Thursday, July 30, 2009

Mix and Match?

Our living room is pretty small, especially since we don’t have an entry way and the front door opens right into this room. It’s also the room between the hall and the kitchen, requiring a decent amount of “traffic” room. We currently have two couches – a seen-better-days JCP purchase from right when we moved in, and a nice little leather love seat we got from our real estate agent for a steal.

The big couch has got to go – it’s relatively comfortable, but it’s picked to pieces from dog nails and it’s stuffing has turned lumpy and floppy…(nice description, huh?). Due to our space limits, we want to have two chairs with a small table between to go with the loveseat. Hopefully this will help make the room not look so heavy, but also allow for more flexibility in arrangement – right now we have the options of switching the couches on two walls, and that’s about it.

SO the question is – do you mix and match – two different chairs that coordinate somehow? Or do you get two matching chairs to minimize clutter? And since we are losing the 3-butt seating of the big couch, should we get one of those oversized chairs, an ottoman, and a regular chair – so as to comfortably seat 2 ½ people? These are conundrums my non-designer-inclined mind can’t comprehend…
Here are some of my favorite pieces I’ve seen (I’m trying to stay both neutral and simple – there are plenty of really cool chairs out there that I like, but am just too chicken to get, especially since we know we won’t be in this house forever, and I want something that will last and be easy to work with, even if our style changes, and we can’t afford super-nice furniture, ::too many commas for one sentence::,)

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(faux leather, probably comfy, kinda log-cabiny looking though...)

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(cute, but comfy??)

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(will this look bad with dog mud print accents??)

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new one use this
(I like the slipper chair look; Tony is biased against no-arm chairs..)

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(room for 2??)


I want these chairs to be comfy…but still cute…
Anyone have any chair recommendations that are stylish, affordable, and Roxy-proof?


Photos from Home Decorator's Outlet, Ikea, Target, and Bassett

Saturday, July 25, 2009

How to See More Dog Hair...

Put in wood floors!!

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Our bedroom floor has been completed for a while, but I just recently actually got it clean enough to justify taking a picture!

I love.love.love how it looks in there!! The brown of the wood really makes the white furniture pop. And I know that bright blue walls might not be everyone's first choice, but like them so I guess that's all that matters!

I would say laying the floor in here was the easiest of all the rooms, even though we did run into a little old water damage that slowed our progress a little..

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Roxy was a huge help! I don't think we could have done it without her....

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Island in the Sun

There's one thing I know for sure: It's a mighty task to come back to reality after spending a sun-filled week at the beach.


That being said (and explaining why it took me so long to post these pictures...) we had a fabulous beach vacation!! The week felt so long, and I soaked up every second of it. We didn't do much besides sun ourselves (spf 30 of course!), float lazily in the ocean, float laziliy in the pool, and eat large quantities of food on the half hour.


Tony and I went with my family, which included my parents, my sis Courtney and her boyfriend Byron, as well as Grammy (!). My other sis Caitlin was unable to come due to a silly final, but as you will see, she was there in spirit.


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As I mentioned before, we had never been to Florida for the family vacay...always N.C. I think I can confidently say the parents have been convinced that the benefits of being on the Gulf are totally worth it!! We didn't get pummelled by waves, or have to trek 10 miles back to the house through the dunes. Everyone got to relax and just hang out the way they wanted to. Even Grammy got in some floating action on her tube!


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The best part of the little house we rented was the backyard pool. It was shallow and the perfect size for hanging out and drinking cold beverages! The waterfall made it seem even fancier.


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We were lucky to have picked just the right part of the beach to stay where there weren't too many people -- there's only but so many people who should see me in a bathing suit before the earth starts spinning backwards... so this was good.


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Caitlin's scary heads got to enjoy our trip too!


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Courtney's 21st birthday happened while we were there, so of course I made them take 100 pictures!


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What I loved the most was the fact that I got a full week of quality time to spend with my family. Every time we go up to Knoxville for a weekend, there is never ever enough time to really spend quality time with any one person. A family vacation will remedy that quickly!


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We saw so much animal life on this trip too!! Gorgeous birds, crabs, turtles, rays, shell animals, dolphins, manatees, lots of fish, and who knows what else!


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We rented a pontoon boat one day and cruised around the harbors and the Bay (we didn't venture into the ocean since that seems a little scary, although Tampa Bay is huuuuge and kinda scary too in a relatively small boat!). Amazingly, if you didn't follow the channel exactly, the water was only a few feet deep, and the bottom was covered with thick sea grass teeming with life. We could look over the side of the boat as we were moving and see everything going on down there. We even anchored in the middle of the water at one point and got out where it was sandy, and there were millions of barnacley crabs, beautiful conch-type shells that were all inhabited (much to our shell-collecting dismay), live sand dollars, anenmoes, huge fish... so much life that you had to wear shoes in the water or you were sure to step on something sharp or spiney or pinchery.


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And um... we may or may not have run aground once... but we did see lots of dolphins playing out in the deep part of the Bay!


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...beach


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My newly-legal sister even taught my parents how to play beer pong


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Grammy even got in on the action!! (I mean, Grammy is pretty much awesome - who can honestly say they have played beer pong with their grandmother....??)
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It's pretty clear we had a great time - we all ate, drank, and got a little crispy - and I can't wait to do it again next year!


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Thursday, July 9, 2009

Our Home

July 13 marks our 2 year anniversary of being in our house. We closed on Friday the 13th two years ago, but actually we have had wonderful luck and have been truly blessed to be able to lead the life we live just starting out in "the real world." We are so grateful to our friends and family, and often we really do shake our heads in disbelief at how easy so many things have been for us (and I say that in the most humble way possible!).

Not that we live like kings, mind you -- but there have been so many times in these past two years when we have really gotten worried about something (let's face it - mostly about money!!) and then magically all of the pieces fall in place and everything turns out a-ok.

Anyway -- as much as I feel that there is this huge list of stuff waiting to be done/fixed in this home, looking back, we really have made a lot of big changes! Little things like painting, decorating, making it a livable space.. but also big undertakings. If you had asked me 2 1/2 years ago if we would have built a fence on our own (with some friendly helping hands of course!), gutted our whole front yard and started over, put down flooring, re-roofed the house, etc -- I would have said No Way!

But we have. And we have many more projects up our little sleeves. But if it's one thing I have learned through this journey - one thing at a time. Plan all you want, but we only have but so many resources (mental and financial!) to do more than that.

And that's OK.

Happy Anniversary House!

Here we are on that first day (we look so young!)

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Even Sandy looks little!
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I was afraid some old lady would come hunt me down for taking these awful curtains down the moment we stepped in the door!
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And here begins our ivy issue! Don't let this picture fool you - the sunshine and green is very distracting, but that ivy was a hot mess and was killing all of those trees - which were in turn blocking the entire view of the front of our house

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Our big backyard that was totally lacking privacy and definition

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Our little baby has come a long way!


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