I’m Back!!!

If you are still reading this blog, then bless your heart. I just wanted to let you know I have started a new blog! I have been horribly neglectful of this one and for that I am terribly sorry. Check out my new blog Musings of a Suburban Mama. I will be blogging about things like updated decor in our home, our sweet baby girl, and fun fashion! Come along for the ride!

The Perfect Day

Our wedding day has come and gone, but it will always be remembered as thus far the best day of my life. It was absolutely gorgeous out, we had perfect weather, low to mid 70’s and very sunny. I’m still waiting on our professional photos from our photographer but my sister posted about our wedding on her blog http://thenextbigadventure.wordpress.com. So head there if you want to see some photos she took and read her AMAZING MOH (matron of honor) speech. Seriously it was that good.

 

For now here are some teaser pics our photographer, Amanda Hein, posted on her blog.

 

All photos by our super talented photographer, Amanda Hein. I’m so excited to see the rest!!

Interior updates part II

Here we go onto the second floor! Any questions on products just ask 🙂

This post is heavy on the master bedroom photos. Now once again everything is a work in progress so don’t judge too harshly.

This bedding was mine in college, hoping for a new and pretty one off our registry! The deep purple just doesn’t go with the other colors in the house.

No photo update of the office because it looks the same and has nothing in it haha

Now onto the master bedroom, bathroom, and glorious master closet

Waiting til fall to put the duvet on the bed, just sheets for now.

Besides the kitchen, my closet is definitely my favorite room in the house. How cool is that jewelry drawer?? I saved a picture of an amazing closet with a clear topped jewelry drawer a long time ago and had to make it happen. Anything in particular you like? Next up the exterior of the house, and let me tell you it looks TOTALLY different.

Interior updates part I

I’ve been meaning to take a bunch of new photos of the interior of our home to show how decorated it is at this point. I received a comment asking for just thought so decided to do it this morning. These are all photos of how our house looks at this very moment. We have ZERO artwork on the walls which is sad and my mom is currently making us drapes for a few rooms. This is definitely a work in progress. If you have any questions about where something is from please ask!

Get ready for photo overload.

This buffet and hutch is a craigslist find I scored for $75. Kevin, my mom, and I sanded the whole thing down and painted it. I’m so happy with how it turned out! Before….

And After! All the pieces displayed are family heirlooms, I adore them all.

That’s it for the first floor! Next up the second floor & exterior!!

The Afters (!!!!!!)

(I’m going to preface this by saying I willingly admit that I am the worst blogger in the world, forgive my absence)

FINALLY!!!! The Before and Afters of our entire home renovation!!! Please excuse all the unfinished light fixtures. The house looks a lot more put together since these photos were taken.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

I don’t have a before of the other 2 guest bedrooms not sure why but here is the afters

Before Master bedroom

After

Before

After

There is no before of my master closet because we took part of the office to create the walk in closet. Here is the after before the California Closet was installed.

Before master bathroom

After

Before

After

I think it’s safe to say I was absolutely HORRIBLE at taking photos of the rooms before the reno started. Not to say I’m anywhere near a pro now, but definitely an improvement. I’m SO happy the house is finally finished and we passed out last inspection about a month ago! I’m planning on moving in end of this week/early next week and can’t wait! I’ll have to show you more of the decorating I’ve been doing inside. Just for fun here are some more “after” shots even though there are no “befores” to go with them.

We moved our laundry upstairs to the old linen closet so I won’t have to be doing laundry is the scary basement

 

 That’s it! You’ve now seen the entire house. Hope you enjoyed seeing the transformation!

I’ve kept you waiting long enough

Hi friends. If you are reading this then thank you for coming back. I know I’ve left you hanging for quiteee some time, for which I apologize. I got this idea into my head that I didn’t want to reveal the house finished until everything was super clean and beautiful. Well that won’t be for quite some time so I’ve decided to start posting the ending of the progress photos even though they may not have all the finishing touches added yet.

So here we go, I decided to start with the kitchen because that is by far the biggest transformation

To remind you what it looked like before…

We took out the wall that the stove is on to combine the kitchen and dining room into one large kitchen and here is what it looks like now

The pendants still need the crystals to be added

It’s insane how much more open and airy the entire room feels with that wall down

View from the new dining room old living room

Island storage, our microwave drawer, and beverage center

 The granite does not look yellowish/cream in real life I had to turn all the lights on because of the time of day to get the best shots.

Here you can see the true color of the granite which is dark gray and white

Here you can see the beloved hood and backsplash. We decided to go with a white subway tile in a herringbone/chevron pattern. I thought it was a fun take on a classic backsplash. We used a light gray grout so in real life you can see the pattern a lot better

Sorry I’m not a professional photographer! I know these aren’t the greatest photos. One thing yet to be revealed is our dark hardwood floors! We don’t have an inch of carpet in the house so I’ve been on an area rug buying spree. So excited to show you more!!!

The house recaps have begun! Yay!

Kitchen update!

Woohoo!!! Things are finally wrapping up at the house. The interior should be 100% completed by the first week of April! I am bubbling with excitement!

Today I have photos of our beautiful custom kitchen cabinetry and new fireplace surround and mantel. Our contractor made all the cabinets as well as the mantel. The floors have all been refinished and stained a dark mocha color. The whole house has been painted, we went with Benjamin Moore colors. The first floor turned out to be a gray blue when originally I thought it was more gray. I still really like it. Our granite countertops are being installed this Friday and the electrician is working on getting all the light fixtures installed. So now onto the reason why you’re here, the photos!

Excuse the unfinished trim as well as the missing door fronts

The empty space in the peninsula is for our beverage center, it’s a glorified wine fridge that has 2 different temperature settings to chill different types of beverages at the same time. I love the open shelving on the end.

To the right is the little desk area. Our pantry still needs hardware and the empty space is for the fridge.

View from the dining room. The empty space under the window is for the dishwasher and the empty space on the right is for the range and hood.

Better view of the desk space

We decided to use the leftover marble from the master shower to do our fireplace surround. The floors are currently being protected by cardboard but once they’re unveiled for good I’ll share them with you.

I have been purchasing furniture little by little in an attempt to have all the basics covered by the time I move in in the beginning of June. I can’t wait to share all the great deals I’ve gotten so far online. Next time I’ll be revealing our granite counters and hopefully the entire kitchen finished! We’re soo close to being done! Stay tuned!

The dining room table I’m obsessed with

So I have been lusting over the Trestle Dining Table from Restoration Hardware for months now. I have pinned probably every photo there is of it on the internet and I cannot get enough. It has been on sale for a couple weeks now and I got scared that the sale would end soon so I pulled the trigger on my dining table obsession today and can’t wait for it to come in!

Love the simple vase with big blooms. I don’t particulary love those chairs as I think they’re too big so I’m going to find different ones.

It comes with 2 leaves to extend the table from 72 inches long to 102 inches.

I think the light color of the table is going to look amazing against our dark coffee & mahogany stained floors. Speaking of which should be getting stained very soon!

In other updates the staircase is stained, the new spindles are ready to be installed and all the trim and doors are painted! All our cabinets are at the finishers and should be ready to get installed mid next week. The painter should be finishing up painting the whole house next week as well. I’m anxious to see how our color choices turned out. We chose a light gray for the main floor with a seafoamy color for the dining room. Mauvey cool colors for the spare bedrooms, pale baby blue for the bathrooms, and a darker gray for the master. I’ll have more info on the specific colors once I can post photos of the rooms painted those colors!

Things are starting to wrap up (hopefully). I still can’t wait to see our kitchen cabinets and want the granite company to come and measure so bad so we can get everything moving! I’m so antsy to decorate and am seeing a smooth transition into a home decorating blog once the reno and wedding are over 🙂 Hope you will stay a while and keep up with the journey of our house becoming our home!

And the renovations go on…

Yes contrary to popular belief we are still in the midst of our home renovation. We are slowly getting closer and closer to a finished product (a.k.a our first home) and I can’t wait! I knew we would have to be patient when we decided to take this on but I’m just ready for warm weather, the house to become our home, & fun wedding events that this summer will bring.

Work continues on Garden Court. We now have all tile installed, vanities have arrived, hardwood floors installed, interior doors, trim, and crown molding. We bought new spindles for the stairs. Our kitchen cabinets are completed and are on their way to get painted before being installed. The painter starts priming the walls tomorrow! A lot is going on and hopefully all the work ahead will fly by.

Yes those are new hardwood floors even though you can’t tell because of all the dust and dirt! They will be getting stained in a couple weeks. We also went with classic 6 paneled interior doors.

So remember my home depot vanity? Well the color in real life is less “Antique blue” and more just green. I think it looks like seaweed and I will be painting it a very pale blue before it gets installed.

Here are some sneak peeks at the tile. All the bathrooms are pure chaos right now so i think all the amazing tile & vanities deserve their own beautiful reveal later on. This is the guest bathroom shower.

Dirty guest bathroom floor.

My beloved basketweave marble floor in the master bath plus Kevin’s creepy hand. Looks so awesome in person, I’m really happy with how this turned out.

Marble subway tile master shower with shampoo shelf! I love how different each tile is giving the whole shower such variation.

Here is a sample of our kitchen granite “super white” next to our cabinet color Benjamin Moore’s “Dove White”.

Different lighting totally changes the color of the cabinets in photos. It’s more of a creamy white than it looks in the first photo but definitely lighter than the second.

We chose Dove White for all the trim and doors throughout the house as well. I feel like it will give everything a nice cohesiveness.

I’m really anxious to see the cabinets installed! They’re going to totally change the whole kitchen/family room for the better! Stay tuned!

We now have STDs!

No not that kind of STD! In wedding world STD stands for save the date. This is unbeknownst to many and can cause quite the reaction.

Our save the dates have been sent! I totally overanalyzed on our STDs over and over again sending screen shot after screen shot to Kevin asking which he likes. There were so many options it was overwhelming. I know magnets and postcards are popular choices these days but we decided to go with a flat card. Finally we ended up choosing one that displayed some of the best of our engagement photos. It was simple, elegant, and straight to the point. We used Wedding Paper Divas. I highly recommend them!

Without further ado… our save the dates!

 

 

One thing I was a little hesitant on was the fact that it didn’t say our last names. But then I figured all the people invited better know who we are or else why are they even invited in the first place? With that as my rationale I sent these puppies out into the world for our guests to receive.