A New Piece of Furniture Means A Little Rearranging!

I went to Houston this weekend to visit some friends and my Daddy-O and went on a hunt.  I had heard about a furniture shop that sold cute and unique pieces at inexpensive prices!  It's called Nadeau and it's located in Rice Village (it's a fun shopping trip if you're interested!).

Of course I found the exact piece of furniture that I've been looking for over the past few months!  I wanted to move my white kitchen island out into the living room to free up space in the dining room and provide more shelf space.  I wanted something that matched the piece, was glass, and had storage for my dinner plates which are too wide for my kitchen cabinets.  I found the perfect piece for ~$250.00!  So, it made its way into my car.

Since Jeff is still out-of-town, Josh got pulled into my furniture shuffle game and helped move the sewing machine from under the tv and over to the stair wall.  We then moved the kitchen island and slid the new cabinet into place in the "bay" window.

I also swipped some artwork from my parents (hey it was collecting dust in a closet) and we hung them up as well.

Overall, it was a project well done!  What do you think?

Mason Jars are COOL!

Our dining room had a hideous Tiffany fixture over the dining room table.  I've been scouting replacement chandeliers over the past few months.  I found one that I thought I loved on Pottery Barn and when I finally broke down to buy it, it was sold out!

Never fear.  Pottery Barn had an even better one!  Check out our new fixture.  I'm in love!   bought it from PB online with a 10% coupon and gift cards from our house warming party.  My mom, Davy, wanted to pay the remaining balance as our house warming gift and footed the bill!  It was such a wonderful gift and I'm so happy to have people like my mom in my life!

I had them ship it to my office, but the customer service rep didn't put our suite number on the shipping address.  I called last Friday and UPS wouldn't let me update the information.  They told me that Pottery Barn (the shipper) would have to contact them with the updated address.  I was so frustrated that I just said I'd come pick it up!  So, Saturday I drove 30 miles to the UPS distribution center here in Austin and picked it up.

When I got home Josh was eager to help me hang it.  We were originally going to wait for Jeff to come home, but were too impatient.  So, we did it!  Except I forgot that I now needed 16 lightbulbs!

One last minute trip to the Dollar General down the street and 16 25-watt bulbs later, project complete!

A Much Needed Facelift

I've always loved white cabinets with glass fronts!  When we moved into the house I hated the kitchen.  The appliances were black, the cabinets were raw wood and the door pulls had little farmhouses painted on them.  Overall it was dingy and looked like something my great-great-great grandparents would have liked.

One weekend I decided it was time to paint them white.  I went to Home Depot, bought white paint and a degreaser that the saleslady swore by.  I went home, removed the cabinet doors and started painting.

I then decided that in order to really do this project correctly, I wanted to paint the inside of the cabinets.  I was looking online for decorating ideas and saw a kitchen with glass front white cabinets and mint green interior paint.  I fell in love and knew that I wanted to do that in the house.  So I went back to Home Depot, bought the perfect mint green.  Drove the 30 minutes back to the house painted one cabinet and decided the paint color didn't quite work.  Back to Home Depot for a slightly earthier green and went home and finished the interiors.  The next day I painted the cabinets and cabinet doors.

After the top cabinet doors I got bored.  Well, busy and bored.  So the kitchen sat for about 1 month halfway updated.  I recently finished the entire painting process!

Next step - door pulls!

My thumb is green

When Jeff and I first looked at our house one of the things I noticed was the house was screaming (at the top of it's lungs) for curb appeal.  The structure of the house had charm, but there it was a cute house sitting on a some land.  Nothing tied the property into the house.  Of course, my thought was flower beds.  For those of you who don't know me, I'm a big lover of gardening.

I love to add flower bed and decide which border style to use to get the look I want.  We decided to use moss rock to line the beds.  I perfer a flatter cut of the stone, but we ended up with chopped stone.  Ultimately I think it was a better purchase because the stones appear more substantial and really ground the bed to the house and 2 acres around it.

I've already posted some pictures of us planning the structure of the beds by cutting an outline into the dirt.  Jeff installed a sprinkler system tying it off of the side waterhouse line.  The system was built on top of the existing dirt as the beds were going to raise the height so very little digging was necessary.

Once we had water figured out it was time to fill in with dirt.  Jeff and I bought 1 yard (~1,500 lbs) of bulk dirt and emptied into one of the beds.  It only filled it about 1/4 the way.  We then figured out that we were going to need A LOT of dirt.  So the project sat...and sat...and sat.

About 3 months later, for a house warming present, my mom and dad loaded up the back of a 4 runner with plants and said they'd help complete the project.  With the plants in the front yard dying slow death it was time to kick into high gear.

So, early on Saturday morning I laid weedblock inside of the beds and started pricing dirt.  We ended up going with bags of dirt instead of bulk to help save our backs.  It ended up being more expensive, but the time savings of not having to shovel and wheelbarrow dirt across the yard was worth it.  Josh (my live-in brother) helped me buy bags of top soil, manure, and garden soil and fill the beds.

By the next weekend we were ready to plant and add mulch.  My mom came up from Houston on Friday night and early Saturday morning we planted all the house warming gifts.  We only lost 2 plants in the two weeks it took to get them in the ground!  Not too bad.  That afternoon my dad came from the deer lease and helped us lay the mulch.

I'm thrilled with the end result and will be taking weekly pictures to document the growth of the beds.  I'm addicted to The Natural Gardener here in Austin so I'm sure you'll see new plants every few weeks.  The Natural Gardener is a huge nursery which promotes native and organic gardening. If you're in the area, check them out!

This is where we lay our heads...

One of the first projects I started when we moved into the house was to paint the white walls of the master bedroom.

I started with the window wall and painted it a slightly darker shade than the other walls.

The next day I painted the remaining  three walls.  We loved the colors so much we used them throughout the house.

Just call me Kotter!

Oh.  Hello there.

I've been busy.  I haven't been blogging...but I've been busy!  We've done a few new projects around the house.  We painted the master bedroom, the master bathroom, tackled the living room and guest bathrooms.  My favorite project (to be done with) was the kitchen and dining room update.  We've even completed the flower beds!

I'll be posting pictures and stories of all of the projects soon!