Unannounced, I gave up blogging for lent, and the last 40 days have given us a lot of time to accomplish some things. Now I’m full of stuff to write about and can’t wait to fill you in on all the excitment happening around here! I’ll start with the house, and then come back with some wedding updates!

So awhile ago, I showed you pictures of the house’s current state, and told you we would be having a paint party with my parents. Well, it happened, and we are totally in love with the results! I’m back with pictures, and I hope you like the difference as much as we do!

First I should show you our house color scheme! I based it off of Jackie’s from Teal and Lime, because I love every single square inch of her home! Obviously I was destined to find her blog exactly one day after deciding to paint our living room gray and teal! I did revamp it a tiny bit to fit our tastes, and came up with something we both love.

 Now onto the before and after photos!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, all of the paint is Velspar’s Signature Color Interior Satin Paint Plus Primer, from Lowe’s.

In the living room, we chose Vintage Teal for the accent wall around the fireplace, and Sharkfin for the other three.

It’s a fabulous shade of dark, without being too dark, and makes the room feel so much cozier than the sky blue that was in there before. The gray pops against the white trim and newly replaced white outlet/switch covers perfectly, and I’ve been having a blast finding lime green, yellow, and teal accessories to throw around. Thank goodness for wonderful (and cheap!) places like TJ Maxx, Homegoods, and IKEA, and websites like Joss and Main!

Of course we’re not even close to calling this room finished! We definitely want to get a big sectional and I think we’ve finally figured out what we want to do with the fireplace. I cannot wait to see how awesome it looks when we have the budget to do everything!

In the dining room, we ended up with a happy accident. We want to install a chair-rail, so we decided to do the same dark gray from the living room on the bottom, and a lighter gray on top. We originally chose Autumn Fog for the top, but the guy at Lowe’s mixed us Pelican instead. (The site swatch gives it a brownish tint, but it’s actually a super light gray.) When we got home and started painting, I kept saying it looked really light compared to the tester we had painted, but everyone kept telling me it would dry darker. About a week later, I held up the paint swatch to the wall and realized the mistake. Fortunately, we don’t hate the lighter shade, so we’re going to leave it for now. My only concern is that in darker lighting conditions, like going up the stairs, it looks very blue. Hopefully changing out the light fixture at the top of the steps someday will help that.

Next up in here I want to install the chair-rail, cover the chairs, and add a piece of furniture under the one window. Right now we get home and throw everything on the dining room table. It’ll be nice to have a designated spot to put our keys, headphones, bus passes, and anything else we happen to pull out of our pockets! Plus, we could always use some extra storage for serveware and such. (We recently bought the piece of furniture, and it’ll be my first true DIY experience, so I’m giving it it’s own post, coming soon!)

In between painting, we’ve also checked a few other things off of our master list of house upgrades, so here are a few more photos, and an update of the list.

We got new mattresses! We’ve finally upgraded to a queen from a full, thanks to Levin Furniture’s Clearance Warehouse. After much deliberation, we went with a Sealy Gulfside pillow top with a split box-spring, and we’re sleeping better than we have in years! (It is much harder to get out of bed now, though!)

We got a patio furniture set, which came in handy when we hosted Justin’s family for a cookout, I see many more cookouts in our near future! We also replaced the mailbox, since our old one was leaky and making all of our mail soggy every time it rained. I plan to paint the wood a darker color, and we added our house numbers to the pole, which I obviously can’t show you :) Maybe now visitors won’t pass our house twice before finding it!

We replaced the outside light fixtures, by trading for the ones on Justin’s mom’s house. These look so much better than our mismatched/broken ones!

We also hung our monogrammed door knocker, that Jay and April got us for Christmas, which I can’t show you a picture of because it has our last name on it :)

Our washer and dryer finally arrived 5 months late! (It had been on backorder since Black Friday!) Brandon and Jeremy visited and installed it for us! Thanks guys!!

We also replaced both toilet seats, and had a plumber come fix our upstairs shower issue. Turns out, our flipper installed the pipes backwards, so hot is cold and cold is hot! Super lame, but we’re going to leave it alone for now, until we can afford to redo all the tiling around the pipes.

Of course, even after all of that, we still have a million things we’d like to do around here! Here’s an updated master list to keep you in the loop:

As of 3/13/12

Small/Medium Stuff:

• Change doorknobs and deadbolts
• Hang door knocker on front door
• Line kitchen cabinets and drawers
• Line linen closet shelves
• Window blinds (13/16 complete)
• Install bathroom fixtures
• Install closet system in small master closet for time being
• Drylock basement
• Paint every room (2/9 complete)
• Paint all trim throughout house white
• Paint banister
• Refinish fireplace
• Putty nail holes in trim throughout house and paint
• Fill holes that were cut too large (Around light fixtures, outlet covers, etc.)
• Frost the kitchen side door
• Replace faucet and cabinet knobs in downstairs bathroom to match other chrome
• Replace light fixtures in upstairs bathroom to match other brushed nickel
• Replace fan covers in both bathrooms
• Replace upstairs toilet seat
• Replace downstairs toilet seat
• Caulk around tub and shower
• Fix upstairs shower
• Replace trim around upstairs bathroom window
• Replace trim around kitchen window
• Replace all outlet and switch covers to white and turn outlets rightside up (8/? complete)
• Re-install overhead lighting in living room
• Re-install outside lighting on side door
• Replace outside light fixtures on front doors
• Fix outside lighting around second front door
• Change outside light above garage to motion detector
• Install light switch at bottom of basement
• Create a frame gallery in dining room (similar to this, from YHL)
• Plant evergreen trees along backyard line to block view of neighbor’s garage
• Replace the mailbox
• Remove clothing line poles from backyard, fill holes
• Install chair rail in dining room
• Install crown molding in dining and living rooms

Big Projects

• Fence around side and backyard
• Create walk-in closet from attic space off master bedroom
• Build deck off back of house above driveway
• Change living room window into door to deck
• Finish basement
• Mudroom
• Laundry room
• Half-bathroom
• Entertaining Space w/ bar
• Install French Drain if needed for basement
• Landscape both front and backyard

Furnishings to save up for:

• Fireplace screen and tools
• Window Blinds (3 left)
• Washer and Dryer
• A queen sized bed. We’re tired of sleeping on a full!
• Bedroom furniture
• Patio furniture
• A big U-shaped sectional for living room
• Large area rug for living room
• Coffee table/storage ottoman for living room
• Cupboard/counter piece for upstairs bathroom between dual sinks
• A buffet type furniture piece for under dining room window

So that’s what we’ve been up to for the last 40 days! We’re finally turning this house into our home, and having such a good time in the process!

xoxo

I finally took some house photos! (To be honest, I had no choice, as we are making some big changes this weekend, and it was my last chance to get some before pictures!)

So I don’t bombard you or my site with photos, I’m only going to post some of the rooms. Our spare bedrooms are all in disarray, and since they won’t be updated anytime soon, I have no need to share that mess with you today :)

Here’s where we’re at currently…

Living Room

(That bright blue thing is so Bailey can get on the couch, until we get a rug that will give him enough traction to jump up!)

Dining Room

(Hi Bailey!)

Kitchen

We’re doing what we can with mismatched furniture and a tiny budget until after the wedding, but it is finally starting to feel like home!

This weekend my parents are coming, and we’re going to paint the living and dining rooms! I can’t wait to get some fun color on the walls, and get rid of the ugly mauve that goes through the dining room and up the stairs! I’m not sure what our flipper was thinking when he painted this house, but there are missed spots, drippy spots, and bumped ceiling spots that we will not miss!

I’ll be sure to post updates next week, after the paint dries!

xoxo

*Confession: I totally moved a bunch of stuff from the dining room into the kitchen, and then back, so both rooms look cleaner than they are on a daily basis! I wish we kept it like this all the time, but that’s just not real life. If you want reality, check this post, which shows our old apartment, in it’s most natural state! We’re not quite that bad anymore though, promise!

I meant to post this yesterday, but didn’t get a chance. Since it was Valentine’s Day, I wanted to take a moment to share some of the amazing little things that Justin does, that I don’t show him enough appreciation for!

• He has been doing our laundry at his mom’s for the past two months, while we wait for our washer and dryer delivery
• He packs me a delicious and healthy lunch everyday
• He convinces me to go to the gym when I’m not in the mood, but also lets me stay home when I’m REALLY not in the mood
• He has completely revamped my eating habits, in the best way ever
• These three things combined have equated to my losing 10 pounds in the last 8 months!
• He encourages me when I don’t believe I’m capable of accomplishing something
• He holds me when I’m upset
• He gets up at 7AM on a Saturday morning to let Bailey out, so I can stay in bed
• He talks me out of stupid ideas before I make an idiot of myself
• He makes me laugh all the time
• He listens when I need to vent
• He reminds me everyday that I’m worth it

Most of all, he’s teaching me what it means to be in a caring, loving, relationship, and I know that I’m going to be overwhelmingly happy for the rest of my life with him. He is everything I ever could have dreamed of wanting in a husband!

xoxo

Since the shower invites have officially been sent, we had to finalize our registry!

We decided to register at Macy’s and Bed, Bath, and Beyond. (We also started one at Target, but it only has like one thing on it, so we’ll probably just buy that thing for ourselves after the shower)

At Macy’s, we chose some of our big ticket items. This includes things like:

A Kitchenaid Mixer (in Boysenberry, because what girl doesn’t want a purple mixer!)

Fiesta Dinnerware (The square variety, in Brown and Turquoise, with splashes of Ivory)

Food Storage Containers (I’ve heard awesome reviews on these OXO ones!)

and Pretty Stemware for our Wedding Toast!

From Bed, Bath, and Beyond, we chose other necessities, like:

Wooden Spoons and other cooking utensils

Bath Towels

Bedding

and of course, a popcorn maker!

We had a lot of fun walking through the stores and picking things out, but it was definitely more stressful than we thought it would be! It took us five trips to the stores, and countless hours online to tweak our lists to perfection. We went back and forth on a few things we weren’t agreeing on initially, but we’re both thrilled with our final choices. We even tried to accommodate our guests who will be shopping for us. If an item was sold at both places, we did our best to put it on the cheaper store’s list!

I can’t believe my shower is only a month away! I am so excited to spend a day with my crazy family, in a Harry Potter themed wonderland. It’s going to be one of the best days ever!

I’m going to give the mail a few more days to deliver, and then I’ll post about the HP invites I created for the event!

xoxo

July 4th though July 11th, 2012.

Justin sent me this photo, with no other information. I have no idea where this is, but I’m so excited!!!

**In the event that you actually know where this is, please don’t tell me! I’m loving the surprise!**

Our last *big* decision. Flowers. What the heck are we going to do for flowers.

I honestly had NO clue what I wanted for bouquets, the altar, boutonnieres, etc. I did have an idea for centerpieces, but no sense of how much it might cost to put it together. Obviously I needed to find a vendor who would throw a bunch of ideas at me, because I didn’t even know where to start, and then also be able to make it happen under a budget, because, for real, we’re running out of money!

Introducing Yvonne, of James Floral Shoppe, in Wilkinsburg, PA!

(Not our flowers, just an example of her beautiful work!)

In November, we had our first meeting with Yvonne, and my mom and step-dad came with us, since we needed help deciding on something we had barely thought about. After telling her exactly what I didn’t want, she started tossing around ideas, but nothing was screaming at me. Everything just seemed kind of blah. When I told her I wanted something more exciting, she showed me a photo of something she had done recently, and it BLEW MY MIND. Instantly, I know it was what I wanted, would pop perfectly on both colored dresses, and was something I never would have thought of on my own! We spent an hour or so finalizing the details, and left with so much anticipation of how awesome everything was going to be.

Then we got the bill.

After  a mini huge panic attack, I decided to just email her back and ask what we could do to bring the cost down a bit. She threw a few more ideas around, and we scheduled another meeting. This time she would have mock-ups for me to actually see, and we could play around with the cheaper options.

After meeting with Yvonne a second time, we think we’re set! We went a completely different direction with the centerpieces, change the sizes of the bouquets, and nixed a few things we know we won’t be needing. Now we’re much happier with the cost, and still SO EXCITED for what she’s doing. We can’t wait to see it all put together!

xoxo

As most of you know, the seller flipped our house in the last year and a half, so it was move-in ready when we bought it. We have noticed, however, that he sort of lacked attention to detail, and there are a lot of things that bother us. We have created a list of things we’d like to add/remove/change as we make it our own. Of course, I’m sure I’ve forgotten something, so the list will most likely grow before it gets shorter, but this is a start!

Small/Medium Stuff:

• Change doorknobs and deadbolts
• Line kitchen cabinets and drawers
• Line linen closet shelves
• Window blinds (16) – 7 complete
• Install bathroom fixtures (Toilet paper holders, towel holders, etc.)
• Install closet system in small master closet for time being
• Drylock basement
• Paint every room (We currently have a pink dining room)
• Paint all trim throughout house white. (If I can get Jut to agree, I hate how dark everything is!)
• Prime and paint fireplace (I think I’ve finally gotten Jut to agree to this!)
• Putty nail holes in trim and paint (This is in EVERY room in the house. His attention to detail? Non-existent!)
• Fill holes that were cut too large (Around light fixtures, outlet covers, etc.)
• Frost the kitchen side door
• Replace faucet and cabinet knobs in downstairs bathroom to match other chrome
• Replace light fixtures in upstairs bathroom to match other brushed nickel
• Replace fan covers in both bathrooms
• Replace upstairs toilet seat (The seller installed the wrong size)
• Replace downstairs toilet seat (Jut broke the lid!)
• Caulk around tub and shower
• Fix upstairs shower (It doesn’t give out hot water)
• Replace trim around upstairs bathroom window
• Replace trim around kitchen window
• Replace all outlet covers to white
• Fix outlet wiring (They are all installed with the white and black wires flipped)
• Turn outlets rightside up (They’re also installed upside down)
• Re-install overhead lighting in living room
• Re-install outside lighting on side door (Where we let Bailey out)
• Replace outside light fixture at front door
• Fix outside lighting around second front door
• Change outside light above garage to motion detector
• Install light switch at bottom of basement (We can only turn the basement lights on from the top of the stairs!)
• Create a frame gallery in dining room (similar to this, from YHL)
• Plant evergreen trees along backyard line to block view of neighbor’s garage
• Replace the mailbox
• Remove clothing line poles from backyard, fill holes – One down, Jut pulled it out on our first night at the house!

Big Projects

• Fence around side and backyard
• Create walk-in closet from attic space off master bedroom
• Build deck off back of house above driveway
• Change living room window into door to deck
• Finish basement
• Mudroom
• Laundry room
• Half-bathroom
• Entertaining Space w/ bar
• Install French Drain if needed for basement
• Landscape both front and backyard

Furnishings to save up for:

• Fireplace screen and tools
• Window Blinds (9 left)
• Washer and Dryer
• A queen sized bed. We’re tired of sleeping on a full!
• A big U-shaped sectional for living room
• Large area rug for living room
• Cupboard/counter piece for upstairs bathroom between dual sinks

Wow, it’s been almost a month since I last posted! I guess blogging falls down the priority list when you try to buy a house and plan a wedding within 6 months of each other! Also? We’re only 5 months and 10 days away! Unbelievable.

So what have we been up to so far in 2012? The short answer is ALL THE THINGS.

For the wedding we have done the following, but still have a mile long to-do list:

• Created Save the Dates – They will be mailed next week!
• Planned the best bridal shower in the history of bridal showers with Kelsey and my mama (HARRY POTTER, WHAT?)
• Got the perfect card box! Justin picked it out, he’s basically #1 fiance in the world.
• Completed most of our wedding registry, just a couple more things to add!
• Picked up another piece of my ensemble, a piece I wasn’t sure I wanted, but it adds so much class
• Met with the minister – Found out we speak the same love language, so that’s good, right?

For the house:

• Changed all the doorknobs and deadbolts
• Hung bathroom fixtures
• Setup our dining room with Jut’s mom’s dining room set. It fits really well in the space, and is a nice reminder of her.
• Cleaned like crazy people, with the help of my amazing mother and her steam cleaner :)
• Put up blinds in all the front facing windows, minus one
• Got a welcome mat and inside floor mats for the doors
• Had sewege backup into our basement on New Year’s Eve! We got it taken care of, and got assurance that there is nothing seriously wrong with our pipes, so that was good news after a crappy experience. Pun intended :)
• Bought a fireplace screen and tools, and had our first real fire last night!
• Picked up a closet system for the small closet, to keep us organized until we can build out the big closet
• Bought a snow shovel, and used it for the first time last night. This is kind of a big deal, since we’ve never had to buy a snow shovel before!

Oh, and we also found out we have deer living in our backyard! We saw one when we left for the gym the other night, and it was there again when we got home! At least it wasn’t our bear friend, which we hope won’t return when it’s done hibernating :)

In other news, we’re still training for the half-marathon, and successfully dieting and getting in shape for the wedding! I’m doing yoga a couple times a week, and it’s really helping me freak out less about everything we have left to do! Justin is a saint, and bearing with me as the days pass and my stress level rises. He really is the most patient guy in the world!

So that’s us, currently. We’re in a really good place right now, physically and emotionally, and excited to be going at this together.

I’ll be back soon with a new posting series, which will keep you updated on all the house upgrades we’re getting ourselves into :)

xoxo

(via)

We hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend surrounded by those you love!

xoxo

*Please excuse my crappy iPhone photo

In the 3.5 years we’ve been dating, Justin and I have created some little traditions for ourselves. A couple of them fall around Christmas time, and last night was one of them!

For the second year in a row, we got tickets to see Straight No Chaser live! If you’ve never heard of them, you have GOT to check them out. They are ten guys who started as a college acapella group, and became known with a YouTube video that went viral. We personally found them on our local PBS station at Christmastime in 2009 and instantly fell in love with them! They are seriously amazing.

Knowing that this would be our last big date night for a while, since you know, we’re buying a house tomorrow, we decided to make it fancy. We both dressed up more than we normally would for work, and drove downtown instead of riding the bus. After work we had dinner at a nice little Italian place called Palazzo Ristorante. (It kind of drives me nuts that they don’t have an actual website. Get on that Palazzo!) Anyway, website or not, the food was freaking excellent! And it wasn’t nearly as crowded as the restaurant we went to last year before the show. Justin had blackened scallops, I had spaghetti and meatballs, and we shared fried zucchini for an appetizer. It was all delicious!

After dinner, we had a lot of time to waste, so we went for a walk around this awesome city we love. We went down to the Point to see the giant Christmas tree and though it was slightly disappointing to find that it’s not actually a Christmas tree, it was still beautiful.

The concert was at the Benedum Center, and if you haven’t been there, I’m telling you, you HAVE to go. It is breathtakingly gorgeous in that building. For my Erie family, it is very similar to the Warner!  We didn’t have nearly as good of seats as we did last year, but there really isn’t a bad seat in the place. Last year we were up in the balcony, and we’ll definitely try to get back up there for next year.

SNC put on a fabulous show, and we had such a good time! They did some holiday songs, but also included a bunch of non-Christmas stuff, including an Elvis mashup, some Michael Jackson, and even Justin Bieber. Every single song was perfectly done.

They come back to Pittsburgh in May, and we might go see them at that time, but we’re most definitely going to see them again next Winter. We both want to make this a yearly event, and I hope they’re all as special as this year and last year were.

Now go look up Straight No Chaser on YouTube, and fall in love just like we did :)

xoxo