No Carpet!

Today began our adventure with putting new flooring in on our own. We ripped all of the carpet out of the dining and living areas and the hallway leading to the bedrooms. So far, we're pretty proud of ourselves.

I put the star thing over the carpet because it was GROSS. Our puppy, Lily, has had her share of accidents but it wasn't anything compared to what we found underneath so we're assuming the previous owner's dog (which was much larger than ours) had its fair share of accidents as well. After seeing that, we're very glad we're getting rid of the carpet.

The hallway. We left extra carpet in all of the transitional areas (into the bedrooms, etc) so that we didn't realize later that we should have. Better to be safe than sorry.

We're exhausted after half a day's work but we got everything done that we needed to for now. We'll have some friends helping us with the new flooring once they're back in town (BIG thanks in advance Eric and Candace) so it'll be awhile before we have more updates but I'll show you during and after pictures when I can.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Where We Dream

Our bedroom has to be one of my favorite rooms in the house. This is the view from the hallway - the walls are painted in Behr's Harvest Brown. The door goes into the closet and there's another door to the right of the dresser that leads into the master bath.

From the opposite corner. We have a down comforter that matches the blue floral pillows but it's summer and that's the last thing we need on the bed right now so it's in the linen closet. I'm still looking for the right thing to hang over the bed.

That's our room! As always, I can't wait to see everyone else's master rooms and get more ideas! :-)

Furlough: Day 3

I think this Furlough count thing as the headlines of blog entries is going to get old soon. I may stop after today, or at least not do them as often.

Today we:

• went to the dentist (me - and got a clean bill of health, yahoo!)
• organized our storage room in the basement (more Mike than me)
• steamed the dining room side of our living area so that we can reuse the carpet in the storage room when we eventually turn the room into a craft/computer workroom for Mike
• supervised as our new flooring was delivered
• checked on two friend's homes since they're out of town

Since I haven't had any pictures the last few days, here are some pictures of what will soon turn into a complete mess!

The empty dining room being steamed (and notice the lovely blue light coming in thanks to the blue tarp) :

The mess on the living room side (our flooring stacked up on the fireplace!):

The hallway with the boards we pulled out of one box. We wanted to get a better idea of what it was going to look like!

Tomorrow - steaming the living room side and who knows what else...

Furlough: Day 2

Whew! It's hot... I knew there was a reason I wasn't a fan of summer. A lot of what we do during the day is 'scheduled' based on whether or not it requires us to be outside - if it does, we do it earlier in the morning before the lovely Midwestern heat really kicks in.

Today we:

• made cinnamon bites for breakfast (aka, Grands biscuits cut into quarters, dipped in a little butter and then cinnamon and sugar and then bake!)
• took my car in for servicing. Worst experience at the dealership ever. It really wasn't that bad, just annoying. I'm thankful for a husband who knows about car stuff so I don't get "had".
• went to the jeweler and had a new battery put in my watch (and had my rings cleaned - SO shiny now!)
• ran more errands and bout Mike new pants, jeans and a shirt at Eddie Bauer's sale.
• cleaned the basement
• shredded our "shred pile"
• went through old magazines, ripped out inspiration pages and threw the rest out. (We don't have recycling here, bummer)
• and my favorite, I took a two hour nap. I could get used to that...

That's it! Fairly productive. Now, dinner and out to brave this crazy heat for Mike's softball game. I'm just glad it's not until 8...

Furlough: Day 1

So, today began our 4-week furlough from work. So far we have:

• cleaned out and organized the garage. Actually, that was all Mike and I'm so glad he did it because it needed it and it's just in time for the garage portion of Kelly's house tour. Ha ha!
• cleaned and organized master closet and dresser and under the master and bedroom sinks. That was all me.
• wiped down all of the baseboards upstairs. They'll need wiping down again after we install the laminate flooring in a few weeks. Yahoo!
• took old clothes to Goodwill (and almost bought an old school desk that would have been so fun to refinish. Who knows, I may still go back and get it but we don't NEED it right now. Hmmmm.)

Things still to do:

• Install hardwood floors.
• Clean the rest of the house
• Clean & organize the storage room.
• I'm sure there's more but I'll think of them later

On a completely unrelated note. I ran into Hobby Lobby on my way to Goodwill. There was fall decor, think pumpkins and autumn leaves on the second aisle. It was kind of nice because I know summer is going to fly by and autumn is my favorite season - it made me think of cool days because I'm already exhausted of this heat. Then, 10 rows back... wait for it... CHRISTMAS decor! Not kidding, I know people do the whole Christmas in July thing but it's JUNE and as much as I love Christmas, it's JUNE!!!

Thank you for listening. :-)

Happy Father's Day!

God could not have blessed me with a more wonderful Dad. I am so thankful for everything you have done for me, Mom and Andrew & Jordan.

Love you, Daddy!!!

One of my FAVORITE things to do with my Dad - I am my Dad's baseball buddy. GO CARDS!

My Dad and me at my wedding 1.5 years ago.

Bonus Rooms and Laundry Rooms

We're showing off bonus rooms and laundry rooms this week - I've already kinda done this so here's links to the basement (it's after the guest room stuff) and the laundry room when we first moved in - the front loading washer was a big hit with my Mom and me. :-P

The laundry room isn't much different, just fuller. We added a little wire shelf to the left of the washer and there are shelves above the washer and dryer that are now full.

Enjoy!

Preppy's Back

I can't help but be excited about this...

Ode to a blue tarp

(This won't really be an "ode", but just go with it...)

I have officially become "that" neighbor.

Long story short - the dog started digging up the carpet next to our deck door (no big deal, we were planning on putting wood floors down), then we found mold under the area she was digging up because water was coming in through the door. STUBBORN me thinks we can fix it. Mike and I spent several hours Saturday trying to fix the door Saturday with no luck, we actually managed to make it worse for awhile. I finally give and we go to Lowe's and we buy a storm door to help keep the water out, we fix the door and get it back to where it was but, to prevent further water damage until the storm door arrives and is installed we have one of these beauties over our door:

I'm sure our neighbors love looking at it. It does cast a lovely blue light into our dining area but I want to see outside! (It's tornado season, I hear sirens and if I don't go outside when I hear them, I at least look outside and the tarp does not work well for monitoring the sky.)

The good news is, we're watching the weather so much tonight that none of the local stations will air any of the normal shows, it's all weather so I'm trying to be thankful that the ugly blue thing is only temporary and will keep the water out in the mean time.

Bathrooms!

It's bathrooms on Kelly's blog this week and I'll be the first to admit, I haven't done much to mine, just the upstairs guest bathroom that is actually used and that I really want to look good for guests.

But first, here's our master.

The sinks are to the left as you walk in and the tub is wonderful. To the right is our shower (in the picture below) and the "throne" is across from that. I still need to get a curtain on the window and I want to get some cute wire baskets or something to hang over the toilet - it's kinda boring right now, but oh well.

Here's our guest bathroom - as silly as it sounds, it's one of my favorite rooms in the house. It's small but it's cute. There's a little wood sign above the towl bar (that's across from the toilet) that says "Count your Blessings" that we got from my cousin and his wife for our wedding. I felt kinda weird putting it in the bathroom but it fit perfectly and looks great.

The third bedroom is in the basement - it's painted but I haven't done anything to it. It's Pepper's (the cat's) bathroom.

I can't wait to see everyone else's bathrooms (and, hopefully borrow some ideas). :-) 

Have a great weekend!

Free to Be Me

I don't know how many of you have heard this song but it's great. I am very much a perfectionist and this song has reminded me that God doesn't need me to be perfect - I already am in His eyes.

I found this video on YouTube tonight and appreciate how simple and clean it is. Hope you enjoy!

UP!

Mike and I went to dinner and a movie with some friends tonight. We saw Up! and it was so cute.



Now we're sitting at home, listening to the thunder and rain outside and getting ready for another busy week at work.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Home Office

It's all about home offices at Kelly's Korner this week. We don't use this room too much, other than to help us keep bills, etc. organized but I think it's cute.



This is the view from the door. The desk and chair are yet two more pieces of furniture that my Grandad refinished and they mean so much to me. I got the organizer above the desk from Pottery Barn - it helps us organize things now but I know it'll really come in handy when we have children and are keeping track of all of our activities. There's a closet on the wall to the right of the desk.



This is the wall opposite the desk. The chest was my grandparents and survived 4 years of dorm life with me at college. The shelf above it was at my Poppop's house and the pictures on it are three vintage-inspired postcards I got in Nice, France in 2004. One depicts Nice, one Cannes and another, Monaco. Mike got me the plant last year for my birthday - needless to say, it didn't make it but I don't want to throw it out. At least the pot is still cute and green!

I can't wait to see everyone else's offices and the children's rooms last week were precious - I have so many ideas for when I need to decorate a baby's room! :-)

This makes me smile

Lately, I'm trying to focus on the simple things that can make me smile. One of those simple things that has made me smile lately is this commercial.

My favorite part is the water "melting".

What simple things make you smile?

In other news, Mike and I almost have our road trip planned for our furlough and I'm pumped. We're going to see so much of the west part of the US that we (but especially I) have never seen before.