In The Mood

Hooray, I finally made a mood board for the kitchen! I still have to run it by Chris but I think he'll approve since he's usually pretty easy going about the house decorating. I didn't spend long on it, so excuse the hurried look to it, but I just wanted to put it all together and see if I loved it as much as I thought I would. So without further ado, here's the plan:

Kitchen by superdupergirl on Polyvore

 

A few notes:

I can't decide on the pendant lights but I'll probably hang one over the sink and two over the bar.

The curtains are just a placeholder until I can find a funky ikat print that I love. I'll probably make six panels and hang them in the living room and in the kitchen to keep it looking cohesive.

I can't decide if I'll paint the bar stools or not but I'm pretty in lurve with them.

I want on old rotary phone so badly. Hopefully in a fun, bright color like this yellow one. We don't have a house phone but there's a box in the wall of the kitchen for one so I thought I would get a fun retro one that would be more for looks than function.

 

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours went pretty smoothly, but we didn't have to cook anything (I was definitely thankful for that!) Lily was great and pretty happy even though we kept her up through her afternoon nap. Two days before thanksgiving was our "housiversary" (infinitely fun to say- try it!) which I was incredibly excited about and also in a state of disbelief. We've lived in our ugly-cute little 3 bedroom for a year now. How crazy is that? This year is going to be the year of big changes though. Now that we're settled, it's time to change things up.

 

My Gigantic Room By Room To-Do List

Is it just me, or does doing one project make you itch to start another and another? We just put in a new front door (I can't wait to show you guys!) and now I want to start painting slash sewing slash tiling slash demoing everything in our poor house. I was at work all day today thinking about things I wanted to do to the house and in what order I wanted to do them and I decided to let the whole internet know, so here it comes:

 

The Front Yard

 

 

To Do:

• Work on landscaping
• Replace the storm door and paint the new door to match the shutters
• Get a mailbox on a post
• Replace the house numbers with some bigger, stylish oil rubbed bronze numbers to match the new porch light.
• Replace the porch light
• Get a new front door



The Living Room

 

 

To Do:

• Basically re-do everything we've already done! I want to replace the curtains which currently look like this:

yeesh, right? I'd love to replace them with a bright color or maybe even some blue or green ikat patterned ones.

• Hang (new) curtains
• Start a frame wall

• The paint color came out way lighter than I expected it to so I now want to repaint the walls a darker greige and replace our awful green carpet which you can see here:

 



• Spray paint the chandelier a bright color to go with the curtains and possibly add a shade, like this
• Whitewash the fireplace, which is making a very sad trombone sound. Womp womp.

 

• I also want to replace the "crown molding" around the top of the room, which is actually floor molding turned upside down.

The Kitchen

 

 

 

To Do:

• Replace the heavy, bulky, too-low drapery rod with a lighter one. It just looked like a big faux brass unibrow.
• Paint the cabinets white
• Paint a chalkboard on the side of my pantry (above) which is already getting a workout

• Paint the walls a khaki color
• Replace the flooring with a cherry wood laminate
• Retile the backsplash
• Get a new range hood- I've been looking at this one on amazon.
• Replace my awful countertops. I have three different ones and they're all ugly
• Put in a new pendant light over the sink
• Put in bamboo roman shades

The Laundry Room/Basement

 

To Do:

• I would love to stain the floors and maybe section off the laundry room a little better.
• I need more storage around/in the laundry area (which is right next to the stairs) so I was thinking of doing some shelving under the stairs. (see here for an example) 
• Make a clothespin chandelier for the stairway
• Paint thick, grey on slightly darker grey stripes in the stairwell

Bedrooms

 

To Do:

• Paint
• Rip up the carpet and sand/stain the gorgeous hardwoods underneath

• Replace the vinyl roller blinds with real blinds and hang curtains

 

Bathroom

Done:

Well... we've bought a vanity and a few towel rods.

 

To Do:

So Much. This is actually our next project and we'll probably be tackling it in the coming weeks provided we can work it around Thanksgiving. Mama likes her turkey.

In this reno (the first big project we'll be tackling together) we're going to be

• replacing the bathtub
• tiling a shower surround
• tiling the floor
• replacing the vanity and mirror
• replacing the door and trim
• frosting the window in the shower (I have no idea why there is a window in our shower, but I love the natural light it lends to the room so it's staying.)
• hopefully doing all of this within a few days because it's the only bathroom we have.

 

 

So there's my massive to do list (which is actually longer but I'm just doing this off the top of my head) and I'll leave you with some sunshine that brightened up my day (and my kitchen) 

 

That happy purple almost makes me forget it's 40 degrees outside.

Color Me Excited

I don't know why, but everyone here has had cabin fever all day long. Eleanor was going insane all day chewing on things and being a little too rough with the baby. Lily just crawls everywhere and has been kind of weepy. We went for a walk to try and cure it and man, am I out of shape. I walked a mile with Lily strapped to my chest in the Infantino and the pup pulling us along. My legs already hurt and it's only been two hours since we got back. I keep telling myself I'm going to work out and then find every possible excuse to avoid doing it. While I was walking though, I came to a realization. I need to start running again for 1. my sanity. 2. my body 3. my kid.

 

I'm a stresser. I worry about everything and at one time, running was my go-to mood booster. Now I realize that with a thousand more things to worry about (like my kid swallowing a marble) I need it more than I ever did. It probably wouldn't hurt any to lose a little weight either. I've lost all the baby weight but even before I got pregnant I was a few pounds over what I would have liked to be (plus, new clothes! Nobody says no to that). And with losing weight comes a healthier lifestyle. I have a daughter now who needs me to set a good example and eat right and excercise instead of crash dieting and bingeing.

 

After missing it this year, I heard about the The Color Run (which will be in town in June of 2013) and was automatically intrigued. Could I handle a 5k by next June? Totally. Couch to 5k gets people running them in 10 weeks. I can handle it in 8 months. I just need the motivation.

 



Doesn't that just look like fun?



I hereby declare that on June 1, 2013. I will be participating in The Color Run.

 

Now, you all will have to hold me to that. All two of you that have seen my blog. Man, I need to start networking.

Pumpkins!

This is LONG overdue, but we took Lily to the pumpkin patch!

 

 

It was a blustery day. Really windy and cold outside, which is why she looks so miserable, haha. She really did like her little baby pumpkin.

 

When we got home we carved those suckers up. Chris went with the Bat Signal, and I decided to go with a B&C. I had never actually attempted to shave the skin off of a pumpkin but it came off a lot easier than I expected, which was good.

 

And carving pumpkins means pumpkin seeds. I'd never roasted those either, so I decided to try it. I rinsed them off and laid them out to dry on some newspaper.

 

 

 

I actually don't have any pictures after this point because my camera ate them. But I followed this recipe which I found on Pinterest. Chris said he liked them, which was good enough for me!

 

This fall marks so many things for us. It's Lily's first holiday season, our one year homeiversary, and Lily's birthday in January. I'm so excited for it!