Happy Spring!

front yard cherry tree

This past year has been eventful.

I left you a year ago when both wedding planning and work were becoming insane. The wedding was so fun. It was a wonderful, perfect, spring day. We kept it tiny with only nineteen guests, and did it at The Lippincott House which is a great little B&B in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood in Philadelphia. If you’re looking for fancy lodging, or a place to host your small event, I highly recommend it. The photographs were done by the lovely Mary and Leo of Modern Flare. They did a fabulous job!

shoes

my bouquet

jon and us (and my dad!)

Then we went off on a mini-moon to Key West. I’d never been before, and honestly, I think the once was enough. It was a great time and exactly what we needed after a hectic few months.

sunset

key lime!

The summer was quiet and summer-y. Clay made some progress on the future bedroom. I hope to share full details about that in a month or so!
We went to Chicago in September, I needed to go for work and took a couple extra days. Clay met me there and we got to hang out with old friends and enjoyed ourselves so much. We really fell in love with Chicago.
We had a great Holiday season– went to see both sets of parents in North Carolina.

And then… I lost my job in February. I’ve discovered that I don’t really like being unemployed. The upside is that I now have time to do things that I didn’t before. Like this! The truth is I’m spending 40+ hours a week doing job-hunty stuff. I do hope that while I’m between jobs I’ll be able to say hi to you all a little more from this space.

Happy New Year

Hi!
So first of all, Happy belated New Year! I think 2011 is shaping up to be a great year and I look forward to the coming months. Especially the warm ones.

Next, maybe it’s just winter– this has been a rough one. I’ve really been struggling with work/life balance issues lately. I’m really curious as to how you do it. You find time to go to your job, take care of your home, take care of your family, cook, bake, sew, take pictures of everything…. And then still, after all that (and more in a lot of cases), you find time to blog about it all. I have serious admiration for you, and any pointers you’d like to leave me in the comments will be much appreciated.

My new goal is to try to stop by this space once a month. It’s not a lot, but it seems do-able for me. I’ve already missed January, but in all fairness to myself I did start on this post back then.

If anyone cares about it anymore, I owe you some bathroom renovation pictures. It’s my favorite room in the house so far:

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The rest of the house has been at a stand still since the Holiday’s. I imagine warmer weather will get us going again.

Workout songs of the week are:
Bad Reputation/ Joan Jett – for pushing me harder during the meat of my exercise
Wrath Pinned to the Mist/ Of Montreal – for encouraging me to cool down a couple extra minutes. (The “Let’s pretend we’re in Antarctica” song)

thank you, philebrity!

Last week on Philebrity, Joey Sweeny asked the people to come up with something amazing. And I thought I’d give it a shot. (Philebrity added the music). Here it is below, and the link to the Philebrity post is right here. Enjoy!  And Go Phils!

Oh and PS. I know I’ve been slack on the house posts. I’m finding it very difficult to organize my photos on the computers that I didn’t originally set up for that sort of thing. I am working towards it. As soon as I get my main computer hooked up, you’ll be hearing a lot more from me. I have so much to tell.

bathroom teaser

I think we’re maybe two weeks away from a finished bathroom.  In the meantime, here are two cell phone pics to tease you with.

What’s left is the full installation of the sink, painting and staining of some wood, and well, I think that’s it.
If any of you have worked with wood dye before, let me know.  We could use any tips.
Have a wonderful, low humidity weekend!

progress is slow

Sorry I haven’t posted anything lately.  I hope to show you a finished bathroom in week or so.  As soon as I get my camera charged up, I’ll post a little teaser picture.  I can’t wait to show it off!

we eat

After 6 weeks of living in the new house, the kitchen is probably the only truly functional room in the house.  We like to cook a lot, so it was kind of imperative that the kitchen come together quickly.

It still needs some work: new paint, I’ve been thinking about mint green.  A new dish rack, I’ve been dreaming about something like this.  A new pot rack like one of these would be helpful.

And then there’s the issue of this thing:

I can see how it could be a functional piece for a kitchen, but it’s so dirty!  No, I haven’t given it an honest effort yet.  Also I wish it were a more standard counter top height as we are seriously lacking counter space in here.  I am going to clean it up as much as I can and try to make it a functional kitchen piece, but I’m wary of ever coming around to liking this thing.

bye bye dirty bathroom!

I know I said I’d show you the kitchen next, but I’m more excited about this today.

We are doing a re-haul of one of the bathrooms.  Clay demo-ed the whole thing over the weekend; one very, very good friend helped for almost 8 hours on Sunday.

The old bathroom smelled like funky socks and I’m so glad we only had to live with it for a month.
I’ll keep you posted on the progress, and now that allergy season is over I will try to update you more regularly.

I’ve slowed down progress in the last week because I’m too busy blowing my nose every five minutes.

I’ll be back soon with a tour of the kitchen.

Our House

It’s happening! It’s really happening. Move-in day happened last Saturday thanks to a number of our greatest friends. Since then, we’ve been knee-deep in boxes, and maneuvering from room to room on the first floor takes great skill. My favorite predicament of the week is how I can’t find my box of socks. My least favorite predicament is how I can’t use the kitchen yet.

Our house was built in 1895. Depending on who you talk to, we are either the 3rd or 4th or 5th owners. I believe we are the 4th, because it’s the most complete story we’ve heard so far.  In 1895 there was a man who owned the place for 10 years when a family bought it from him. The house stayed in that family for 100 years, and in 2004 the last owners bought the house from them. There are rose bushes in the back yard that are from the 100 year family, and the last owners planted a grape-vine. Which produces grapes! That you can eat!

The house is three floors plus a basement and an attic. There used to be roof access from the attic, but it has since been sealed and/or roofed over. There are 6 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. The baths–  I’ll leave that for another time. The beds– as long as we own this house, we will probably not make more than 4 of the rooms actual bedrooms. The first bedroom isn’t quite ready to move into, we’re hoping to have that resolved in a week or so.

It’s been a chaotic and tiring week, however adjusting to the new neighborhood has been fun. I miss Bella Vista so much already, but I’m also really falling in love with West Philly and its laid back, small town vibe. It’s good to be home.

the floors are amazing

It’s been crazy this month! We got our first major task accomplished– the floors have been re-finished. I don’t think these pictures do much justice, I’ll try to find/take more that may translate better, but this is it for now:

before:

after:

In case you’re around the Philadelphia area and are looking to get your own floors done, we used T&T Hardwood Floors.  Our guy John Duc Dinh was awesome, and I would highly recommend his services.

I probably won’t have another chance to post till after move-in day, but I do have a lot to share so check back again in a couple weeks.