Christmas 1 -- Around the House

Assorted decorations, ornaments, and Tyler's stuff from Santa...

snow birds

Tyler's stuff from Santa -- two new outfits, four new sets of pj's, foam car and plane, a football o'ball, and an o'ball with a rain stick inside (the things that look like honeycombs in the picture)
Tyler's stuff from us -- a new onesie and set of socks, stacking cups (the thing that looks like a red and orange ball in the picture)

Stacking cups:

One Year of House-itude

One year ago today, we first toured a house and decided it was the one for us.  Happy one year, house! We've had some ups (decorating, not sharing walls with neighbors) and some downs (stinky toilets and roaches... blech!), but we still think we made the right decision.

You can read about our whirlwind journey from the house going on the market to becoming our hour here.

Holiday Tour, Front Rooms

For part one of my Holiday Tour, see Outside Tour.

When you walk in to my house, you face my stairs.  After several difficult hours, Kara (who was in town for business) and I fought the banisters and ended up with this.

It's nice, but I'm still not sure about it.  Still better than what I had managed before Kara came over...

how can you not love that goof?

I did manage to get one picture of Kara working her magic.

Now, I'm definitely a whimsical Christmas kind of person, so don't let the fancy fool you, but I did want my dining room to be kinda fancy:

It's still a work in progress.  I mean, after all, it's nothing compared to the tables featured at Holidays Fit for the King, but way fancy for me.

A few other photos from the entryway and dining room...

Fun birds (look at the "Jason" one with the hat!) from Target

Free ornaments (thanks, Martha Stewart!) and a tea light tree

Norbert, the Christmas hippo Jason made me in 2007, the "obscene snowman" as Jason calls it, and a new reindeer that "called to me" at Pier 1

Holiday Tour, Outside

I was inspired by my friend Kristen to do a holiday tour through my house.  Since I take 800 pictures, I'll be splitting the tour up a bit more than she did, though.  Hope it gets you in a festive mood!

Welcome to my house!  My outside decor is solely the work of my sister Kara. 

 She's quite talented, isn't she?

Tomorrow, step on in out of the cold!  For now, you have to wait on the doorstep :)

Our House, Brought to you by IKEA

I mentioned, oh, forever ago that Jason and I went to IKEA to furnish the front two rooms of our house.  I'm FINALLY getting around to posting pictures of our new rooms.

In progress... One of the benefits of a completely-empty room is that there's tons of space for boxes and assembly!  And yes, it was cold enough in our house that Jason wore his hat inside.

Dining Room Before:

Dining Room After:

Purchased at IKEA: dining room table, 8 chairs and cushions, buffet, bowl on buffet

Study Before:

Study After:

Purchased at IKEA: desk, two bookcases, two chairs and footstools, cow skin rug (yes, really)

Shopping success!

IKEA-fest!

The middle of October, Jason looked at me and said he was at the point where he just really wanted to spend some money decorating and furnishing the house.  A few trips to stores around Raleigh, and we got discouraged.  $1000 for a chair?!?  Dining room chairs (don't even get me started on the dining tables!) for $150 a piece?!?  Then, a four-letter words came out of Jason's mouth that made me start cheering... IKEA.

If you've never been to IKEA, go.  I don't care if you don't need furniture, go.  I don't care if Charlotte's a long way for you to drive, go.  It's awesome.  Cool stuff (way different than anything here), cheap stuff, showrooms set up for you to see what it would look like in a room, and Swedish meatballs.

Oh IKEA, the smartest part of your business plan is having delicious, cheap food for people to eat at your store.  It keeps people there for more hours than they would otherwise, and at least for the Selfs, serves as extra motivation to visit you.  I think if I lived in Charlotte, I'd go to IKEA solely for the food.

I've heard a rumor that there's other food at IKEA, but why anyone would buy that food when there's meatballs is beyond me.  For $4 (yes, four dollars!), you get Swedish meatballs, gravy, mashed potatoes , and ligonberry sauce.  It is so delicious!

Oh yeah, we also bought some furniture while we were there (but don't let this downplay the highlight of the day -- the meatballs).  We bought a TON of furniture while we were there.  We're talking one full cart and TWO flatbed carts (I have no idea what to call them other than that, but it's so you can load up all the boxes of put-together furniture).  We're talking get-stuff-delivered-to-our-house-and-we're-still-not-done amount of stuff.

Bless Jason, he's been hard at work putting together furniture.  It got delivered to our house on Halloween, and he's built four large pieces of furniture and two chairs so far.  His back will probably never be the same, poor thing.  I'll post some pictures once everything gets built and once I get books arranged on the bookcase and stuff.

Also, a special shout-out to Jill who joined us halfway through the shopping trip (just in time to eat meatballs with us), talked us into/out of certain items, and helped us lug stuff around the store and load things into our car.  She also went a bit crazy in the kids section, and we already knocked out Addison's Christmas (she's getting an easel and art supplies, shh, don't tell her!) while we were there.  Double score!

Bye-Bye, Gold Eagle Mirror

Yes, you read that correctly.  When we moved into our new house, the old homeowners bestowed a couple of things on us.  Most of them (barstools, curtain rods, curtains/shades) were very welcome, but one... one we couldn't help but laugh about.

A large, gold circular mirror with an eagle perched above it.  It hung over our front door in the entryway.  For a while, we kind of considered keeping it.  After all, it's certainly a conversation piece!  Until Jason said one day, "Hmm, know what would look good there?  A giant clock."  Once we had another purpose for that place, the mirror had to go.

Out with the old:

In with the new:

We've Been Bad...

Jason and I went a bit crazy over Labor Day weekend.  We ended up buying stuff for the house Friday, Sunday, AND Monday!  True, most of it was lightbulbs and tree loppers, but we did get some fun stuff, too.

Friday: After fooling ourselves for a few months with a reel mower (as in, you are the motor...), we broke down and bought a push mower.  Jason's in love!  The reel mower cut the grass ok, but it was no match for the stalky weeds we have.

Saturday:  One of the best things about moving is that the postal service sends you a giant pack of coupons.  One was for 20% off your entire purchase at Pier 1.  Now, that isn't a store I usually shop at, but for 20% off, it was worth a trip.  Jason and I found all kinds of goodies, including these two:

giant clock (22"w by 37"h) for above our entryway (more pictures to come)

living room lamp for Jason

Monday: After seeing a commercial for Home Goods, I said I wished we had gone by there on Saturday to look for more lamps.  So we decided to fix that!  I couldn't find a picture online, so I took one instead.

It's kinda hard to tell, but it's two shades of green glass.  The base is only about three inches thick (in the dimension you can't see).  This is "my" lamp and the brown wood one is "Jason's" lamp.



Anyway, here's some more of our finds.  We're slowing adding to our mostly-empty house!

Photo Gallery

For years now, I've been amazed at Jason's photographic talent.  As we would daydream about a "real house," I'd tell him I wanted to develop some of his pictures and hang them in our house.  He'd cringe a bit, because he's never 100% satisfied with his photos (though everyone he knows just loves them!), but I'd insist.

Well folks, I finally got my gallery...

It's in the hallway at the top of our stairs.  Here's a picture to give you an idea...

Special thanks to Amanda who helped with the final selection of the photos.  Also, thanks to Bed Bath & Beyond for putting their "gallery in a box" on sale, which made everything look cohesive for not a lot of money.

Sold

Sold.  What a beautiful word.  Know what sold yesterday?  This house:

Know how that makes me feel?  Like this.

Living Room Before and After

When Jason and I first saw what would later become our house, we talked about all the things we liked -- even the paint colors!  Yes, I know you don't necessarily need to like the paint colors in order to like a house, but this was a bonus.

After we moved in, there was one room color that I knew I wanted to change -- the living room.  It was a really pretty forest green.  The problem is, I like bright colors, and they didn't work well in a room that color.  Once we got the green chair, the wall color had to go.  After much debate and bringing home lots of paint chips, we came to an agreement on a color called Bleached Denim.

Believe it or not, JASON picked out this color!  I was going to get yet another tan in our already tan house.  I'm soooooo glad we chose this color!  It had really brightened up the place, though my flashless pictures may not convey that well.

Before:

After:

On the Market

Ladies and Gents (or just ladies, since I don't know of any guys that read this), We. Are. On. The. Market!  It took three weeks (not to mention the weeks we worked on it before we moved), 19 gallons of paint, 3 new bathroom faucets, one new fluorescent kitchen light, and about a ton of elbow grease and sweat, but we got it done!

Here's the official listing: 8318 City Loft Ct

Please spread the word to anyone in the market for a townhouse and please pray that we sell quickly!

Life Lessons from Painting

Jason had never painted a room.  I've only helped paint two rooms -- my bedroom at my parents' house and my aunt's dining room.  We were not painting experts by any means.  Maybe that's why our most recent painting adventure taught us so much -- not just about painting, but about life.




Life Lesson #1: Plan Ahead
Once you're covered in dust, paint, and sweat, you really don't want to make a trip to Home Depot to pick up last-minute supplies.  We researched painting online, made lists, and tried to purchase everything we needed ahead of time.

Life Lesson #2: Just Do It
We've been talking about painting for at least a year now.  We first started bringing paint chips home last 4th of July.  Enough already!  Pick out colors and paint!

Life Lesson #3: Don't Assume Anything
Like I mentioned, Jason had never painted a room before, and all I had ever done was roll (someone else did the cutting in in both rooms), so we decided beforehand that I would roll and Jason would cut in.  Five minutes in, we were hating our tasks, and we switched places.  Jason's arms could handle the rolling a lot better than my wimpy arms, and I was a natural at using the paint brush (duh, I PAINT as a second job... geez, why didn't I want to use the brush at first?).


Life Lesson #4: Everything Takes More Time Than Expected
Our master bathroom and half bathroom are probably the smallest rooms in our house.  They should only take a few hours each, right?   Wrong!  We worked (I kid you not) 12 hours Saturday and 12 hours Sunday on those two tiny rooms.  And we've still got 6 more rooms to paint in this house!


Life Lesson #5: Start with the Most Difficult Tasks First
One reason things took so long was our lack of painting experience.  We thought it would be easiest to knock out large chunks of walls before working on the tricky parts.  Wrong again!  The toilet wall of our half bathroom is 3 feet across, and the toilet takes up over a foot and a half of that wall.  It's MUCH easier to get behind the toilet to paint when the two walls beside you aren't painted!  Case in point, I may have, um, backed into a painted wall...

Life Lesson #6: Everything is More Fun with a Friend
Maybe it's because I love spending time with Jason.  Maybe it was the paint fumes.  Either way, we had a great time painting together.  Thank goodness we like each other, because the half bathroom (6.5'x3') is the world's tightest space!  In 24 hours of painting, we talked about the new house, fixing up our current house, updates on friends, stuff from work, and other chit chat.  We made up songs, sang lots verses of "Everybody cut, everybody cut..." (from Footloose), occasionally painted each other's legs or arms, and just other little fun stuff to make the time pass more quickly.

Painting isn't fun, but it's tolerable when you have a buddy.

Before and After

Before: super-dark cavelike cranberry red half bathroom

(isn't that the funniest face ever?)

After: open, airy, "impressionist sky" half bathroom!

Why Doesn't Everyone Love Green and Orange Rooms?

When Jason bought our house in 2005, it was before the house was officially on the market.  His realtor was dropping off some paperwork and asked if Jason wanted to look at the house while they were there.  When Jason saw the walls in the master bathroom, he fell in love with the house...

The realtor told Jason the homeowner was planning on painting before listing the house.  No need, since Jason (and I, once I came into the picture) loved the walls!  Seven years later, however, we knew we had to say goodbye to our crazy walls to make our home more buyer-friendly.

Lots of sanding, priming, and painting led to our new bathroom...