Rollercoasters, dinosaurs, bruises and an office reveal

I survived.
I huffed more paint than any one person should, and endured my fair share of IKEA-furniture-assembly induced bruises, but I did it! I finished the office.
Well, a) I shouldn't say "I".. my brother was actually (surprisingly) quite helpful, and b) I have a few more pieces of art to acquire/add, but it's, for all intensive purposes (JUST KIDDING GUYS) donezo!
Also? I'm 100% convinced you don't know pain until you've painted a ceiling. Especially if you do 2 coats (how on earth the ceiling got so dirty, I'm not sure) and stand 5 foot 2. woof.

But before I show you the good stuff, I'll tell you a teensy bit about the brief portions of my weekend that did not involve paint and screws.

Friday night I met a friend for drinks and appetizers at Crave.
Saturday, I headed to my parents early to start moving furniture out of the office. Then, I did something I haven't done in approximately 8 years. I went to Valleyfair. Jess organizes her company picnic there every year, so they sent her some free passes to come tour the new exhibit ("Dinosaurs Alive") and sample the new picnic area menu.  SO, Lauren and I happily accompanied her. It looked a little like this:

Meeting the Peanuts gang, going on rides and alternating who the "odd duck out" was (Jess lost that one on the Scrambler), and sampling the new menu. I will say, it was some of the tastiest food I've had in a LONG time. Not what you think of when you typically think of amusement parks: prosciutto wrapped asparagus, brie, caprese spears, shrimp cocktail, etc. #nomnomnom. (P.s. I can't even tell you the amount of flak I've gotten for my distaste for the word "yummy" since the aforementioned blog post. Ya'll are a bunch of turds).

I then returned to my work on the office.
Without further adieu, I present to you (photos I'm practically embarrassed to share) the "before"

Oh, just kidding, when I wrote that part about being embarrassed I forgot that my brother and I had already cleared off the desk. That's really where the shame was. To put it mildly, my dad is a paper-pack rat. We were cleaning out his filing cabinet recently, and he had tax returns from the 90s. O_O.

Some progress....(paint on, using these guides to hang the curtains) 

I just realized I took no "in the middle" pictures.

aannnndddd FINALLY, the result:

(Lucky (aka "squish"), the cat model..)

(This is where the dresser used to be)

I am SO FLOORED with how it turned out. I think he will quite literally, crap his pants.
Annnnddd because I can't get enough of this handsome devil...

and because who doesn't love a good side-by-side:

I want to get some art for above the desk, but you get the idea. :)

And now, I spend the remainder of the week taking ice baths, because OMG SO SORE, and going to bed by 9:30. TJ is a little squirrely what with all the time away, so, he'll need some extra snuggles, too.

OK IF YOU INSIST, TJ.

You like?

HOME TOUR // HOLIDAY EDITION

While everyone else posts Thanksgiving recaps,

I'm here to bring you some holiday decor.

I might get around to posting a Thanksgiving recap, but really it just involved a trip to Moorhead Wednesday-Saturday, an impromptu date night at the Bulldog N.E. Saturday night (we had buffalo wings, truffle fries w/parmesean cheese, and bacon scallion cream cheese wontons. I don't even feel bad about it, it was the best meal ever.) 

Whilst up north, there was also LOTS of food, one day involved a lot of turkey, gravy, stuffing and potatoes (I bet you can guess which one!)..another involved knockoff Red Lobster biscuits (BETTER than the RL biscuits, actually) and homemade tortilla soup. Basically I ate my ass off, snuggled with a kitten, and devoured Kelle Hampton's book, Bloom, in a little over a day. It was delightfully relaxing, and I am writing this because I know full well there will never BE a "full" recap post.. partially due to my laziness (and the belief that if I can't get it in by Monday, then..well..what's the point?) aaannndd due to the fact that most my photos are of the cat (Cassie). 

Moving on. We decorated last weekend, because it was freaking awesome to come home after thanksgiving to an already decorated house. And because we didn't have anyone over for Thanksgiving, it's pretty much like it never happened before Thanksgiving..since no one saw it (but us). 

So far, it's been a losing battle of keeping TJ away from the tree, and he's probably been doused in over 32 oz. of water for being a naughty little shit. I foresee this dance lasting until early January. 

Moving on, I've just compiled some collages of before (the photo on the far left, in each collage) and after, where I've decorated. It's not a lot, but, it's perfect to me. :) 

The front entryway table:

 The "faux mantle" (that garland has lights on it.. and I suspect will fall off 2-3 times before Christmas. It's being held up all janky like with electrical tape, which I noticed today had already come undone in the middle once.. aaannnddd I think is ruining the shelf. Oh well. Shelf can always be painted, and nobody will see it anyway). 

I had the burlap (as anybody who has been around here for any amount of time could tell you ;-) ... that 100 yards has gone a LONG way), and the stockings were $3 at Target. 

I also bought pins to put on them. They didn't have an "M", so I bought a W (genius, I know) and flipped it upside down.

Aaannnddd the tree. 

TJ's favorite game is to dive under it, chew on the branches, and tug off the bottom layer of burlap. I love that cat with all my being, but man does he try my patience during the holidays. Last year he was tiny enough, he'd scale the center of the tree. M and I would look over and see 2 eyes peeking out of it about 3 feet up. Thankfully he hasn't tried that this year, he must know he's too big. 

So there it is! 

I have a huge black mirror on the wall opposite this window (above), that I'm thinking of making/putting a wreath over. Other than that, this is pretty much going to be it for the year. There are Christmas lights strung around that window behind the tree too. I love me some Christmas lights. 

HOME TOUR // OLD MASTER BEDROOM

We moved into our house in May of 2011. 

Truthfully, only REALLY not liking the paint in one room...that'd be the kitchen. It was a burnt orange color, so that got painted literally the night after we closed (by myself, while M was off at a dude's weekend). Then, slowly, as we lived in it, and bought furniture that didn't match the colors of other rooms (okay, so that was only the basement.. ) we have painted other rooms. 

I think it's really helped the WHOLE house feel like ours, like we've put our stamp on it, instead of just placed furniture in it. 

So, after a few of you started posting about Young House Love being at West Elm in Minnesota... I started browsing their website. I emailed Matt and told him I wanted to paint our bedroom upstairs.*

Expecting a, "why?" ... I instead got a, "okay, what color?" Apparently M was itching to hop back on the home remodel train, which I should've guessed from the number of times he'd asked me recently "is there anything we need to do around the house? any projects...? any at all?" 

So after work Friday I trugged to Target and bought some accessories (and holiday decor, which I will be bringing to you in a separate post this week!)

Let's take a little tour of the upstairs pre-paint. 

(Pro tip: if you want a REALLY dramatic before and after, take the before pics with a messy bed, and at night with poor lighting. Bonus points for a cat who won't stop photobombing)

The stairs (and a cat butt)

It was an olive green color, but dark. 

Not terribly offensive, but for a smaller space that doesn't get a ton of light, it started to be a bit much for me. I wanted something lighter, brighter, airier. (Yes, that's actually a word.. no squiggly red line!) 

 The bookshelf LOOKS all fine and dandy, but this photo doesn't accurately reflect the dings, scratches, smears of random paint colors, and the pale blue dinged up background. I have been told it's a sin to paint over wood like this, but, this wood was not pretty.

(Note: the messy bed, for dramatic effect. also, lazer eyed kitteh behind the mirror, do you see him?)

That large photo is actually made up of thousands of TEENY TINY photos of M and I (he used a computer program to make it for our 1-yr anniversary. It was our "first photo ever" together, at the St. Paul Winter Carnival in 2010).  aaanndd the table is actually a loaner from my friend Dana. We're storing some of her furniture for a year because she scored a judicial clerkship in out-state MN, and is living with her friends' parents.

SO, onto the good stuff. First, I love the look of stacked books in decor, but I don't have any vintage hard covers that fit in my color scheme. SO I took a garbage bag, and sliced it up to make a book cover (remember in middle school when we were forced to cover our books?). 

TJ supervised

aaannndddd now, the after! 

We picked a very light tan (it's a bit more yellowy, than it is actually brown, but I think these photos make it look MORE yellow than it actually is) 

The bookshelf obviously hasn't been staged yet. It needs another coat of paint (but we were both too exhausted to do it this weekend). What this photo does NOT show is aaalllll the frames and books that are on the floor, just out of this shot. Keepin it real, folks. 

I made a few burlap bow curtain ties. They're just held with safety pins in the back. I'm not sure how I feel about them yet, but they didn't take long, I had all the supplies, and they can always be switched out later. They work, for now. 

The part I'm MOST proud of, the stripey wall vignette. 

The table runner is actually one I made for the wedding, but I made 25, and we will not have 25 guest tables, so.. I borrowed it. :) 

The white branch/floral installation is from Target ($20!) and is attached with plastic pegs and double sided puffy tape. I tested it on the wall and tried pulling it off to see if it'd leave a mark, and it didn't seem to. The pieces are SUPER light, so you don't have to press them onto the wall too hard to get them to stay, either. 

See:

 

You can also see, below, the grocery bag books, the vase of flowers I borrowed from the bathroom, and the pearls/beads are necklaces of mine that I used. 

So there it is! I'm in love with the last photo here.... with that instagram filter, it reminds me of something I'd see on IG from a real home decor blog.. or something. Which my house most certainly does not usually look like. (Although, not to toot my own horn, but Dana's friend who helped move stuff to our place last week said she loved my living room and said it looked like a Pinterest board. Mission accomplished, haha)

Stay tuned for the home tour, holiday edition! 

*{edited April 2015: This is no longer our master! Click THIS for the most up to date version of the master} 

The weekend and a reveal

 Turns out when my blog is pretty, I suddenly have more motivation to bring out my "nice" camera. A.k.a. NOT my cell phone. 

Friday, well, ya'll know what I was up to Friday with my vino and blog design.

(You'll have to keep reading to find out what Saturday entailed)

Today, Sunday, we went to the first birthday party of a friend of ours' son. Let me tell you, I am nowhere near ready for babies, but my goodness is there something adorable about watching a hoard of small children interact. "Normal" activities suddenly become...strange. Behold:

1. Splish splashing in a bird bath. A little normal, maybe?

2. Until someone gets thirsty.

3. and thennnnn it's monkey see, monkey do.

 The birthday boy, Erik!

 As you can see, he REALLY enjoyed his "fruit pie" cake. Looks like a bloodbath. 

Below, we have "blueberry mousse" for le hair. I know it looks like he cracked his head open and is bleeding, but I swear it's mashed up blueberries.

 and thennnnn, errybody got NAKED. 

Just kidding, just the babes. I said this could definitely have been a Huggies or Pampers commercial. So many round little bellies!

After the party, we came home and I napped for about 40 minutes before heading to my parent's house. My dad had planned a fish fry to cook up their catch from Canada a few weeks ago. I snapped a few pics of my dad's backyard. It's his pride and joy, and it feels a bit like you're in the secret garden, if I do say so myself.

 

We relaxed out on the patio, and I even tried fish! No, I do not care for fish. I think there may have been a traumatic incident with a fish stick as a child, because I used to eat them all the time. 

 

M and I in front of my dad's.

And last, but not least, here's "Saturday":  

M's mom bought this crusty old trunk at an estate sale for $3! I've always had a thing for trunks, and wanted one as a coffee table... so when she offered it to us we couldn't very well say no! 

M tore out all the blue and white fabric on the interior, which smelled like grannies and mothballs. From there, he primed the entire thing white, and painted it a light green/tan color I had picked out at Home Depot (He's the manual labor, I'm the eye for design. Well, that's a lie, I do help out on the labor too, but I've got more of the style-eye). 

After that dried we taped off ALL the accents so we could paint it a light cream color. I had googled "painted trunks" to find a color combination we liked. We knew, since it had been painted previously, we would never get it to look 100% "authentic" and old, so we embraced the paint/modern nature of the colors we chose. 

We sponged on the hardware, let that dry, and then M covered it all with the polyeurethane. 

And here she is!

 She lives in the living room as our new coffee table.

 I'll admit, I've been struggling a TEENY bit with the size/scale of it.  Our old coffee table was an IKEA one with a shelf, so it's an adjustment. Also, the couch we have now (crusty old white leather one M's had for YEARS, that we have a slip cover on) has a low profile, which just makes it look bigger. I think once we get a new couch (soon, hopefully....maybe...) that is a bit taller and more modern, the whole look will come together even better.

But for now, I like her. She has character.

 While we waited for the poly to dry to bring it inside, I had a photoshoot with TJ.

 So handsome. So serious. So seksy. 

That ball of blue fur is his new toy. It's got a rattle ball attached by a string to the fuzzy monstrosity you see in the photo. He loves carrying it around and playing fetch. Yes, I have a cat-dog.

 That's it for the weekend recap and trunk reveal! Kind of bummed that I had to work on a memo for work for 2 hours, and now as I finish writing this it's 10 p.m., and POOF..there goes Sunday. Alas... Hope everyone had a good weekend! 

-Kelly

HOME TOUR // KITCHEN

M first took the sledgehammer to our sheetrock in October of 2011. The way most houses are designed in our suburb, the entrance to the (typically unfinished or 1980s style finished) basement is through the kitchen. Since the houses are all pretty small this renders the kitchen even tinier and less efficient. After living there for a few months, we formulated a game plan: blow out the wall in the living room to create a "new" entrance to the basement, and wall up the doorway in the kitchen so we can put in more cabinets and counterspace.

This is how the kitchen looked when we bought the house: 

 The doorway to the basement is back beyond the fridge. Yes that is a sawed-in-half door you see,.. we have no idea either. I loved the rest of the house but this room was "meh" to me. Ugly counters, and with the color of the walls, the cabinets were very unappealing as well. First thing I did when we moved in (literally the night after we closed) was painted the room a sage green color. It was amazing what a difference it made AND I didn't hate the cabinets anymore! The spice color of the cabinets was competing way too much before with the burnt orange kitchen.

After a month or so of work on the weekends, we sealed off the wall and had a new doorway in the living room. From there we ordered cabinets to fill in the gap.  I had contacted the former owner to find out the brand of cabinets and we eventually determined they were American Woodmark brand from Home Depot. Yay! Here's the kitchen with the different paint, and added cabinets. Those 3 cabinet doors on the left used to be doorway and wall. So strange.

(see the crusty tiles along that back wall?...yes.. needed to go.)

SO, we FINALLY had more cabinets! We used the floor boards that we cut up to install the new lower cabients as a "faux countertop".. which is how it stayed for over a month. Finally, we were ready to start shopping granite. We knew we wanted a lighter color to pick up on the floors, with darker flecks to pick up the cabinets. 4 weeks ago we ordered our granite. Last Tuesday, M ripped out the old counters, and the granite installers came on Thursday.

Here she is! The stone is called St. Cecilia. It's a golden color with sparkly flecks, black flecks, browns, reds, etc. It is BEAUTIFUL. We just needed one last little thing: a backsplash. This would've been something we could have waited on, if a) see back in the corner there? that's exposed sheetrock and plaster from the door-fill. Not attractive, b) we didn't have pre-existing cruddy tile on 1/3 of the wall and not the other 2/3, and c) I hadn't invited my entire family over for Mother's day next week. woops. Oh well, it lit a fire under us to get this project DONE.

Off to Home Depot on Saturday to look at tile! I learned 2 things on this trip: M is colorblind, and I can't count or add. He's not really colorblind but not to toot my own horn TOO hard here, I was the one with the "vision" for the backsplash. (That sounded super cheesy...). Ever since doing some research for my dad's kitchen, I have loved glass tile. In moderation that is, as i think if you have a busy countertop design, it can be a bit too much. I knew I wanted a "strip" of glass tile running around the backsplash. SO we picked a cream color (looks white in the photo but it's not) and a mixed-stone and glass tile design for the strip. We measured it out so we would have to do as little tile-cuts as possible (PAIN. IN. THE. ASS). The browns and creams picked up on the counters and I loved that the glass tile had a light green color that picked up on the walls.

SO, while M tried several methods to cut tiles so we could fit them around the outlets and awkward corners, I started laying tile. Applying mortar to a small section, then starting with the bottom row of tile working my way up, putting spacers in all the while. (Thanks to HGTV I had a false sense of confidence) --> but it paid off! Every foot or so I'd do, I'd step back and SQUEAL at how good it looked. Seriously. With the exception of graduating from law school, this backsplash is the thing I am MOST proud of in terms of manual labor. I did 3/4 of it myself (the "easier" wide open spaces, and M handled the smaller section that had the most tricky cuts. I just plowed through and left the spaces blank where tiles needed funny cuts.)

and here she is:

Our ridiculously beautiful new kitchen. New stainless steel sink with our new sexy faucet too. I am so in love with it. If you had told me 5 years ago even that I'd be THIS jazzed up about a kitchen I'd have laughed at you, but there really is something to be said for walking into a room every day and knowing that YOU paid for this, YOU worked on this yourself. Definitely a milestone moment in adulthood.

M grouted it yesterday, and I wiped off the excess. Today we'll seal it up so it's waterproof. It is a huge sign of relief to finally be done with this project. It seems like forever ago M first knocked a hole in the wall to start this process. Isn't that how it goes though? It always takes longer than you think it will ;-).