Project: Patio

A long, long time ago...I can still remember...

(Points if you now have American Pie running through your head...alright, alright! Here is the link, don't hurt yourself searching for it)

...when I posted about these photos about destroying our coal bin and old sidewalk in order to put in a patio.

Well, that patio is in!

Austin started by digging all the ground up and laying down  some  a hell ton of stone to make it level...

Oh yes, once we got rid of the coal bin - guess what we found? No siding underneath! Yay! So, we had to special order siding that looks like our historical siding, but isn't actually made from the same materials {coughcoughasbestoscough, seriously see here for more about it}and repair the window sill to our laundry room... none of which has been painted in any of these photos. The hubs has since gotten it together and painted...

ANYWAY, back to the patio.

This was the original pattern - very square and neat...then we remembered that our house is almost 100 years old and isn't so square itself...so plans changed.

Oh hey Bings - did you want to get in the way help?

That's a good boy, kick up all that gravel that Austin spent smoothing out into a level surface...he will be pleased. (Note that I took a photo instead of stopping him)

Once we realized that our house was not square, we (read: Austin and his man friends who were helping) went back and off set every row a bit, which I love so much more.

Once the pattern was set for real, it was time to put down some sand stuff...apparently it acts like cement and seals everything and keeps the pavers from shifting too much, or something.

A few days later, once all the edging stones were in place, our "little" patio that I had requested turned out to be this 200 sq foot beauty.

The stones are wet from spraying down that sand stuff one last time...the little pavers seem to hold water longer, so it doesn't really look like a checkerboard. They are all the same color and finish. Also, those are free chairs the previous owners left behind - score!

See those edging stones being finished along the, erm, edge? Now of course it is all finished and the house is painted, the only thing left is to replace that back door and hang a light fixture (that we already bought) to the right of the door. (I wish we could move that power box - maybe someday I can convince Austin to do it)

It already looks so much more finished than this photo - I will get one up once the door and light are installed - but still, from a gravel filled backyard complete with coal bin to this? All on our own?

We are feeling like home improvement rock stars.

I am bad at negotiation

UPDATE!

I emailed on the sideboard. Yup, this one.

Strangely, the seller's name is also Courtney and she is willing to negotiate on the price.

Sadly, I am bad at negotiation.

Do I low ball it at $200 and hope for the best?

Cut it to $250?

Thoughts. Help. Please.

Life's tough

You see, I have been searching all over for a sideboard for our dining room that I am in LOVE with. Inspired by some others' recent finds I decided to hit up Craigslist and came upon this beauty for $500, right here in VA Beach.

It's crying out for a home in our bungalow! Le sigh.

It does call for it's own movers though, and my husband is well, incapacitated with the whole appendix issue thing. But I may call on it anyway.

While I waver and over think {as I always do}, my friend Lindsey in GA took a little look around the Atlanta Craigslist. Look what she found for $100 obo.

You have to be kidding me, right? 

Granted, the mirror is covered on that one so who knows what the condition is underneath. But still.

Life's not fair.

Project: Porter Pendant

As you may or may not be aware, buying a home that is close to 100 years old typically comes with it's fair share of projects. {I may be rounding up the age on our little bungalow...forgive me. She is close enough.}

{Not that I will want anyone rounding my age up to 100 when i am really only 82}

In any case, our kitchen has been the subject of much contemplation and planning for Austin and I. We are hoping that in the next few years we can do a major kitchen overhaul - cabinets, counter tops, etc. There is so much unused space in our kitchen!

But in the mean time {while we wait for our lottery numbers to come up} we make small changes. One of the biggest things for me was to get rid of our over the sink light. To me it just screamed, "Grandma lives here."

 Sorry these are so dark, we had already turned the fuse box off before I thought to snap them

See? Grandma, right?

In any case, I knew at once that I wanted a pulley lamp to hang beautifully over our sink. I searched high and low. We found this one at Shades of Light in Richmond...

buuut, as $250 a pop, it wasn't quite what we were looking for.

Imagine my surprise when it turned out that the most affordable option I could find was at good ol' Pottery Barn... 

Enter the Porter Pendant

Now, the big one is a little pricier, but we knew that we wanted the small one in the metal finish. Combine that with a 10% off code and our $50 gift card from debit card rewards and it was an easy decision.

I kept waiting and waiting as it was on back order, but then one day I looked and lo and behold there it was!

Just in time for our party. Love that.

So last night, we installed a light.

Yes we installed a light. I promise I was up there too, but how was that photo gonna look?

And here is our lovely new pendant...

Yayy! and before you ask, yes, we do have faux butcher block laminate counter tops and matching backsplash. I long for the day that they will be replaced by beautiful white and green subway tile and real butcher block counter tops. 

Someday.

Working for the Weekend

For your listening pleasure while you read...



Actually this post is about working during the weekend, which has nothing to do with Loverboy's song, buuuut it popped into my head, so there you go.

The last few weekends my loving husband has turned into, gulp, a responsible homeowner. He has been heading to his new favorite toy store, Home Depot, to rent and buy all sorts of tools.

Two weekends back he rented a tiller, in order to "till the land"{that was his Paul Bunyan-esque quote any time he talked about it}. The land was referring to our front yard, which is roughly the size of a postage stamp. But, there was all sorts of crab grass, clover, etc. out there and Austin's man ego was being impeded by the glory of our neighbor's beautiful grass.

So, he tilled the land. And now we have a yard full of dirt, rather than weeds.

He promises me we will have grass soon. We will see.

This past weekend he and his roommates from the ship rented a jackhammer. How much fun can boys have with a jackhammer? A lot apparently.

His one roommate and his wife just bought a new house, and needed to get rid of a small area of poured cement in their backyard. They went there first.

We had to get rid of a huge coal bin in our backyard.

A coal bin? Yup. A coal bin. It is was huge and ugly and the first thing that when we looked at the house I said, "This has got to go."

Well, it is gone, as is our old sidewalk to make room for a glorious patio, coming soon to a blog post near you. It took nearly all day, and the stuff that the boys found in there was unbelievable. It was concrete, rebar, wood, sheet metal, random steel I beams, newspaper all sorts of nonsense.

They had a blast. Seriously. And Austin got to buy a sledgehammer. Bonus!

How should we go about this?

 

Hmmm.

 

The whole thing did come down, I just don't have a photo for you. I will post some later when we finish the patio project. More house photos to come!

April Showers...

bring Easter flowers!

We got to host Easter dinner this year for two couples from Austin's ship, his mom Leslie, her boyfriend Matt and my sister. I was (probably overly) excited about having a dinner party and getting to buy fun things. One of the things I was most excited about was buying fresh flowers.

For $10 at Kroger I managed to whip up two little arrangements. (excuse the phone  photos, I got super excited)

The best part is how long they will last after the guests have left. I loooove having fresh flowers in the house.

P.S. if you have Kroger in your area, you should always check there for awesome flowers on the cheap. They have been the official florist of the Kentucky Derby since 1987 and always construct the rose garland for the winning horse at a Kroger store for everyone to see!

A note on productivity

It seems that I am way more productive when Austin is gone than I am when he is home.

I think that this is because he is not around to distract me. Let's face it, when he and I are both home together, we would rather be having fun than doing projects, and it is only if I am adamant about getting something done that I usually win out.

He thinks that I am more productive while he is away because it gives my self-admitted procrastinator self some deadlines for the first time outside of an educational setting.

Either way - I am more productive when he is gone. The fact that my parents are coming on Wednesday may have also had something to do with the whirlwind of project-ing and cleaning I have found myself in over the last two weeks.

In that time I have:

• Painted our downstairs bath "Washington Square" by Ralph Lauren. Look it up. It's a super dark purple. Don't freak out, it looks totally glam and fabulous.
• Touched up the 'man room', hung curtains and bought a rug.
• Repainted the Living Room in "Offshore mist" by Behr. A slightly greyer blue than what we ended up with before.
• Bought new pillow covers from PB for the hideous pillows that came with our couch.
• Bought and planted 4 new tea olives and a bunch of yellow pansies in front of our porch - (and mulched, go me).
• Cleaned the winter dirt off of all of our front porch furniture and bought fab new outdoor pillows from Target.

Clearly I have done various other things in this time (like taking care of three dogs) and yet my whole to-do list is not checked off yet, but we are getting there! When I have time, I will post lovely photos of all these projects (and of the whole house in general. Until then, know that I am working away.

Motley Crew

Austin's mom Leslie is in Florida this week for a romantic trip with her boyfriend Matt. They are seeing Michael Buble in concert and visiting Leslie's family. While they are off trysting in the sunshine, I am taking care of this crew.

My house is a mess, but at least there is a whole lot of cuddling.

Happy new week!

Too Blue

We recently decided to go ahead and paint our living room. We bought a green couch around Christmas time and green couch + green walls = one unhappy Courtney.

The color was great, and we kept it in the dining room, but it just wasn't different enough from our couch color to keep in the living room. We searched and searched for a color that we liked and would tie in how we wanted.

We finally settled on Ralph Lauren "Spa" which is very close to this image of Glidden "Tropical Surf"

So, we set out and started taping and painting the room. Throughout we kind of looked at each other and said, "Hmm"

It ended up looking like this:

{Bingley has no comment, so long as we don't move his chair}

Not bad, but not what we were looking for. When we saw the color originally, we thought it had great grey undertones, but in our room it came out a little more aqua. We have lived with it for a few days and looked at each other last night and both said, "Nope."

I think this color would be great for a little boy's room, but not for our living room. We will be hitting the drawing boards again and going for a richer, more soothing grey-blue. All in all it didn't take us long to paint (one evening after work) and a can of paint is around 20 bucks, so it's not the end of the world.

We did hit a great note with another RL color though, up in the 'Man Room'. The color is "Toast" {who gets to come up with paint names anyway?}. Photos to come.

Snow Dog

Bingley loves the snow...

...and hates the cone of shame.

And it's still coming down!

The rumors of snow were TRUE for a change!

When I went to bed at 1:30 last night, there wasn't even a speck.

But, this morning:

{All taken from my cell phone}

And now the flakes that are coming down are getting HUGE! Good thing I made a huge pot of chili last night.

Photos of the Navy Bungalow: Holiday Edition

Since there is clamoring among the troops, and let's face it because I am so excited about Christmas decorations - here are some photos of our little Navy Bungalow, all decorated for the holidays (even without my new camera).

Left side of the living room:

Before

(read: at the home inspection - this is not our stuff)

Hey Dennis!

After

We have refinished the mantle and finally broke down and painted the fireplace. Don't get me wrong, I love brick, but this brick was flat...and red. So red. So, we painted.

It is not the end of our fireplace adventures. We have grand plans for it, but decided to hold off until after Christmas since the fireplace takes a central role around this time of year.

Happy Holidays everyone!

House Pictures!

Haha...I bet you all thought that meant I would finally post some - didn't you?

See here is the thing. I have a secret agenda.

I want a new camera. A really nice new camera. One of those DSLR cameras that I have been eye-ing for, um, 2 years or so.

I am withholding photos in an attempt to show my husband how important it is for me to get this camera and show even more beautiful photos of our home than the ones that our old camera can produce.

In any case, that is the deal. Besides the fact that now it gets dark at 4:00, which puts a severe damper on the lovely sunlight that is in our home during the day. Seriously - we have 23 windows in our house.

So, house photos will come shortly. Either I will get my new camera as a late birthday present (since Austin was gone he didn't get me anything...hmmm...) or I will finally relent and take some photos this weekend.

Just thought you should know.

I am alive!

Seriously. So is Austin. I talked to him for an hour today.


Now that we have internet, I will be back to regular blogging shortly...once my to-do list gets shorter.


In the mean time, here is a little preview of what has been keeping me busy!


Taking this:

{cute, right?}

To this:

Sorry for the crappy photo quality (phone only until I find my battery charger...wherever that is!) Granted it's not all done yet, I still have pictures to hang, etc. 


Buuuuuut, hopefully this appeases the masses for now, until I can reveal more projects! (and find the batteries for my camera!)

A new address!

Tomorrow morning we c-l-o-s-e on our new {to us} dream bungalow!

We are so excited to move into our 82-year-old little home...after closing I will head to the house to clean it from top to bottom, a la Barb {my mother - cleaner extraordinaire}, and do a little happy dance in every single room.

After that we will begin the moving and painting process. U-haul on Saturday, Navy Movers on Tuesday, {DirecTV set up on Wednesday - yay for having DVR back!!!}. I am beyond excited to get to sleep in my own bed again for the first time since May 9th!

I will try to keep everyone updated on all the projects and things we are undertaking - with tons of pictures - but until we figure out internet and such my blogging will be touch and go.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have helped us get to this point {you know who you are} and let this serve as an open invitation to all our friends - starting Tuesday, Guest Room AVAILABLE!

Fun Birthday Present!

The second of August was my 25th birthday. Oy! When did I get so old? ;)  I got such fun presents and messages from all sorts of people, but I wanted to feature one present that will look so nice in our new house!
    

  

"Oh! You have the camera out...

  

  

  

...that must mean you want a picture of me!"

     

     

No Bings, actually, just the sign.

    

    

   

There we go.

    

Thanks Corey for the awesome gift!