi concentration camp
67. bounced a cheque
68. flown in a helicopter
69. saved a favorite childhood toy
70. visited the lincoln memorial
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt
73. stood in times square
74. toured the everglades
75. been fired from a job
76. seen the changing of the guard in london
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle
79. seen the grand canyon in person 
80. published a book 
81. visited the vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper
85. read the entire bible
86. visited the white house
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. had chickenpox
89. saved someone’s life
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous
92. joined a book club
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby 
95. seen the alamo in person
96. swum in the great salt lake
97. been involved in a law suit
98. owned a cell phone
99. been stung by a bee

It's Christmas Time

Which means that between baking, holiday visiting, present making, present shopping and other busy holiday preparations, there is little time for blogging. I'm trying, I really am. Please don't be a hater. :-)

SO nice to finish a project!

Problem:

The old stairs leading to the deck and the back entrance left a little to be desired. A little too narrow, a little too high, a little too blech. Our dog had a lot of trouble climbing the stairs whenever her arthritis was acting up, and let's just say that climbing those stairs with your hands full of groceries wasn't the easiest task in the world.

Solution:

Have handy dandy husband build lovely new stairs! See?

Aren't they lovely? They only took about two hours to make!

Here's a closeup...

 

And the best part is, they're all finished. We haven't been able to say that about a project for... oh about eight months now. :-)

Ideas for the office

I've been playing with ideas for the office, and have already made one previous "idea board." I know that I want to do an asian themed room, but the last board I did hadn't really captured the look I was going for in the room. I want the office to be relaxing and simple, so that it is easy to work in. Here are some pics of the office currently, so you can get an idea of where everything will go. We'll be taking down some of the paneling, replacing some of the drywall, and obviously painting over that hideous blue.  

And here is the idea board. 

1. First off, the color scheme is very simple. Black for some of the furnishings, and the built in desk/cabinet/file drawers will be painted white. The walls will be a nice gray, and the trim around windows, etc will be a crisp white. Red will be brought in to cheer up the room in plenty of accents. 

2. This great rug from Target brings all of those colors together. It's definitely out of the price range, but it gives an idea of the color, and the design that would really work. I am not a fan of abstract in general, but I love it in rugs. As far as size, the bigger the better, as the floor in the office is really beatup. 

3. This ebony desk is from Penneys, but it's not what we would use. We want to use our old front door, and convert it into a desk. I think we would either paint it black or white, and build legs and storage underneath it.  A little plexiglass for the top and, presto, a lovely desk with lots of history. As far as placement in the room, I'm thinking on the wall across from the closet, as long as there is enough light. 

4. Instead of your average, boring (and pricey!) office chair, I would want to go with something like this red leather parsons chair from Pier 1. Definitely red, for accenting, and I like the formality a dining room chair brings in. It keeps the office from feeling too cubicle-y. I also love the added texture that leather would bring in. This one's $50, but I'm sure I can find something better priced, especially if it's a DIY project. 

5. All three of these lamps are from Pier 1 as well. I love the clean, simple lines, the simple shades in the coordinating colors. I'm thinking the red one(s) on the desk, and the white one on the built in desk, in one of the corners. The paper lantern is an idea for where you see the fridge on the wall, I think it would look cool to hang a couple of these (staggered) in that corner for more light. 

6. This is the inspiration for the room. It's a glazed ceramic asian horse from Target. It's currently on clearance, and I might just pick it up. In spite of the fact that it is insanely popular right now.  However, what I like about it is that it is simple and clean while still embodying lots of style. It's asian without screaming "I'm asian! See all the color and embroidery!"

7. This photo collage would look great on the wall opposite the built in desk. I'm thinking matching black frames, wide white mats, and black and white photographs taken by moi! 

8. Once again from Pier 1, these vases could go above the built in desk, on the door desk, or on any book shelves that may happen to make their way into the room. I love the white ones with the touch of metallic shine, and the red bamboo ones have a great texture to them. I'll be watching for the red ones to go on clearance!

9. Although I am not sure where a pillow would be needed in the office, :0) I liked the color and pattern of this pillow. The contrast between the red and white is stellar, and the pattern is subtly reminiscent of the Far East. 

10. Lastly, this little wall decoration is cute and attractive at the same time. It ties in with the asian flair, and it's cool too. :-) 

So there you have it, the inspiration for our office. Some of this is definitely just ideas, but some I'll actually be looking for in the stores! Hope you enjoyed!

Glammin' It up

I think I have mentioned before that The Christmas Tree Shop is one of my all time favorite shops. We always find great deals there, and their stuff is unique so my house does not look like page 73 of Pottery Barn! That is very important to me. Anyways, on to the point of this post. We snagged some great bamboo roman shades for our downstairs rooms at the Christmas Tree Shops a few months ago.
They look awesome on the windows, and definitely look like we spent a lot of money on them (which we didn't). However, the strings had these plastic cones on them to make it easier to pull up the shades, and they really made the whole thing look chintzy.
So, a quick trip to a craft store provided these lovely wooden beads,
and about thirty minutes later, I had replaced the yucky plastic pulls with these DIY wooden bead pulls! The shades instantly looked better, and I am so very happy! :-)

Sometimes it's right in your backyard...

I've been searching for several weeks for a large urn to place by the front door. I don't want to cover up our pretty new door with a wreath, but I do want some decorations for people to see as they enter the house. Everything I looked at was a) not the right style, b)ugly, or c)not the right price! I was pretty discouraged, but as I walked into our house one afternooon, I saw this bird bath/planter in our yard that the previous owners left.

Suddenly, my creative brain kicked in: "of course! this is exactly what I am looking for!" So, after a quick trip to Walmart for some spray paint, I began this lovely little urn's transformation. First, I scrubbed it out really good, killing, in the process, a family of spiders that had taken up residence in the urn. (I don't mind, I really hate spiders) Then, I spent about an hour applying coats of paint to the urn, making sure everything was evenly covered. When I finished, it looked like this.

Then, I took a little bottle of black craft paint, and with a wet rag and a dry rag started randomly applying black paint thinned with water to give the urn an aged look. I am delighted with how it turned out! 

P.S. Can you believe this thing is plastic?

Decisions, decisions...

I swear the most difficult part of decorating any room is deciding what color to paint it! This here is a picture of the paint samples we have up in the upstairs hallway... trying to decide which color to paint it! It's so overwhelming... there are soooo many choices! The good news is the we have chosen paint and paint treatments for the living room and also for our bedroom! That's two rooms down, only twelve more to go...

 

 

It really is a lot of fun though, and the possibilities really make you think... besides, it is just paint, and you can always just paint over it, right?

Score at The Christmas Tree Shop

Someday, we will completely remodel the kitchen. We've got it all planned out, we just have to wait for some green :-) We could do things little by little, but we would actually spend more money by doing it in stages then by doing it all at once. The other thing that is holding us up is the fact that we have to remove the chimney that runs through the kitchen. Kind of a big project. :-)

 

Anyways, next to the fridge, on the far side of the wall, there was a cabinet and a portable dishwasher. This is what it looked like.

Yep, pretty awful. We gave the dishwasher to friends, and removed the cabinet because we found this beauty. It fits perfectly in the space where the other cabinet and the dishwasher were. And looks soooo much better. Don't you think?

On vacation...

Yup, we're on vacation. Hence the lack of house posts, as we are not doing anything house-related! Woo hoo! Our latest project is the hideousness above the mantel, and I would say we are about halfway done. I don't have pictures of that yet, but I do have a picture of our wonderful summer harvest.

Mmm, blackberries. They grew right up in our backyard, and boy were they yummy. Juicy, sweet, fresh...

Yup, that's our whole crop. :-)

Oh well...

Home ownership is an adventure that rivals Lord of the Rings, Narnia and whatever else you can think of. It's a blast, even when things don't go right. Case in point, when a hammer is being used for its intended purpose, removing nails, and it breaks. Oh well! That's life I guess!

My Awesome Garage Sale Find

Here is a great little table I found wandering around Greece today looking for productive garage sales. It was only a dollar. Now this is not the best deal I have ever gotten, but it pretty far up there. I bought it thinking I would use it for a nightstand, but now I am thinking maybe an end table. Or, possibly, somewhere down in the spanish room. Or... That's the great thing about little tables, they'll go just about anywhere!

(See my lovely new dining room curtains in the background?)

Culoare Zi!

We had our first official event at our house last weekend. A while back, I think before we had bought our house, we decided to host a yearly color themed party, just for kicks and giggles. So, now that we have a place to hold the party, we decided to go ahead with the plan. We chose blue for this year as the color blue is not really associated with any holiday, and therefore it would be easier to convince people that it would be fun, and also that it was an independent event.

 

 

We decided to go with the idea of celebrating an "ancient cultural holiday" that commemorated the advent of color in the world, with color first coming into the world in 1234 B.C. We talked about how the world only existed in black and white previous to that day, and so the grateful ancestors named the first day of color "Culoare Zi" (which is simply two Romanian words, "color" and "day") We thought it was funny, but crazy enough that everyone would know we were kidding. He he. Not so much. We had to do a lot of explaining, but most people though it was funny.

 

 

The only thing we required of our guests was to wear something blue! (By the way, if you don't get an invite to the yellow party next year, it's almost for sure because you refused to wear blue. Or it may just be because we don't like you anymore.) We planned out a fantastic menu, with foods either containing something blue (Blue Cheese Cheesecake), or having the word blue in the name (Grilled Chicken Cordon Bleu) We played blues in the background, and decorated with blue candles, flowers and balloons. It was blue-ti-ful!

 

 

Overall, in spite of the heat, the party was a smashing success. I put together a montage of the party pics for your viewing pleasure. Here's to a wonderful yellow party for Culoare Zi '09!

Centipedes

We get horrible, huge, hairy centidpedes in our new house. Blech. Some of them have literally been as long as my fingers. Very, very disgusting. Whenever I see them I go all cold and get a chill, and I am incapable of taking any action against the darn bug. Here's a picture, you'll see why I hate them. (I kept it small so you wouldn't be too grossed out.)

I did some research on how to keep centidpedes out of the house, and found out that basically you can't. However, we had bought some liquid food ant traps to keep the ants out of our kitchen and guess what? The centidpedes like the food too, and it kills them too! Awesome, so although I have to clean up centidpede corpses every few days, I am not as afraid of the dead ones as I am the alive ones. Here's to Liquid Ant Killer!

Safe and secure

When we toured our house during the open house (before it was our house) we noticed that the front door didn't close well.



When we bought our house in February we noticed that the front door would open on its own. (Scary)



So, we bought a new lock for the door. As it turns out, that didn't work. Old style door did not mesh with new style lock. So, we put a chain on the door and called it a day. Obviously, this did not feel all that secure. But, we were hesitant to buy a new door as we didn't want to replace one of the few original things left in the house. But, then we met our neighbor's son, who is a wealth of knowledge, and he told us that our current door was not, in fact, the original door. So we happily began the search for a new door. Front doors are expensive!!! :-)

We finally found a new, beautiful door for a price that wouldn't kill us. We ordered a new lock, and spent Father's Day weekend installing our new door.


Turns out our castle's walls are much thicker than your average house's, and we actually had to build another frame onto the exisiting door frame to make it fit out to the front of the house. I love our house! It still needs some paint and finishing details, but all in all we think it looks pretty sweet. Don't you agree?

Making Progress

One of the difficult things about having a blog about your house projects is that the house projects keep you too busy to work on the blog! We're making lots of progress though, and I hope to soon have pictures of the living room (we're removed all of the cork) and of the completed guest bedroom (we're working on stripping the wood in that room).

 

 

Here's a fun project that my handy dandy husband worked on recently:

 



 

Isn't he great? And the chair is so comfortable too!

Yay! No more red brick!

So the previous owners had interesting taste, to say the least. :-) We're not sure what they were thinking as we look at various "decorative" projects throughout the house. I have to admit, when we bought the house, the upstairs bathroom was my least favorite room. I didn't see much hope for it and figured I would just have to grin and bear it. These original pics testify to the former hideousness:




Terrible, just terrible. At night it was really creepy, using the toilet in that dark little hovel was just... terrible. :-) Oh, and the tile looks clean in these pictures but I decided after five hours of scrubbing this bathroom that it had, in fact, never been cleaned. Anyways, here's a couple of pics of the makeover process,

and here's the final product!!! Isn't it just beautiful? It is such an improvement on what we started with. For those who are curious; we removed the flourescent light fixture and the surrounding brick and dark wood, painted the walls with a beige granite paint, painted the brick white, removed the shower doors, scrubbed everything (did I mention that?) replaced the drawer pulls on the vanity and got a new mirror and light fixture. Oh, and it doesn't show in the picture, but Luke fixed the fan/exhaust so it doesn't sound like a woman being tortured in the Spanish Inquisition any more. :-D yay for that. So yes, we're proud of our little project. Yes, we want a pat on the back. :-)

Spa'Oom

If you've ever read The Chronicles of Narnia, you know that Mr. Tumnus says to Lucy, "Well Lucy, from the land of Spa'Oom (spare room), let's go have tea, shall we?" Back at our little apartment, we affectionately dubbed the half bedroom "spa'oom" and it stuck. Now, in our new house, our guest bedroom has appropriated the same title, seemingly of its own volition. We keep trying to refer to it as the "guest bedroom", but it's just not working. Anyways, here's a picture of the Spa'Ooom in its original "glory". Keep in mind that this is the former owner's decorative taste, not ours. :-)

The first thing we did was remove the grass green carpet, and right after that went the black wallpaper. It came off fairly easily, but the paste was still quite goopy. Although I am not a fan of white walls, it was such an improvement over the black paper!Although the bunkbeds were beautiful, we finally decided they had to go in order to make the room more comfortable and welcoming to guests. So here's Luke destroying the bunkbeds. There wasn't any way to salvage them as they were literally bolted into the wall. Ah well, at least the destruction was fun!

We're going with, ironically, a black and white theme for this room and I'll update once we have some pics of the room with new paint and decorations. The good part is we'll be able to re-use the black blinds that the previous owners left us! Yay!