A Bridal Shower Fete - K&L

In addition to the craziness of moving, we've had a few wedding events over here to catch you up on. Read this as, I changed in our storage unit to make it to Krysten's bridal shower on time. Ha. There was no way I was missing this! This group of girls happens to be the girlfriends/fiances/wives of J's good friends but at this point, we're all friends! Love these ladies.

But you'll need to forgive my lack of photos. I kind of failed to really document this day and I'm kicking myself for it. The venue was absolutely gorgeous and the food and drinks were delish. The food was catered by the same company catering Krysten and Lee's wedding and it was amazing. Can't wait for the wedding!

I did snag some photos with my iphone. Aparently phone camera's don't like windows behind the focus of the picture so they're a little blury, boo. But, here's a glimpse into a beautifully done home shower.

This was the first time I've ever played bridal Mad Libs and I have to say, it was hilarious! I highly recommend this. We were given the sheet on the right with little direction first. Just fill it out. Is it sad that we were all taking extra time to make sure we have our adjectives and verbs right? It's been a while since 6th English...

Confession - I snapped this photo for my own personal use. I loooved these floors. And they were the color J and I had been discussing for our new home.

Above these gorgeous floors was a lace ribbon filled with photos of the happy couple. It was adorable. And here's the good lookin' couple now! :) 

The view from my table included a glimpse into this four seasons room filled with a bevy of drink options. Sangria for the win.

 And my seat also included a view of the gifts! Krysten and Lee have some very generous friends and family!

 Not only generous, but talented! Krysten's grandmother made this quilt and it is stunning. I wasn't quick enough to capture the quilt but you can see the front side in the bottom of this photo. So so beautiful. And so sweet! There's nothing better than something made with love, and from you grandmother, can't be beat.

The groom came by halfway through to assist in the gift opening. Good ol' traditions. It's always so fun to see the groom interact with a million and one ladies. Lee did great.

I had to steal this photo from a bridesmaid....thanks Rach! :) The cake was beautiful. It went perfectly with the purple/wine theme.

And lastly, the bridal party. Stunning!

I cannot wait for this wedding! We grew close to these two during our time in the city and have had so many great times. This wedding is going to be an absolute blast. 

Cheers Krysten and Lee! 

Home Tour - The Befores

At long last, our home tour! I guess I've been nervous to get these photos up....we've got a whole lot of work to do on our new home. And I'm really excited to document the process, but this means we need to start making decisions! And the idea of making to-do lists per room is still a bit overwhelming. And it would make this post a record-breaker in length.

I've been taking pictures as we go, not only for blogging, but because I think it will be so neat to look back in 30 years and see what we were able to accomplish. (And trigger memories of the process).

If we end up having a housewarming party, it'll be fun to have a photo album out showing the work we've been able to do on our home.

I'm warning you now. This post is a lengthy one! So let's get to it. Here's your first tour of our new home. Consider this post the "befores" in every single room....yes, lots to do. So we'll stick to the basics today, and I'll be doing more specific posts with lists of our plans over the next few weeks.

Front Yard

We have our work cutout for us in the yard! I envision myself enjoying coffee or wine out on this little front porch (as mentioned here). But with everything else to take care of, landscaping will be year 2. We'll maintain for now, but I have no plans to make the outdoor space anything great immediately.

Back Yard

Can you see how high the grass was?! It was pretty crazy. J ended up mowing without a bagger the first time because it was filling up way too quickly. Tucker loved it though. He was literally rolling around in the long grass, it was hysterical.

Our biggest projects for the backyard will be refacing the deck and maintaining the pool. But hopefully we can incorporate some of these ideas too.

Kitchen

(listing photos)

The kitchen is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door. And as you can see from these pictures, it's also the exit out to the deck. Like many homes, it's the command zone. Our biggest priority in the kitchen right now is getting bar stools. It's hard to tell from these photos (maybe just to me) but the breakfast bar is massive and can definitely fit more than 3 stools. We're planning to purchase 4 once we find ones we love that won't also break the bank. 

Dining Room

If you stand at the island in the kitchen and look straight ahead, the dining room is in front of you, to the left. And the front door is straight ahead to the right. The dining room was pretty much the landing pad at first. We weren't getting our dining room table right away so there was no reason not to fill this space with boxes as we moved in. 

Then, it became the living room while we cleaned the carpet in the family room.

And today it looks like this:

More details to come but how awesome is this dining room set J found?! We have so many plans for it. And will share details as we go of course!

Family Room

Above is the listing photo, below is how it originally looked when we moved in...

 Crazy, I know. But don't worry, we've made progress since these shots. First, we emptied the space to clean the carpet -

And since then, we've setup a family room with the furniture we own. Sadly, our sectional from the condo doesnt' fit perfectly in this room but we will definitely be making it work for now.

Living Room

Above is the listing photo, below is how we used the space for the first few nights here. 

I cannot thank our moms enough. It was such a long, ridiculously hot day when we moved in. One of those days where you don't realize how exhausted you are until you sit down. The moms were determined to setup our "bedroom" before they left for the night. Do you know how comforting it was to walk in and see this. The night stands and lamps were a nice touch ladies. 

Here's what it looks like today now that we've moved upstairs:

Office

J finally has a home office! For someone who works from home when not out at clients, J has patiently waited for this day. A home office. And funny enough, there's an extra desk for me too! Above is a listing photo and below is a photo I snagged in the morning (J had no idea). 

Guest Rooms

 The top two photos are of what we are calling/furnishing as a guest room. And the bottom two are of our spare room, as we're calling it. My plan is to fill it with workout equipment - yoga mat, light weights - since we've decided to hold off on gym memberships for now. Eventually, it will be a nursery. Eventually as in not in the near future. Calm down. :)

Guest Bath

Have you ever seen a more beautiful bathroom?! Oh my g, we cannot wait to tear this out. It's not even that it's dated, it's that it's grimy! We've cloroxed this sucker and are being patient for now. There are a few major projects before this badboy. One being the deck, and two being the master bathroom. But once those projects are done, we'll be incorporating some of these ideas into this space.

Master Bath

 Oh, you couldn't tell that this is a bathroom? I am actually really excited that we have a clean slate for this project. Just like having new floors installed, it actually makes it easier to be given a blank page. There is no demo to be done. There is no unforeseen circumstances that tend to come up when a bathtub is removed. We've decided to get this bathroom done first so that when we demo the guest bathroom, there is a fully functioning bathroom to use.

Master Bedroom

 

1- The hallway leading into the bedroom. The bedroom door is behind me, my closet is the unfinished door on the left (it's a pocket door!) / 2 - My closet, eee! :) 

 3 - View once you get to the end of the hallway / 4 - view to the left from the end of the hallway, unfinished space on the left is J's closet.

 6 - J's closet / 7 - view from the back corner of the room

8 - view from the bedroom looking down the hallway

Although we've started making this house our home already, I wanted to make sure you saw what we started with. I didn't lie when I said we have our work cut out for us. Which paint do you think we chose in the photo above? Left or right?

Any advice you can give on finishing spaces?? Like I mentioned above, it is a bit overwhelming. And expensive! I'm doing my best to look for deals and only splurge on things we really want and are timeless (like hardwood floors). So you may see a few Ikea hacks over here! And I welcome any and all advice from those of you who've already gone through this process. 

If you like this post please let me know by leaving a comment or liking my Facebook page. You can also follow along on Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Let's stay in touch!

Fun Fact Friday 6.7.13

I can't tell you how happy I am to be blogging again. My over-sharing personality was slowly dying inside. But I'm back!

1. Tropical Storm Andrea is really putting a damper on my weekend. I need to paint, clean the pool, run a million and one errands, and enjoy a meal on our new patio set.

2. Story about the patio set....we went with this one. And it arrived completely damaged. Table cracked, all six chairs' metal frames bent, boxes taped back together. Really? You thought this was deliverable? But one call to Home Depot customer service and they were very apologetic and got a new set ordered immediately. Best part, they took an additional 15% off for the inconvenience. Works for me! Especially since the first one was delivered (to my in-laws) before we had even closed on the house.

3. Last Thursday was one of the most stressful days of my life. We didn't know until 7:30 pm if we could close the next morning on our house, and then didn't have final numbers until just about walking into closing. Crazy! So needless to say, I could not concentrate on work. Sometimes, ok often, when I'm stressed I start shopping online. Thank you Zappos VIP for some new summer sneaks! I went with these ones. I've seen so many cute white sneakers recently I decided I'd give them a try.

4. When we closed Friday, I was all ready to wear my moving clothes to the closing. And then I decided to wear something a little more suitable. We were buying our first house! And even though it was 100 degrees out, I went with a new collared shirt. With shorts of course - it was so freakin hot!

shirt - J.Crew / shorts - J.Crew Factory / sandals - Jack Rogers

5. The hardwood floors I mentioned yesterday are now completely installed!! And I have to say, they look great. I am very happy with the choice we made. I'll go into more detail once I find my camera cord and can share more photos, but here's a peek.

This is a small hallway within the master bedroom, leading to the main room. That is my walk-in-closet to the right, and also the future entrance to the master bath.

6. Next up on our reno list is the master bathroom. We'll be meeting with a few different people over the next week to get quotes and then hopefully the work will start very soon. I will certainly share my ideas and decisions as we go! So far we're thinking double wide shower and double vanities. We shall see what the professionals say though!

Any plans for the weekend? We will most definitely be watching the Bruins game tonight! And of course continuing to unpack/organize. Someday, in a year or so, we'll start to feel settled. :)

Have a great weekend!

Linking up with H54F and That Friday Blog Hop

We've moved!

Guess what, we've moved into our new home! It sure did come down to the wire, but J and I have signed over our lives and purchased a home. We seriously couldn't be happier. It's quiet, it's private, Tucker is loving his yard, and I am loving having a driveway.

And the next best thing, we finally have internet!!! I know we've only been here since Friday but the cell service happens to be horrible in our neck of the woods so it's been a long 5 days with no TV or internet. Thankfully we've had plenty of projects to keep us busy. But with the Bruins in the playoffs, J's pretty happy to finally watch a game.

Like I've said a million times already, I have so much to share! If only I could find my dang camera cord to upload all of the pictures I've taken over the last few days. Only a few more boxes to unpack so I expect to find it soon.

Not only do I have house photos to share, I have a few wedding posts to catch up on too! Think amazing home bridal shower and the most gorgeous bride you ever did see.

I can't follow up a pictureless post with another no photo post, so here are a few sneak peeks I can share from my phone.

Backstory - J and I bought a home that needs some TLC. We absolutely loved the location and the layout of the house so we figured why not. We're young, we have no kids, and this allowed us to get into the town we really wanted to be in at a little bit of a discount.

Did I mention we have a pool?! We are pretty excited about this and made sure to get it up an running first thing Saturday. Lots of clean up necessary. Lots...

Thank god for power washers. Who knew the edge of the pool was white?

Also thankful for carpet cleaners. My mom decided to invest in one years ago and it is awesome. Look at that dirty water....and this was round two. Yuck. Worth every penny.

 And our most exciting project so far has been getting floors installed upstairs. All three bedrooms looked like this. And as you can see, the hardwood floors we ordered have been delivered!

We were able to get the master bedroom ceiling and walls painted before the floors went down. This picture isn't the greatest but the color is Alpaca by Sherwin Williams. It is really going to look great once the floors are finished as well as the window trim and baseboards. Like I said, plenty to keep us busy!

Next up is replacing the old, splintered deck and updating the bathrooms. Wait until you see our current full bathroom. It sure is a gem, straight from the 1950's. 

I have a feeling my blog is going to include quite a few more house and home related posts over the next few months but I will certainly be fitting in the 7 weddings we're attending too. Hopefully you don't mind following along as J and I set up our first home. There are lots of decisions to be made! And I hope you can help me make the right decisions. Example-  thank you Jenn for telling us to go for FIOS - it is soo fast! :)

Happy Thursday!