a sweet surprise

Last Saturday David was working with his dad at a high school basketball tournament. When he got home he found quite a surprise- 3 boxes and a butcher block top. I left him a note on top of the boxes because I was at dinner with my mom and sister. Hee hee!

I had woken up that morning knowing that this would be the day I was buying our office furniture. After a quick check of the 'ole finances online I called my sister to come over and help me with my plan. Cyndie drives an Aveo- not sure what we were thinking exactly- but of course all of our items did not fit! A few people looked at us since we were hanging out in the parking lot, a cart filled with boxes and no loading of items into the car. Luckily my mom was available to help out. 

Putting together our first piece of office furniture was simple and didn't take us very long. I'm excited because it's one more step towards a finished home and now I'll have a space to scrapbook, wrap gifts, etc. Lucky for me David was happy I bought all the furniture! We have one last item to put together- well, put the legs on. Then it's time to reorganize the room and get things settled. I can't wait!

On another note: our rose bush that was pretty dormant this summer has suddenly bloomed with leaves everywhere and a huge pink rose! It smells so amazing! Another bud is working to bloom any day now. I guess I must have been doing something right with these rose bushes! Or, it's the excess rain we've been getting. (I'd like to think it's me though!)

• our latest projects

A lot has happened over just one month. Not really a lot with the birdhouse; just day-to-day things. I'm super excited that a few weekends ago we finally installed a glass shower door now in our master bathroom. (And by "we" I mean 95% credit should be given to David.) Since we moved in we've just had a shower rod with a curtain hanging on it. With the glass doors it is so bright now in the shower!! We've been looking at glass doors for awhile now but it was never the right time to spend the money on it. After looking one Saturday at 3 Home Depot stores and 2 Lowes I told David I was tired of looking and told him we should buy the one we were staring at. (Inside note: we bought the one we've liked since the very beginning.) I couldn't stand shopping around anymore- we always came back to the same one. This weekend our big purchase is a squeegee (spelling?)- gotta keep it clean!

Here's our before and after project pics:

I'm so excited that we've finally come up with a plan for our office! Sometimes it's hard when both of us have a vision for a space, but we've compromised. (Ahh...marriage!) We're going the IKEA route for the furniture because it's cheaper and it's exactly what we want. Basically one piece is an island (intended for a kitchen) with a pretty large workspace on top and open shelves below so I can scrapbook, wrap gifts, etc. and the other is a long table that will hold our computer but allow both of us to work there at the same time.

One BIG project we've worked on is renaming our photobooth company. We loved the name Picture This Photobooths, but found other people liked that name for their company too. So, we've changed now to NightOwl Photobooths. Earlier this week David created a new logo, which I love love love!

Become a fan on Facebook!

a little more paint

It really is amazing how much installed baseboards can calm the nerves! It just makes the birdhouse seem more finished! For the holidays I was on a two week break from work- hooray! The to-do list is always so long when it comes to the birdhouse and I really wanted to cross more items off the list. Didn't totally happen though- that's okay!

I finished painting the walls in both upstairs bathrooms. When we painted before we had the old light fixtures still up. Since then we've installed the new ones- much smaller- and there's been a large white rectangle just calling my name for paint. I also cleaned the ceilings in both bathrooms- they were totally gross. As you can see we're still waiting to install medicine cabinets and there's a hole next to the light fixture that needs some small patch work.

My favorite father-in-law wrote to everyone in his Christmas letter that he was fired for painting a wall the wrong color. It made us laugh- not only to be included in the letter this way, but also for the fact that he was actually "fired" for painting part of the ceiling yellow. Plus, he left the painting above the door frames for someone else to do. Who did that fall on? Yep, me! After some blue painters tape and a steady hand I took care of it.

So, the painting we now have left to do is: bathroom ceilings, hallway ceiling (that's half-yellow), and baseboards! Hooray!!

On our annual Christmas skiing trip this past week David asked me, "What do you want to work on next when we get home?" I'm so glad he's still into all this demolition/repair work. This past July went by so fast and so many things were done. Now that we're into the school year and I'm back at work it feels so slow. Things get pushed to the weekends and then other stuff happens on the weekend that slows the progress too. That's okay though- it makes it that much sweeter when something does get completed!

A few days before we went out of town we went to Ikea and scouted out a few items! Perhaps a new couch that we've been salivating over (especially now that the price has dropped a few benjamins!) and some furniture for our office. I really want to get back into my scrapbooking. Living in an apartment meant all my supplies have been stored in a rolling bag- great for when you go somewhere to scrapbook, bad for when you just want to work on a page here or there. So, hopefully we'll get our office furniture bought and put together and I can unpack my items. I think the last time I scrapbooked David and I was our trip to Vegas a couple years before we were even engaged!

BTW: I got the book How to Sew... (twice actually) for Christmas. It was in my stocking from David and in my stocking at my mom's house. Perhaps I should blog about a bedroom set I've been wanting or a new car...ha!

I can do that!!

Just found this book online and had to show you! There's a lot of times I wish I would have paid attention when my great-grandma was trying to teach me something domestic (baking comes to mind...), but instead I was outside building things with my great-grandpa. Don't get me wrong- the fact that I own more tools than my husband tells you I paid attention to grandpa but, there are times when grandma's knowledge would come in handy as well! This book will definitely be on my wish list!!

Plus, you can enter to win it!

(http://erincooks.com/an-erin-cooks-contest-how-to-sew-a-button-and-other-nifty-things-your-grandmother-knew/)

• baseboards...check!

Downstairs baseboards are measured, cut, and attached to the wall! Let me say that again- they are done!! Well, technically. They are on the wall and the edges and nail holes are caulked. Now, we have to go back and paint, but they're up and look fantastic. We're debating about now adding the quarter-round.

It took us all morning Saturday to measure and cut 90% of the downstairs baseboards. We had some other things to do Saturday afternoon so we called it a day around 2:30 pm. Sunday we slept in a bit and got back to work. After about an hour everything was cut, it started to rain a bit, so we moved inside to nail the boards onto the walls. Everything just looks so much better with baseboards!

David found a Craigslist ad about baseboards a week ago, checked out the store, and we decided to use them. $.50/foot for 4 1/4" baseboards- super steal! They come in 16' pieces - that was a fun trip home! One end stuck out the back of the 4-Runner (window down) and the other stuck out the front passenger window resting on a box and the side mirror. My arms were tired from holding them together!

I was in charge of measuring while David did the actual cutting on the miter saw. We have to go back for one more piece of baseboard to finish off the closet- since we added the 45-degree finisher piece to the ends of some of the baseboards we were a little bit short. The best piece was along our long wall- 29.5'. We cut two 45-degree angles off the ends of one piece and put the board in the house. Then we had to measure and cut down a second board to the right size. After we set those two pieces inside it already looked better!

We need to finish the upstairs hallway, office, and bathrooms and then we'll be totally done with baseboards. Hooray!

Now when we walk in the door the house just feels more complete and finished. I love it! Slowly but surely- we're getting there!

It's Christmas!

This will be our second married Christmas. I can't believe it!

Last year we looked for Christmas stockings, but didn't find anything we liked. Plus, we didn't have anywhere to hang them when we lived in the apartment. Our mission a few weekends ago was to see if there were any stockings we loved. Mission accomplished! Our first stockings!

We don't have a fireplace mantle so we decided to hang them on our stair railing. Okay, I got the idea from a magazine picture I saw, but it's a fantastic idea! The stockings were missing something- our names. Charlotte, a parent at my school has her own embroidery business called Whimsy & Wishes. I contacted Charlotte to get our names embroidered on the stockings. She does an amazing job! She also did the monogram on my lunchbag that I got for my bridal shower last year! She's quick and can embroider pretty much anything! Aren't they so cute?!

Hi ho, Hi ho!

Two weekends ago we got out our Christmas decorations out and put up our Christmas tree we bought the year before for $20! We might put lights up outside the birdhouse; we'll see.

The day started with David trimming the bushes in the front. The HOA takes care of trimming but doesn't do shaping. So, the bushes have grown out of control. All the landscaper guys do is trim them down every other month; we wanted them majorly cut back. Last weekend we borrowed some hedge trimmers from my mom, and then ended up also getting some loppers (that's what Lowe's called them) and a small rake today. I started cleaning up around the birdhouse and doing some laundry. I couldn't resist- I went outside and helped David start devouring the bushes with the tools. There was so much dead undergrowth that the bushes now look like 4 small starting plants. That's okay- they'll grow back and hopefully look better too!

We also finally caulked the downstairs sinks- kitchen and bathroom. It didn't take us long to do; we've just been putting it off for some reason. Check that off our list. Yes!

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I bought some pots and pans, and corningware. That was the easy part. The hard part is finding a place to put all these items. I bought the kitchenware because we had a pan here, a pot there. We decided that instead of using our last cabinet for the trash roll-out as we originally intended, we'd put in a dual basket pull-out. We bought it today and installed it in no time.

Now all our pots & pans fit on those two shelves. Hooray! I actually got David to help me organize the rest of the items in the kitchen before he settled in for some football.

Our next two big items are to tackle the baseboards- buy them, install them- and finish the downstairs bathroom open pocket door. I'm hoping we can take care of buying the baseboards this week.