Gallery wall pondering...

In my quest to continue decorating our first home, I have a decided to attempt a gallery wall in a little space in our living room.  I was already thinking about this, inspired by a few different house blogs, and then, my favorite house blog- Young House Love, did this in their home, which you can see here.  

I'm taking it as a sign. 

Right now our old entertainment console is housed in this space, and there is a large expanse of open wall above it.  I have debated if I want to do a conglomeration of family wedding photos, or images from trips we've taken, if I should do all the same frames or a mix of different frames in the same color, or different frames in different colors. 

I think I've decided to do different frames in the same color, and as for the images that will fill the frames, right now I'm thinking it will be some wedding, some travel, and some others I have in mind.  I still need to collect more frames, and decide how to get them all the same color (I'm thinking brown spray paint of some kind), so this won't be a Here's-what-I'm-going-to-do-and-now-it's-done post.  Instead, this is a I-will-post-it-so-then-I-have-to-do-something.

I'll keep you updated.

Dining room redo!

While all the snow was falling here in Oklahoma, we were making a big change in our dining area. We had a pretty clean slate to start with:

Boring, neutral, blah blah blah.  The table and chairs were actually purchased from a college roommate, and while they have been perfect for hosting friends and family, it was time for a bit of an update.  And so, I announced to Blake that I was going to paint them white.  I googled how to paint wood furniture, he laid down a tarp (no way was I painting out in the freezing cold garage), and I started on step one: sanding.

 Sanding= boring.  And tedious, and boring some more.  So, as I finished up the table and side table, I decided the chair didn't really need to be sanded.  Now, some sites had said sanding wasn't always necessary, so I wasn't too worried about skipping this step on the chairs.

Then came step two: primer.  Except we didn't have any primer.  And there was over 14 inches of snow on the ground, so a quick trip to Walmart wasn't an option.  So, I pulled on my non waterproof suede boots, and trudged over to our nice neighbors house to ask to borrow some.  Some neighbors borrow an egg, or a cup of sugar, but I go for Kilz water based primer.

 So then once everything was primed, I got to painting.  Just joking.  By the time everything was sanded and primed, I had been working on this stuff for about 7 hours and I was dunzo for the day.  I was also kind of regretting my decision to start this massive project.  I mean really, what's wrong with neutral and boring?

However, apparently primer is not an acceptable final look so the next morning I started the first coat of paint.  The first of four coats.  Five in some areas.  And somewhere between coat two and three I started thinking very not nice thoughts about all of my favorite home improvement blogs.  Blogs that had led me to believe that it's easy to paint wood furniture.  That the money you save is worth the time and energy you pour into the project.  I started to think they were all a bunch of LIARS.  Nice liars, but liars nonetheless.

Midway through the second day, we ventured out to pick up some paint for our accent wall.  We had gotten curtain material (score!) from Blake's grandma, from some old curtains she didn't use anymore, and when we put them up we realized they didn't exactly "pop" against our neutral wall.  You can see the beginnings of the blue we chose in the background of the above image.  Blake actually painted that whole wall while I was in Chicago for my birthday, and when I got back we finished up the rest of the furniture.  We also bought a bench for our dining set and Blake hung the rest of the curtains this past week.  Without further adieu, here's the finished product:

We're really happy with how it turned out!  I still need to work on some different artwork, and I bought a vintage Pottery Barn table runner on ebay I'm still waiting on, but this is what the room currently looks like.  Definitely a big improvement!  What do you think?

Snow-klahoma!

This post is a bit delayed, but I didn't want to let the blizzard of 2011 completely pass without mentioning it here on the blog.  My 26th birthday was February 1st, and that was also the day we got 14 inches of SNOW!!!  Blake's classes were canceled, my work closed, and I got 4 snow days for a birthday present:)  We never lost power, so I actually really enjoyed the time off.  I noticed over on Facebook a lot of people complaining about cabin fever a day or so in and personally, I thought they were all crazy!  Everyone always talks about never having the opportunity to slow down, or having enough time at home with loved ones, and then it was dropped in our laps and they were all complaining!  We took the snow days as a little stay-cation, filled with sleeping late, snuggling, watching movies, and eating way too much food!

The view out our front door- still snowing!

Blake and Gus playing in the snow- Gus LOVES the snow!

But of course I couldn't be completely lazy for long- Wednesday I started in on redoing our dining room.  But that's a story for another blog post- don't worry, I've been taking photos!  If you're in Oklahoma, how did you spend your snow vacation?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Blake and I don't have a LOT in the way of Christmas decorations, but what we do have, I love.  So, here is just a glimpse of what makes our house festive this time of year.

This is my newest Christmas decor- just a bundle of poinsettias for our dining area:)

Our stockings hang above the fireplace- Ellie and Gus's are more exciting as ours.  We hope to have Blake's grandma make us some next year.

Our tree was given to us by my parents, and it's decorated in silver, white, and Crimson (Boomer!).

My favorite decoration is our Willow Tree Nativity.  It was a gift from our wedding and I just love it.  I've even told Blake we could just put it up, place the presents around it and forget about the tree haha.

So there you have it, some of our Christmas decor.  We have a few other pieces, but it's definitely a process, collecting things we love.  What does Christmas at your house look like?

We are moved!

Moving is done! We, of course, picked the hottest weekend thus far to move- high of 103. Thankfully we had a lot of help - thank you Mom, Dad, Nic, Travis, James, Cody, Matt, Tamara, Whitney, and Amber for everything. Also, thank you to our awesome neighbors (former neighbors, Mary & Steve) for the loan of your yard edger, and the oven cleaning supplies.

Unpacking still has a ways to go. We have a lot of things done, but we still need to do major work in the office and garage- it's a 3 car, but we can't currently fit any vehicles in there. My dad and Blake built some shelves out there and Blake still has to paint them before we can load them down, and he had to put his desk together before we could do anything in the office. He finished that last night, so I am hopeful that by the end of the week we'll be all unpacked!

The puppies are adjusting ok- they seem to think we're just staying there for a few days, but then the notice that all of our stuff is there and get confused. Poor babies. Gus man has found a few spots that he loves to hangout, the tile floor in our Master Bath being his favorite so far. That may be because our entry way is covered in boxes Blake needs to break down. We have been trying to make our bathroom off limits to him at the old house because I hate having Gus hair on our floor when we get out of the shower but I haven't had the heart to kick him out yet. He does LOVE the yard- he gets out there and runs back and forth, back and forth, showing off for mom and dad. And, he's learning to put his toys away in the basket by the door when he comes in (ok, he's only done it once, but that's progress, right?)

Tonight we have Bible study, then home to put more stuff away. Thankfully we both have this Friday off, so we'll be able to get lots done.

Closing Day Tomorrow!

Please keep us in your prayers- Blake and I are closing on our first house tomorrow morning at 11am, if nothing goes wrong. Hopefully nothing will go wrong as Saturday is our official "move date", and our rental home is being inspected Monday at 2. I feel like I have a million things to get done between now and then. Here's the list-


1. Pack- working on this, we got a lot done over the weekend, and my mom is coming tomorrow!

2. Schedule professional carpet cleaner for new house- the old owners had kids and there are a few pink and green stains that I'm not sure my parent's carpet cleaner could handle

3 . Get a second pike pass

4. Call about gas/ water/ electric for New House- still need to call about water

5. Cancel gas/water/electric for Old House- all set to end on June 30

6. Transfer AT & T to from OH to NH

7. Reserve rental trailer- Blake did this last night

8. Forward mail- did this online

9. Call about insurance- cancel renters, set up homeowners & change car

10. Change of address for banks

11. Change of address for voter cards

12. Update address on driver's license

13. Clean old house, including shampoo the carpets

14. Clean new house, including getting new filters

What have I forgotten?

Announcement!

I can't keep it quiet any longer!

We bought a house!
We close on June 24th! We found this house and had our offer accepted back in early May, but we haven't announced it to the internet world in case anything went wrong, but I figure an official closing date means it's a pretty safe bet!

Pictures

And yes, I took a ton of pictures:)