The Nursery

We finally finished the nursery! Take a peak:

My handy-man, Matt built this bookshelf out of a gutter, cut into four pieces.

One of my favorite things is this little pillow with his name on it

We found this map decal online

A printable I found online, to go with our elephant theme :)

Some letters we spray painted

 Some jungle-animal prints we framed

 A mini-version of our chair for him.  The curtains were plain, white ikea curtains. I added the blue ribbon to the bottom to match the bedding.

Done just in time, just 5 more weeks or so until he gets to use it :)

My house is a crime scene

Or that's how it has seemed lately.  We recently went through the massive undertaking of  removing the popcorn from our ceilings.  The crime scene reference is because of the tarps we've had taped everywhere to keep the mess down.

Matt, hard at work

And who knew that our white ceilings were not  so white.  Check out this dramatic before and after:

The process entailed moving all our furniture out, putting tarps down, scraping the old popcorn off, taping or removing the lights and vents, taping the walls, and re-painting the ceiling.

All our furniture, piled up in the living room

After that we decided we might as well install crown molding while we were dealing with the mess.  We bought ourselves a saw and borrowed a nail gun and Matt got to work.

Looks pretty good, don't you think? Thanks to Matt for all his hard work!

My honey-do!

So this post is pretty much to say I have the best husband ever.

Our latest project has been to re-caulk the bathroom.  (I say "our" like I did anything:) )   Whoever caulked our shower last did a terrible job.  I was really bumpy and uneven and as a result we got mildew everywhere. Gross.  With my first attempt at cleaning it I tried spraying diluted bleach on it. Nothing.  I tried regular bleach and even a bleach pen around the grout lines.  Nothing.  So this week Matt spent his evenings after work scraping out all the old stuff and re-did the whole thing.  Now I'm happily living mold-free. :) Matt didn't even complain about having to do it.  Not only that, but helping me with all the other projects I've gotten into my head since buying our house.
  
Also, now that I've been working, Matt has been getting home about a 45 min before me.  Matt has VOLUNTEERED to start making dinner! It's been so nice this past week to come home to dinner ready and waiting for me.

I just feel so blessed to have a husband who loves me and cares about me.  He has told me I'm beautiful every single day since we've been married.  I love him so much and don't know what I'd ever do without him!

23!

So here's what's been happening in our lives lately:

Last weekend we took a trip down to Austin to see the Phillippi's and the Sheens.  We got to meet little baby Blake.

Isn't he a cutie?

Then on Memorial Day we finally hosted our first little get-together at our house. I didn't even take any pictures to commemorate it!  Matt grilled up his famous chicken and everyone brought something to share.  It was really fun and I think we might make it a tradition.

This Friday was my birthday.  Matt set his alarm early so he could make me breakfast.   I woke up to some fresh flowers and a plate of crepes waiting for me.

  I had a nice relaxing day followed by dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with friends.  It's crazy to think about everything that has happened since my last birthday.  We moved to Texas.  Matt started a new job.  We bought a house and moved again.  I graduated.  And finally we went on a trip to Rome.  Not bad, right?

Then yesterday I put Matt to work taking out our old dead bushes in the front and plant new ones.  Oh the life of a homeowner! :)

50 Shades of Grey

In case you're worried, this post, unlike the book (or so I've heard), is totally rated G :)

This week we decided to paint our living room.  Matt didn't like the yellow that was on the walls when we moved in.  I didn't mind it so much, but it was a terrible paint job-- drips on the baseboards and smudges on the ceiling.  I wanted to do it a light grey to match the chairs that I reupholstered.  Easier said than done.  Who knew that there are so many different kinds of grey?  We bought a sample, it was too light.  The one a shade darker was too dark.  The next one was too green.  There's blue-grey and brow-grey.  I just wanted regular grey.  So it wasn't quite 50, but it took us 6 tries to find the right one.
Check it out:

Here are the chairs that started it all.  We got them for free, so I figured it was worth a shot to try to redo them. These were my first upholstery attempt and I was surprised at how easy they were to do.

Before

Matt was my muscle and removed all the old staples

I took apart the fabric and used it as a pattern to cut out the new ones.

I sewed it up, painted the arms, and ta-da!

After I re-did the chairs, I bought coordinating fabric and made the valances and pillows.

And here's the final result:

Still want to get a rug and something for the walls, but that'll be another day.  In the mean time I'm glad to finally be done with painting for a while!

Our House!

I originally created this blog to document my trip to Taiwan, but I decided to try to keep it up to document things that happen in our family.  A lot has happened since my last post.  Rather than playing catch-up, I think I'll just start again now.  I thought I'd kick it off with a tour of our new house!

Welcome!  Complete with our very own yellow rose of Texas. 

You walk in and immediately to your right is our living room, complete with a wall safe and everything.  Now that we have a place to store the cash, Matt can finally continue his work with the mob. ;) Also, I apologize if these pictures are hard to see, they all came from my cell phone.

  If you look straight ahead after you walk in, you can see our family room.

The hallway on the left leads to our master bedroom.  The family room  is open with our kitchen and eating area.

Here is the master bedroom:

The door on the right goes to our master bath and closet.


To the left of the front door you'll find this hallway:

Which leads to a bathroom,

our laundry room (this goes out to the garage),

and two bedrooms.  One of them is going to be a future nursery, but for now it's our exercise room.  We just bought a treadmill and are loving it.

The other one is being used as our guest bedroom/office.

One day we were at a museum, and they were giving out brochures of things to do in Dallas.  I thought it would be cute to get a couple and put them on the night stand in the guest room.  Matt picked out this one:  

In case you can't read it, it is the African American Visitors Guide to Dallas.  If that doesn't entice you to visit, nothing will.

And that completes the tour!  We're still adjusting to life in Texas, but it's been pretty good to us so far. :)