Cake Wrecks: The "Winter Underlined" Tour

Last night I went to the West Hartford Barnes and Noble (my first trip to Blue Back Square!) with Marcella for the Cake Wrecks book presentation and signing. I haven't seen Marcella in forever (except for a short time at the Berlin Fair in the beginning of October), so it was nice to catch up with her :) We got to the store really early (the evite said 126 people were coming, so we wanted to make sure we got a seat!). We grabbed some food from the Starbucks in the store and I bought one of the Cake Wrecks book to have signed. Marcella made this for Jen, the brains behind Cake Wrecks. She loved it!! It's the carrot jockey baby from one of the cakes, and is the blog's logo. Cella did an amazing job with it!

The crocheted carrot jockey baby 

The cake slice shaped bag and a picture of the inspiration :)

Jen and Marcella

Right before the presentation started, Sarah Dunn (Botta) showed up! She had seen Marcella's status on facebook saying that we were going and was home so she decided to come too! It was so great to see her! I haven't seen her in 10 years! We kept telling people it was our mini high school reunion! We got to eat this delicious cake while catching up on the last 10 years. All in all, an amazing night!

And the best part was when Jen signed my book she signed it "To Shelley, with an extra "e"" which is how I always tell people it's spelled :) Yay!

Birthday Manicure/Pedicure

Today Beverly came to Reading to take out Lauren for her birthday. She also invited me and Becca. We first went to Wilmington to get manicures and pedicures. I got a French manicure and I love it! I just wish that nice nails lasted longer on me. After the nail salon we went to Lexington to Margarita's for lunch! I looooveee Margaritas!! The lunch taco basket was the same size as the dinner one though so I was wicked full. We then had to make a quick trip to Stop and Shop, where Becca slipped on some water (and Lauren's first comment was "Are you hurt? You could sue!". When we were getting back in the car, Beverly thought she recognized someone she knew from high school, who ended up getting into the car next to us. She went over and knocked on his window and scared him :) Turns out it was pretty random.. they both grew up in Saugus, he lives in Western MA now and she lives in NH. And they both happened to be in Reading at Stop and Shop parked next to each other lol.

When we got home, me and Becca made jello infused cupcakes to bring to Lauren's birthday bbq at her house in Saugus that night. They came out so cute! (Bad pictures though.. the lighting was weird..)

We finally made it to Lauren's (only a half hour late), where Jason cooked hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner. Everything was really good! Stephanie and Jenn Silva were also there. After dinner, Lauren's soccer friends started showing up. One of them brought watermelon vodka, and suggested adding it to the pink lemonade Lauren had made for me. Omg.. it was delicious!! I'm usually not a fan of vodka, but this was delicious!! And on top of all of the fun, Lauren had put together a birthday bbq playlist, complete with BSB, NKOTB, NSync and Hanson. It was pretty awesome.. though Ryan and Jason didn't agree. By the time we all left, we had had waaaayyy too much to drink! Becca and I were way too fascinated by the 20 bougies (what a funny word) (aka birthday candles) while Ryan met up with Mark.

Our Three Year Anniversary

Today was our three year wedding anniversary!! Unfortunately, it fell on a Tuesday, which meant we spent most of the day apart. While Ryan was at work I ran around doing errands all day. I had some birthday and Father's Day gift shopping to do (plus last minute anniversary gifts).. and I also had to return a book to the library and renew Madison's license (well.. technically, register her in Berlin).

When Ryan got home we decided to go to Renaldo's for dinner. Neither of us was in the mood for a huge dinner, and we didn't want to spend an enormous amount of money, and Renaldo's is always our go-to restaurant when we can't make a decision. We should go out to dinner during the week more often! Our salads came out with our drinks and the dinners came out before we even had time to finish our salads! As always, everything was crazy delicious. And I had leftovers that I'll have for lunch tomorrow. All for only $27, including tip!

After dinner we headed to the mall because someone (RYAN) still had to buy me a present and card. Of course we went to Hallmark, where I chatted with Sarah while Ryan (with Zoe's help) picked out a gift and card.

Ryan got me an adorable Precious Moments.. the anniversary one (which we discovered is from 2003.. coincidence? :)). I got him The Sopranos Season 6 Part II (the only Sopranos box set we were missing), an electrical outlet/wire tester thing (he really really really wanted this.. and proceeded to play with it for an hour after opening it) and a couple other little things for the grill.

Here are some pictures of us from the last year... It was definitely a good year...

 At Erik and Colleen's Wedding - North Conway, NH - August 2010

 

At Krissy and Eric's Wedding - New Haven, CT - July 2010

 

At Matthew and Jenn's Wedding - Oxford, CT - October 2010

 

On Vacation - Winthrop, ME - August 2010

At Water's Edge - Westbrook, CT - August 2010

Closing on our house - East Berlin, CT - July 2010

The Little One Turns 4!!!

I cannot believe she is already 4!! There is no way we've had her for four years! Although, at the same time, we can't even remember what life was like without her. If we're out all day without her, we miss her like crazy and find ourselves rushing home to her. Best.Baby.Ever!

Madison celebrated her birthday with an Ooh La La Peanut Butter Pie made by her mommy, and got four presents (four for the four year old). She got a squeaky monkey with rope arms and legs, a pink frisbee, a pomegranate chewie and a new Zhu Zhu pet. We're going to visit Auntie Sadie and cousin Declan this weekend, and she's planning on bringing some of her birthday pie to share with them.

House Renovation

My mom is finally getting her new kitchen! After 32 years. My dad "promised" her when they built the house that they would make the kitchen bigger. And it is finally happening.

I've been working on the plans for a couple months now, and this morning we met with one of the contractors (the one I hope will get the job!).

When my mom called him to schedule the meeting, she screamed and danced around the Dining Room when she hung up. Yea. She's that excited!

If I work my butt off and get the documents ready in the next week or so, I'll be able to give them to the contractors to bid on (we still need to meet with the other contractor too... even though my parents really liked Rick, it's always best to have at least 2 or 3 bids), and submit them to the town for the building permit. We'll also have time to order the windows and cabinets before demolition starts, which will help speed things up. Rick would be able to start toward the end of August (with my luck it'll be the week we're in Maine..) and he estimates that it'll take 6-8 weeks.. finishing around October. We'll be doing a lot of the work ourselves.. which'll make for an interesting summer/fall. Working on our house and my parent's house!

Thanksgiving in May

For the longest time I've been saying that when we have kids I want to have major holidays at our house. Yea, it'll be a lot of work and a lot of craziness, but it seemed like the only fair option for our parents.

So this year we decided to host Mother's Day. Back in November we got a free turkey from ShopRite. It was the week they opened (the week before Thanksgiving) and you got a coupon in the mail for a free turkey if you spent $15. Pretty good deal. We bought our groceries and got a free 20 pound turkey (valued at about $25). But what are two people going to do with an entire 20 pound turkey?? We couldn't eat it ourselves, and even with eating leftovers it just seemed like a lot of it would go to waste. So it sat in the freezer at my parent's house until now.

Since we were having turkey for dinner, it only made sense to have a mini-Thanksgiving. In the end, it was pretty good practice for us for the days when we will be having Thanksgiving here.

Sunday morning we both woke up at 6 am to prepare the turkey. I had made the stuffing the night before, so while Ryan cleaned out the inside of the turkey, I got the oven and stuffing ready. I used a disposable pan (the $2.50 was worth it to not have to clean that nasty dirty pan afterwords). The stuffing I made is my mom and grandmother's recipe.. it has celery, onions, ground beef and sausage in it, in addition to the box of stuffing.

Then the turkey just cooked for 6 hours. While we were waiting for everyone to get here we cleaned up some of the boxes in the Dining Room to make room for the tables. We were having 9 people for dinner, which meant that we needed 2 tables, just so everyone wouldn't be crowded. The Dining Room was much more spacious than the Kitchen, and was another hint at what it would be like when we have holidays here. I set the table with our everyday plates (fancy ones for the mom's) because I don't have a full fancy set yet (only 6) and the serving dishes were a mismatched bunch because I haven't unpacked all of my boxes yet :)

Nothing too super fancy (in fact our candles were shot glasses with emergency candles, courtesy of my husband, because we couldn't find the box with our candlesticks), but it was really nice. And so bright in the Dining Room all afternoon!

As soon as Ryan's parents, grandfather and sisters got here, I started to get the rest of the food ready. Then once my mom got here it really got crazy. We were lucky that she was so willing to help on Mother's Day because otherwise I don't think I could have pulled it off. In addition to the turkey, I served Brown Sugar-Glazed Carrots, Green Beans Almondine, Mashed Potatoes, 2 kinds of Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing, Gravy and 2 kinds of rolls. Ryan's parents also brought a couple kinds of wine. We also had lemonade, iced tea and apple cider. We are nothing if we aren't over-serving hosts.. I swear, we always have too much! :)

Everything came out amazing! And everyone LOVED all of the food! I was so happy! I will admit that last week I was a little nervous about the turkey, but in the end it wasn't as hard to make as I thought. Pretty easy actually. Yea, so I had to get up a half hour earlier than usual to put it in the oven. But the timing was perfect. Everything was ready and we were sitting down by 12:45ish. Exactly when I had planned!

For dessert, keeping with the Fall theme, I served hot apple crisp. Earlier in the morning I peeled and cut up the apples, and then put them in a bowl with sugar and cinnamon and put it in the fridge. Then, about a half hour before we were ready for dessert I made the crisp topping and popped it all in the oven. Warm, fresh from the oven dessert.

It really was a good day.. big success. Now I know it'll be different if/when we have screaming babies or kids to have to deal with while doing all of this preparation, but I feel a lot more confident now than I did a week ago :)

Productive Day!

Since I went back to work on Saturdays, not much has been happening at the house on the weekends. And especially lately, when I have to work 10-5 on Saturdays. I get home and we meet up with my parents and have dinner. Sundays are spent doing laundry, trying to relax a little (not much!) and just finishing up things that have to happen, such as washing the dishes that I've been too busy to wash all week (we really gotta get a dishwasher!).


This week's Saturday wasn't much different. Worked till 5, then we met up with my dad and went to Renaldo's for dinner, then went grocery shopping. Sunday, however, felt really good.


I slept until I woke up on my own (which was only 8:30, but still better than how early I have to wake up on weekdays!), then read for about an hour. Then I moved on to my office and finished putting together my new bookcase my mom got me for my birthday. I'm still buying another bookcase to go next to it (it's half the width, but will go almost all the way to the ceiling).

Then I went downstairs and marked all of the locations for the Kitchen cabinet hardware so Ryan could drill the holes. Once I was done and he was set up and ready to get to work, I headed back upstairs to organize all of the Christmas decorations. After Christmas I bought 3 new Christmas tubs, two are very big and the other is specifically designed for organizing strings of lights, on sale, and was very excited to finally be able to fit all of the Christmas decorations in their own boxes. Up until now, I'd have to put some Christmas stuff in other holiday's boxes, which always frustrates me because then I never remember they're in there.


Then it was back downstairs to make dinner. For months I've been wanting to make a Crockpot Hawaiian Chicken recipe I found on Lauren's Kitchen. I woke up this morning with it set in my mind that I was making it today. Until I went downstairs to put it all in the Crockpot and realized I didn't have pineapple. Basically the main ingredient besides chicken. Then I realized that I didn't have brown sugar. After about a half hour of searching online for other Crockpot chicken recipes that I had all of the ingredients for, I came up empty handed. So I decided to wing it. Ryan always says that Sundays are the only day I'm allowed to experiment with dinner.. It seems that whenever I do it during the week it's a disaster (probably because I'm tired from working all day). So I changed Lauren's recipe by substituting white sugar in place of brown sugar (same amount.. no molasses), substituting mandarin oranges for the pineapple, adding coconut, and changing the cooking heat and time. Oh my God it was delicious! I was really worried as I was upstairs folding laundry (I seriously got so much done today!), but then once I went downstairs to put Kitchen towels away and smelled it, I knew it would be good. It was sooo soo good! I'm so glad to find such a good Crockpot recipe.. and it's definitely the easiest one I've ever made.


While the chicken was cooking, Ryan was in his office working on our taxes (looks like a good refund year.. thank you new furnace!), I was in our bedroom scraping paint off of our door. Either this spring or summer we'll be completely redoing the back hall, stairs and lean-to, so I figured I'd get a head start on it. The two doors in the hall will need to be scraped, sanded and repainted, and it's going to take forever to scrape them. A good project for weeknights, or whenever I have a spare hour or two.


During/after dinner we watched more Lost. After our little mini-marathon Saturday night, we're now on Season 4. Everyone keeps telling me how the show got horrible after the first season, but I think we're both more obsessed with it now than we were then! Yea, there are a million side stories, and plot lines, and rather than answering questions we just get more questions, but I love it! And Sawyer may have something to do with that too..

Poor Little Bloggie..

I feel like I've broken up with my blog. In the past 2 1/2 months (aka since we moved) I've only blogged 3 times I think. So sad.. It's not like there isn't anything going on in our lives... in fact, we're really busy, which explains the 0 time to blog.


We had our first Halloween in the house... with no trick-or-treaters! We were so prepared... and not one kid showed up! Madison (aka the pumpkin) was so disappointed :(


So much has been going on with the house... I still don't feel like any one room is completely done yet... but we've been making a lot of progress in the Kitchen, even though it doesn't feel like it. It's really tough because I've been working a LOT lately, so there's no time at all to do work. A couple weekends ago Ryan installed the beadboard backsplash, but we've had some problems with it... this is why I wanted to go with a mdf sheet of beadboard rather than the real stuff... Ugh. First we had a little miscommunication on how it was suppose to look, so half of it had to get torn down after it had been glued and nailed, which was difficult. Other parts were already dried and wouldn't come off, so we're not sure how to fix those. Then we had some issues with the nails cracking the wood. And then when we used the stove for the first time since the beadboard had been installed the heat made the beadboard pull away from the wall. UGHHH


Around Thanksgiving the house had a lot of visitors... two of my cousins and a bunch of friends. Everyone seemed to really like it.. and we've come to the conclusion that Emmy (cousin) is one of the house's prior occupants reincarnated..


The day after Thanksgiving I went out with Aly to Ruby Tuesdays to catch up... which was a lot of fun! I hadn't seen her since August when we went to NYC to pick up Yoori.


We went back to the place in East Haddam to get our Christmas tree. We brought my parents this year and they really liked it. I guess that means we'll be going back next year! That day we got a lot done.. Ryan and my dad cleaned out our gutters for what appeared to be the first time in about 15 years. Every time it rained we'd have waterfalls of water coming down the house, and also coming into the house, because the gutters were so backed up. While they were doing that I got the tree decorated. And finished decorating it. That's never happened before! All in one day!


Madison has been acting up since we moved... It started off with her not liking people's feet. She lunges at them and attacks whenever someone besides me, Ryan, and immediate family members move their feet. It's the strangest (and most annoying!) thing ever! She also has forgotten how to be out of her crate. Back in Middletown I'd sometimes leave her out of her crate for the hour and a half between when I leave for Hallmark and Ryan gets home. She enjoyed this time, sleeping on our bed instead of in her crate. But since we moved, whenever I do this (which has only been like 3 times) she finds things to destroy. The first two times it was the paper packaging of a new pair of socks... she wouldn't touch the socks, but she mutilated the paper. The latest time it was a purple pen... which she first used to draw Mommy some pretty pictures on the white comforter. Thanks baby. Then she decided to eat the pen. Yum.


...and my New Year's Resolution is to come around blogger more often! :)

Crazy Fun Weekend

I think I need a weekend to recover from this weekend. 


Friday: Worked all day, then met up with Jenna, her friend Devin, Chummy and Paul at Margaritas in East Hartford. We go there every time they're home.  Really makes us miss Keene. It was so nice seeing everyone! I miss them all so much! And of course the Russelritas and taco baskets are delicious too! After dinner Jenna and Devin came over to see the house. Madison still doesn't like Jenna, though we learned that with some cookies, she will come within a couple inches of Jenna (to take the cookie) without barking or growling. Jenna and Devin LOVED the house, which makes us happy because we do too! :)


Saturday: I was suppose to work from 10-2, but due to some scheduling craziness and new product coming in, I ended up staying until 5:30. I would have stayed longer, but we had made plans to have my mom and dad come over after supper for birthday cake since I had to work on my mom's birthday. Ryan was nice enough to make the cake for me since I ended up having to stay at work. While I was at work he also installed some smoke detectors in the house and reversed the door swing of the refrigerator so it now opens up toward the countertop, which makes much more sense! For dinner we went to the Cromwell Diner. I got the turkey dinner and salad, and Ryan got baked macaroni and cheese and clam chowder. Strange combination, but apparently delicious. Then we went back to our house for birthday cake and presents. But our night wasn't over yet. Then we went to Plainville to Shooters to meet up with Jenna and Diana and a bunch of Farmington people. Mmm... midori sour :) After spending a little time there, I kidnapped Diana and brought her back to the house. Madison loved her. She cuddled right up with her in the car and fell asleep. Diana also loved the house! Jenna called while we were there and I had her on speaker phone. As soon as she said "hello" Madison started barking. It was pretty funny.


Sunday: Emily and Eric's wedding.. which will be in it's own post with lots of pictures :)

Etsy

After a brief hiatus due to the house, I'm back on etsy.com (http://www.etsy.com/shop/HaleyHandcrafted). I am currently only selling hand-made, hand-quilted pillows. I'm also taking custom orders. I have TONS of Christmas and winter material, and will make any of the listed pillows using your choice of material for the same price as the pillows listed in the shop. I will also give discounts for purchases of multiple pillows.

These Christmas pillows make great presents. Get all of your Christmas shopping done early!

The First Night

We spent our first night in the house last night. It actually wasn't bad. Just in case, we all slept in the same room... Lauren dragged the twin mattress into our bedroom and we all slept on mattresses on the floor. Without bottom sheets because I couldn't find any. We all got a really good night's sleep though, except for about a half hour from 3:30-4 am. Madison woke up at 3:30 and started walking around the room very obviously confused. Poor thing! So I very quietly tried to get up to get her before she woke everyone up. Too late. She found Lauren and jumped into "bed" with her, so now we're all awake. And now we all had to go to the bathroom. And then Madison wouldn't go back to sleep. So I slept the rest of the night (a total of almost 12 hours!) with her curled up in my arms.


Luckily tonight we will have our bed, so we (and Madison) will be a lot more comfortable.

Day 16 - Moving In!

This morning we went over to the house very early because the Comcast guy was coming between 8 and 11 (not 11 and 1 like we thought). After a little bit, Ryan and Lauren left me and Zoe at the house to clean and wait, while they went and started loading the truck. My uncle showed up at the house and started working on some plumbing for us. Turns out we need to clean out our Kitchen sink waste pipe.. it's clogged up with black grossness! When they went to the apartment to help pack/move, I started cleaning the fridge. For now we're planning on using the existing refrigerator, to save some money. It's in good shape, just disgustingly dirty! Well, a whole bottle of Soft Scrub later, it's sparkling! Now I'll put food in it!


The first load of furniture and boxes arrived and were unpacked very quickly! Then we all headed back to the house and loaded up again. Then me, Ryan and Jason went down to Deep River to get the washer and dryer. When we arrived back at the house, pizza from Randy's was waiting for us! Yum yum! The washer and dryer went upstairs without any problems, but the box spring for our bed was another story. It was about a half an inch too big to fit up the front stairs, so Lauren and I came up with the idea that maybe it could fit up the back stairs if we went in through the shed. Well, about an hour and 2 taken apart stair treads later, it didn't fit. I was telling my mom about this and she said that Jenn and Miguel cut theirs in half and then bolted it back together to get it in their house, so maybe we'll try that tomorrow. For now everyone is exhausted! 

All Packed Up

Ok, now I'm getting sad. All of our stuff is packed up (with the exception of some clothes, shower stuff and the router for my laptop), and the apartment looks sad and empty. I met with the apartment owner and maintenance guy this afternoon so they could look around the apartment to see if there was anything we needed to fix. They told us that we'd have to paint the Living Room too! So uncool. That color is so light! I think they were just frustrated because now that they bought the complex they don't let anyone paint anymore, but we painted when the other owners owned it, and they said it was okay. No fair.


Later in the afternoon me and Ryan (and Madison) went to pick up the UHaul, and then Lauren and Zoe met us back at the apartment. The four of us had supper at the mall because we had to pick up the hand truck and more boxes. Me, Ryan and Lauren got the honey glazed chicken from the Cajun place that I love so much. Zoe got Charley's. Then I spent the rest of the night cleaning and organizing all of the boxes so things would go as smoothly as possible tomorrow when everyone is helping us.

My Very Generous Clients

One of the jobs John and I are currently working on is a house renovation in Deep River. I got an email from the clients tonight saying that they would like to give me and Ryan their washer and dryer! For free! The asbestos removal at their house begins on Monday and they need to have the house cleared out by then, so the only catch is that we have to come this weekend to pick them up. Well guess what! We already have the UHaul scheduled for this weekend! Piece of cake! I can't believe they're being so generous! A new washer and dryer weren't exactly in our budget (there are a lot more things that we need sooner than a washer and dryer) we were just going to use my parents' washer and dryer.


YAY YAY YAY!!!

Day 15 - Kitchen Cabinets

Looking around the house at the end of the day, I was shocked to realize that we've only spent 2 weeks working in the house, and look how much we accomplished! It seems like it's been longer than that because technically it's been 2 months since closing, but in reality, we've only spent 15 days physically working in the house (and 2 of those days don't count because we didn't really get anything done). Crazy!


Today we got to the house early and Ryan primed the Kitchen so it would be dry and ready for cabinets when my dad and uncle arrived. We also met our other next door neighbor Dot, who said she was very happy to have next door neighbors because no one had lived there for so long. She also thanked us for leaving our exterior lights on at night because it made her feel safer. She was really nice.

And here is my Kitchen... well, about 1/8 of it. They're not the best cabinets, but they'll work for now. They look good, so that's something! We were a little disappointed with the corner lazy susan cabinet, which isn't 36"x36" like the sticker says... there's a big gap between the cabinet and the wall, which is strange, and wasted space, but whatever. A lazy susan is better than butting two cabinets against each other, creating a deep cabinet where things will get lost.  The gap to the left is where the range will go, and the open area on the right is where the dishwasher will be. To make everything go quicker and easier, I chose cabinets that would place plumbing fixtures and appliances in pretty much the same place they were originally so we wouldn't have to do a ton of plumbing and electrical work. 

Upstairs, I got the trim around the windows painted, as well as most of the wall around the windows. Just painting the trim really helped the room. It doesn't make the windows look like replacement windows, they blend much better now. And the white really reflects the light a lot, making the room even brighter than it was last weekend (though it looks dark in this picture..). While I was painting (and Becca was painting more trim), Ryan's mom organized all of the boxes we had brought over, putting them in their respective rooms. That'll really help when I need to unpack!

Toward the end of the day we girls made one last trip over to the apartment to get boxes. We were so tired one trip was all we had in us. But most of our boxes are now at the house! Next weekend is the weekend we are officially moving in. That's when we'll get a UHaul for our furniture and the remaining boxes. But it was a huge help to be able to move as much as we did this weekend!

Day 14 - Drywall!!!!

I have an almost new Kitchen!!! It's amazing what a difference drywall makes... This house keeps amazing me.. just a fresh coat of paint or something small makes such a big difference. I love it!


Today while I was upstairs painting (guess where), Ryan, my dad and my uncle put up drywall in the Kitchen. They did a great job. It was Ryan's first time, and he did all of the taping and mudding. It looks awesome.

While they were doing that, and while I was painting, Ryan's mom and Becca were helping me out upstairs cleaning up the bedrooms. They washed the floors in the front two bedrooms and they look amazing now! Becca also helped me paint some trim in the office.


My mom stopped by around lunch with Subway for everyone, which we ate while sitting on folding chairs in the backyard :)


After lunch, us girls headed over to Middletown to move as many boxes as we could. We made two trips (three cars each time) and brought over a ton of stuff! I was so proud of us! We made a ton of progress. We even brought over a box of Madison's toys and her chair/bed. She was so happy. She jumped on it and started whining and crying and rolling around on it. We wish we got a picture of it. I love how the chair looks in the room... the brown with the green.

For dinner we all went to Renaldo's. All 8 of us! We had to push a couple tables together. Ironically, there was only one other group of people in there (it was like 8 pm) and they were a group of 10. Usually Renaldo's is filled with tables of 2 or 4. Everyone really liked their food! 

Electrical Work

This week the electrician came in and rewired our Kitchen. He installed a bunch of new above counter GFCI outlets, hidden outlets for the dishwasher, garbage disposal, range and microwave and/or hood. We also had him install switches for the 2 existing Kitchen ceiling fixtures, the exterior light next to the door, a switch for the garbage disposal and a switch and wiring for future undercabinet lighting. It's gonna be a beautiful kitchen! He also ended up replacing some other Kitchen outlets for us and two in the Dining Room!

Day 13 - Lots of Painting Progress!

Woah... we definitely tackled some painting today! Lauren and Becca wanted to paint again, so the three of us went to Lowe's to find a paint color for the Guest Room. I think I want the ex-Twilight Room to be a nice yellow (it'll be a future baby nursery, so I figure we'll just paint it yellow now instead of when the time comes), and the Office is the blue-green, so we wanted to find something that went well with both colors. We unanimously decided on a light sage green. It looks amazing! The room went from being overloaded with pink (the reflection off of all of the pink (walls, rug, curtains) was so bad that Ryan was convinced for days that the ceiling was also painted pink), to being a beautiful serene Guest Room. Which is good because in 2 weeks our mover helpers will be sleeping in there.

Before

After

This picture makes it look a little darker than it actually is because it was late afternoon when I took the picture.. But it's so bright and inviting in there now. We didn't paint the trim because it looked like it was in good enough condition, but now that the rest of the room is painted, it looks like it could be touched up a bit. But who knows when we'll get to that..

While they were painting, I was next door painting the office again. Day 5. Ugh. But the good news is that the paint on the beams passed the lead paint test... No lead! So Ryan has the go-ahead to sand those down so I can paint. Who knows when he'll get to it though. We're getting down to the wire here... we need to start moving in soon!

Day 12 - Priming the Twilight Room

This weekend Lauren and Becca came to visit and help out. This is their first visit to the house, so we made sure to put them to work immediately! They really wanted to paint something, so we got some primer and they painted over the purple, black and pink stripes in what I've taken to calling the Twilight Room (because of all of the Twilight posters on the walls). Surprisingly it only took one coat of primer to cover the stripes... I was shocked.  This room scared Ryan's mom, but now it looks so much better! With just the primer on the walls, the room feels so much bigger and brighter now. Seriously makes you wonder what people are thinking when they paint rooms sometimes...

Before

After

And of course while they were doing that, I was hard at work in the Office... it's getting there!