Wednesday, June 24, 2009

We're Floored!

It's true. Our house is a whole new place thanks to the new floors. If you will recall the disgusting before:



Every house needs a few different types of carpet (bonus points if there is a big conspicuous stain!) and what beats a little parquet entrance?!
So we got to work (well, let's be honest, Tony and Kacy got to work... in my defense, most of this was done before I got home from work... that...and I'm not as clever or as strong as Kacy!) Here she is laying the groundwork


Better already!
Mikey laying down on the job (how rude! it's not like you worked all day outside!)


Scary saw - no hands were lost.. that's a good thing..


Finished living room (by finished, I do mean, the boards are down. Corner round, decor refresh, etc to come) And apparently at night my camera lens gets really dirty - that, or we have lots of ghosts..





On to the hall...and on to three hours of sawing long door jambs


This was the infamous piece that gave us so much trouble, which Kacy finally solved!

"Finished" hall


Voila! Now all we need is a rug..... and a general "lightening" of the space..



We are tackling our bedroom this weekend - wish us luck!

Monday, June 22, 2009

That's What Friends Are For (Sing It With Me!)

We finished the floors in both the living room and the hallway!! Yay!! Bedroom is being saved for a different weekend........ The living room was fairly easy, the hallway - not so much. We have a ranch-style house, so there are 6 doors that come off the hall - and the builders were kind enough to make the door jambs go allllll the way to the concrete, resulting in some very strenuous sawing to make them high enough for the wood to slide under.

Once I actually get around to cleaning the house and putting it into some kind of order - I will post pics of it (it really looks great - total transformation!)

But we couldn't have done the floors without some awesome friends (and one father in law!). Kacy was there from the beginning guiding us and giving us tips - she and Tony even did most of the family room while I was still at work! Even after long days of working in the 100 degree heat, Mikey came over and helped too. We would have been lost without their flooring prowess!

And the icing on the friendship cake: we got stuck on the final two pieces of the hall once Kacy had left (we were hopeless without her) and gave up for the weekend. Today - while we were both at work - Kacy came over all by herself and finished the hall for us - which involved removing a whole row just to make it work! That was quite a pleasant surprise for us to come home to on a Monday!

We truly don't deserve the friendship of these two. Tony has been friends with them since high school, but ever since we moved here (they live just down the street!) they have been such a support for us. They have helped us with countless projects, make infinite dinners for us, taken us fancy places, and been all around wonderful friends.

Tony and I always talk about how we had discussed moving somewhere random after college, but knowing how much having a support system in place has helped us in these first few years, we are so grateful we made that choice.

Here's just a sampling of the fabulousness that is the Richardsons:

They threw us a super-fun wedding shower:


Introduced us to Greenville:


And Helen...

Invited us to tons of parties at their house - which are always the best!



Mikey does silly things....





Let us stay at Mikey's parents' lake house on many occasions:

And stay at a family friend's house in St. Augustine:
And at Kacy's aunt and uncle's house in D.C.:


While we were gone on our honeymoon, they not only festively decorated our house, but they cleaned the.entire.house. All of it. Even the random places like the office that I hadn't cleaned in months. And literally, our house was a disaster at this time, what with all of the gifts coming in the mail, packing, wedding planning, etc... they are saints:



And they helped make our wedding complete:



Love you guys.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Knoxville Weekend

Mikey and Kacy came with us to Knoxville for the weekend - my home sweet home.



























Pictures only - you get the idea! (Basically - Sandy stole the show!)

Monday, June 8, 2009

Floor to Come

It really is a terrible tragedy, but our mismatched carpet and parquet floors are being evicted....

(old photos - I'm so glad we painted over that green!)

Because this weekend we bought fancy new flooring!! Yay!!!



Ok, well maybe fancy isn't the perfect word (it's laminate - we have 2 big dogs that do NOT walk gingerly) but it seems really nice and it's a major upgrade. We got it at Floor and Decor, an outlet-type place that was actually a positive experience - the salesperson was really knowledgeable and helpful, and they had a ton to choose from. The color we got is Merbau (yeah, I don't know what that means but it's not light and it's not dark, and it's not quite red - it's a mix of all of the above). Honestly, there were quite a few colors that didn't have any red in them that I liked a lot, but all of those looked fake up close (yes, I realize all laminate is technically fake, but I wanted the least fakey). And it was about $.50 cheaper per sqft than something very similar at Home Depot - totally worth the 30 minute drive to a sketchy part of Atlanta!

So no more nasty stained and worn carpet, no more Dyson-multiple-times-over-but-still-dog-haired carpet cleaning sessions, no more 1980's parquet to greet you as you come in the front door!!

Not sure how long it will take us to actually put the boards down, but the one we have sitting in the hallway looks great!

Photo

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

A Touch of Sand

I haven't quite yet figured out my decorating style yet. In college, I had a lot of "beach" themed rooms - palm tree posters and the like. Because the beach makes me happy. I love pretty sunsets, sealife, and the relaxing sights of the ins and outs of the tides. So in our grownup house, I'm walking the tricky line of doing sea-ish decor without being tacky. Our bedroom is evidence of this.

I wanted our guest bathroom to continue this theme. It's nowhere near perfect or particularly chic(umm..hello broadway stage lights), but it's at least a little more pleasant!


I started out with 5 ugly frames from Goodwill --nothing that a little spray paint can't help (I LOVE spraypaint!) $10 total at the most. True, I probably could have bought new, already white frames, but that's no fun, and I like how each of these has different textures and styles.


I knew I wanted to use these in the bathroom, but I figured having family and friend's photos above the toilet might be a little sketchy...and scare off any visitors...especially if they were featured. So Tony had the bright idea of doing dog photos, and I made it "Beachyish" by using only pictures of dogs that were taken near the lake, the beach, or the pool - all made sepia to make them look fancy.

Forgive the light for these, it's pretty intense (yet still dark somehow?) with those lights and a camera flash!

This is either Shayla or Kaly (sorry Kacy, I can't tell them apart in sepia!) chilling on the beach in the shade in St. Augustine.



This is Sydney roaming the dirt near the lake, where the water was really really low, and either Shayla or Kaly is below again enjoying the beach.


And this is little Quincy, my parents' mini dachshund getting caught drinking pool water.


I figured our dogs might get a little embarrassed if we put their sweet faces up...so I spared them and put up their friends instead.

I'm hoping to soon buy some molding to frame out that mirror- it's perfect for that (is it bad the only thing stopping me from doing this is the ridiculously long pieces that molding comes in, where it's intimidatingly touching the roof of the Home Depot??)


My other Goodwill find that I was really excited about (I love Goodwill, what can I say). It looks straight outta an 80's basement...


But with a little paint, I feel like it fits right in the bathroom







So there you have it - a little touch of the ocean, to tide me over until our real
beach vacation (in only a few weeks! Okay...like 6 weeks.....)
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