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Remember when we first moved into our new house in January and the what-would-eventually-be-an office looked like this?
Gah. It was a total mess and became a dumping ground for all of the stuff that didn’t yet have a place in the house.
Finally last Spring we decided it was time to turn this room into a real office, a place where both Rob and I could work on our computers and where I could eventually work from home once the baby came.
Here is the finished product. We added a large countertop, bookshelves, and built-in drawers. And the dog and dog bed.
This is my side. What’s especially nice about it is the way the desk is situated allows for me to look straight out the window into our front yard. I made a big deal about that when we were designing the layout of the room because I knew that I didn’t want to be staring at a wall every time I sat down at my desk.
Speaking of the wall, here is the project we just finished last weekend. I got the picture frames on sale and decided to put all black and white photos in them. It took a disgusting amount of math and brain power to measure and hang those suckers so that they were symmetrical, but that’s why I keep Rob around. He’s good at that stuff. He wonders why I’m horrible at math, but then I remind him, I’m an ACCOUNTANT not a freaking MATHEMATICIAN. I only organize numbers, not divide and multiply them. Sheesh.
Last week my mom, dad, and sister went to Florida for Spring Break, those tan little buttheads. While they were there, I picked up a few extra hours over at Orange Tree to help Mom out and cover while she was gone.
Since it was Spring Break and many people were away in warm, sunny places drinking fruity drinks on the beach (No! I’m not bitter!), the traffic in the store was rather slow, so I shopped a lot to keep myself busy. I’d slowly wander through the store, eyeing everything from jewelry to clocks to serving dishes, making mental pictures of how each item would look in my house. Sometimes the mental picture just wasn’t enough, so I would bring the item home with me just to see if in reality it really was something I wanted to keep. If it wasn’t, I planned on taking it back and no one would have ever known about my sly ways.
As it turns out, 100% of the time I ended up keeping whatever I brought home, which, as I recall from my business statistics class that I passed with NOT EXACTLY FLYING COLORS, is a fairly high rate of return. Today I wrote a check to pay for everything that I bought and then proceeded to ask Mom if she would mind firing me because, dude, I can’t afford to work for you.
It all started with these place mats and some extra napkins to add to my collection. I ordered these back in January when we were at the New York International Gift Fair, and they finally just came in. It started out innocently enough when I brought these home, but then went totally downhill from there…
Later on that week, I brought home this platter. I had been eyeing it since last Winter when it came into the store, and I just loved the vibrant colors. I knew exactly where it would go – right there in the corner of the kitchen – so I brought it home for a test drive.
Just so you know, it’s still sitting on my counter, looking awesome as ever. I did, however, finally rip off that little sticker that you can see in the picture, as a sign of my love and commitment to the platter. It’s mine forever now. Muahh haa haaaa.
Finally, the clock. These funky clocks, made by an artist up in Michigan, are extremely popular and always fly out of the store as soon as we receive them. While we were building our house, I knew that we had the perfect spot for a clock of our own.
So again, same story…brought it home to see if it looked all right, then promptly hung it on the wall, fell in love with it, and lived happily ever after.
The end.
I work in the housing industry. I’m well aware of the crappy effects of the economy on home buyers. And I know that real estate sales have come to a screeching halt.
Regardless of all of that, I still have one (or five) question(s)…
Will somebody please buy this house? Is anybody even out there? SOMEBODY?! HELP! MAYDAY!
Here’s a glimpse of the interior. It’s really cute and homey. And it even comes with a free couch that wouldn’t fit down the basement stairs of our new home!
Although the house it is cute as a button, here’s a little secret: I don’t really like owning two houses.
I do, however, enjoy owning two cartons of Edy’s.
Also, I’d like to be in a monogamous relationship with my current home. It has something to do with my loyal personality and commitment issues.
So if there’s anyone who would like to take this place off my hands, to you I will be eternally grateful. And I’ll give you a totally rockin’ housewarming gift basket filled to the brim with Edy’s ice cream and perhaps a few jars of dill pickles thrown in there for good measure.
Unless of course for some reason you don’t have a hankering for that particular combo.
As we were progressing through the building process for our new home, we knew that we needed to fence our yard for Oliver. At the first mention of this, our builder informed us that due to the early winter weather constraints it was possible that the ground may freeze too soon and not allow for the fence to be installed prior to us moving in. I had a slight freak-out, and quickly grabbed his face, pulled it close to mine, and whispered, No, see, you don’t understand. We have a DOG. A dog who does not understand boundaries despite all of my lectures, a dog who is dumb enough to run away from his happy home, A DOG WHO DOES NOT DESERVE ME WALKING HIM OUT ON A LEASH EVERY SINGLE TIME HE NEEDS HE NEEDS TO GO POTTY, ESPECIALLY IN THE DEAD OF WINTER, DID YOU KNOW I HATE WINTER?
I think my pep talk with the builder seemed to be a success, because shortly after that we had a fence surrounding the perimeter of our property. Coincidence? I’d like to think not.
Anyway, what definitely did not get done before we moved in due to obvious weather issues was installation of our sprinkling system and grass. At first we didn’t even notice it was an issue because of ALL THE FREAKING SNOW. Now though, when you look outside any window all you see is dirt. And when it rains, you see mud. And it’s all very disgusting and…dirty.
The problem now is that as the snow is melting and spring is making its way in, Oliver’s toilet is one big mud hole. The other problem is that I’m sort of a clean freak, and get a little hysterical when Oliver runs in the house with muddy paws all the way through the kitchen, down the foyer hallway, and into the laundry room to get a treat. It’s enough to make me curl up in a ball, rock back and forth, and suck my thumb in total housekeeping defeat.
The only solution to this problem that Rob and I could think of consisted of chicken wire and astroturf:
It’s a fence within a fence, a dog run of sorts. And in case the picture doesn’t make it obvious, it’s the very definition of CLASSY. I’d love to be a fly on the wall as our neighbors discuss their view of our backyard, as I’m afraid we have given off a certain hillbilly-type vibe, all for some spoiled dog who shall remain nameless.
This ghetto dog run has served its purpose thus far, although I can (unfortunately) count on two hands the number of times that the wind has picked up just enough to cause the stakes to pull up out of the ground and the astroturf to wad up into a green, dirty, turd ball, thus forcing Rob or I to go out and try and untangle the entire mess. It’s a horrible job, and makes Rob especially vocal (most words having four letters to them, or being placed at the end of the phrase ’son of a’), but I view it as an Intro to Parenting course, because I’m pretty sure there will be plenty more poop-scapades to deal in with in our future.
Hey everyone! I just got out of the bathtub, applied a fresh layer of self-tanner, popped a baked potato in the oven, and am feeling fully refreshed and ready to get on with this show!
Because nothing says readiness like a nice, fake tan- that’s what I say.
Let’s start with the living room:
Here is the aerial view from the upstairs landing. A few things to note: 1) unhung artwork behind the sofa. Check. 2) Photo above the fireplace. My hunny had that printed and framed for me for Christmas. It’s one of our favorite wedding photos, and – of course – still needs to be hung. 3) The accent table beside the chair at the top. Rob calls this the “tv dinner” table. In reality, it’s a cool copper tray that sits on a stand. I found it at Pier 1 and it was normally priced at $99, but I noticed it had a slight dent in it (that I knew could be easily banged out) so they gave it to me at 75% off! I couldn’t afford to not bring it home. Score!
Here’s another view from upstairs into the living room and through the arch into the dining area. At the top of the photo you can kind of see the ledge; I obviously need some decorations there, but I’m not quite sure what to do. I’m not really a silk plant type of person, so what else does one put on a plant ledge?! Help.
Here we are, looking into the master bedroom. I need something for above my bed…any ideas?
And here’s the other side of the room.
Walking into the master bath…bathtub on the left…shower and closet straight ahead.
Our double vanity. I’ve noticed since sharing a bathroom with Rob that there’s no hiding me picking my zits or flossing my teeth anymore. And THIS is why you should not live together until YOU HAVE THE RINGS, PEOPLE. Otherwise I’m fairly certain he might have left me and my personal hygiene routine and run far, far away.
And lastly, here is our basement. We went ahead and had it finished right away, knowing that it could be awhile before we ended up doing it ourselves. I don’t think either of us have been down there yet in the two weeks we’ve lived here, so I’m pretty sure it’s going to remain uninhabited until we have some kids and it becomes the playroom, a.k.a. the room in which primary colored plastic takes over.
And that’s it! Well, that’s mostly it…we have two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, but those are really boring for now. One room is the guest room, and one will be a nursery eventually. If you want to know what they look like, just picture a white box with a window. Stunning, eh?
Well, we’re finally done! Thank you all for your kind comments and encouragement throughout this ENTIRE four month long process. If I had a money tree in my backyard I would fly all of you here for my housewarming party, but unfortunately I not only am missing a money tree, but any and all landscaping whatsoever. So, we’re out of luck. But please know that I appreciate you hanging around for all of this. ((HUGS))
I finally got over myself this afternoon, accepted my imperfections and the fact that it may take exactly one or three years until the house decorating is considered “done”, and consoled myself with the fact that we are all friends around here and that hopefully you won’t care if my house doesn’t look picture perfect.
Then I took some photos.
I’m not exactly sure if all of the gajillion photos I took will fit into one post. In fact, I’m going to assume they won’t, and break these up into several different posts.
Let’s start with the exterior:
Can you believe all the snow? GOOD LORD. I’ve had enough in the past week to last me the rest of my life. Thank goodness for sun and blue skies. And did you know that right now at this moment it’s only 16 degrees outside? Let’s get inside…
Hi! You just walked in the front door, so you’re in the foyer right now. Look to your right and here’s what you’ll see:
This is the back door/mud room area. Obviously we have a few things to hang on the wall right there, which will seem to become a common theme through this little tour. Anyway, let’s go to the laundry room…
Ugh, blech, blah…what would you call this room right now? Disorganized? Tormented? An eyesore? Needless to say, this is not only the laundry room, but also the drop zone for almost everything we bring into the house. The good news is that 1) at least all this crap isn’t getting dropped into the kitchen because otherwise I would have a conniption, and 2) the dryer is humming along right this minute, so at least there is a bit of productivity going on in here. All right, let’s get out of this war zone…
This is the powder room, and it’s orange, just in case you couldn’t tell. And I really love it. Aside from the paint the room is a little bland right now, but I just bought a really cool, bright, painted canvas from Pier 1 today that (duh) still needs to be hung and will then add another burst of Zow! to the room. We’ll revisit that later.
All right, here we are back in the foyer, but now you’re facing the front door. See the thing to the right of the door? My grandma and grandpa just sent that to me. Here’s a closer look:
Isn’t it very cool and artsy and homey? I just love it! “Think good thoughts.” That’s some good advice, I tell ya. Now, from the foyer, let’s go the other direction and into the office:
AHHHHHHHHH! I can’t even force myself to step foot in that dump! This is our soon-to-be-office and until it actually looks like an office, well, it’s a dump. We’re working on gathering a couple of quotes to have some built-in desks and bookshelves made, so hopefully this will be done quickly and I can stop avoiding this room altogether. Another place to re-visit at a later date. Okay, back to the foyer…
I wanted to point out this wall because of this…this…decoration-thingy. Isn’t it awesome? My BFF Mo got this for me, and basically it’s a sticker for your wall! It comes on a big piece of wax paper and you CAREFULLY and PATIENTLY peel it off onto the wall and stick it down really well. Mo had to help me with this because she’s excellent at the whole patience thing. I’m learning from her. NOW – onto the kitchen!
It’s purple! And it makes me happy. Almost as much as chocolate. In fact, did I tell you that the color of this paint is called “Bitter Chocolate”? It was fate, I’m pretty sure. Or love at first sight. Or something else very cliche like that.
I love my new range. So far I have only used it once to make some chicken, because frankly? It’s so clean and perfect and WHY RUIN THAT? I’ll get around to breaking it in soon enough. In fact, think I hear some fajitas calling my name tonight.
There’s the new little TV. I’m loving having a TV in the kitchen. It almost makes me want to do more dishes. But not exactly. But almost.
This is our dining area and our new dining table. When the delivery guys were bringing in the chairs my mom tried to freak me out and said “Kaley! There are holes in your chairs!”. She’s so funny. My heart only stopped for a second.
WHEW! All right, I need to re-group…stretch, chug some Gatorade, and wipe the sweat from my brow. I’ll come back later on and post the rest of the pictures and finish up our tour.
Thanks for hanging with me! Be back soon!
We’ve been living in our new house for four days now, and we love it more than we ever expected. Everything turned out beautifully, and our builder did a great job. I know some of you are patiently waiting and anticipating photos of the house in the same fashion that you wait for Santa on Christmas Eve, but the perfectionist in me won’t allow for any pictures to be taken or posted on Cheap Therapy until we’re completely settled in and the house looks like a home. You know I have issues. Have no fear though, the photo shoot is drawing very near, but Rob still has numerous things to hang on the walls, so until then feel free to take up your concerns and complaints with him. He’s the one holding up this train.
Although everything is now as happy as butterflies and rainbows, I’d like to state for the record that we managed to move on the absolute worst day of the year. It snowed all night long the night before, and continued to snow throughout the rest of the day while the guys were lugging around couches and boxes and tv’s and all of my shoes. What this meant for me was more stress, more anxiety, and running around behind all of them with a towel wiping up the drippy, wet footprints they left all over my hardwood floors without having a panic attack, which I imagine would feel comparable to the high-pressure of taking the SAT’s wearing a blindfold while driving 100 MPH on the autobahn.
The rest of my time that day was spent in my kitchen, not only trying to organize all the crap I have managed to collect in only 18 months of being married, but also covering my eyes so I wouldn’t have to witness all the close calls of drywall being hacked off the wall while a chair or file cabinet was being carried through the house. There was one time, early in the day, when they were attempting to get our big old sofa down into the basement and weren’t quite able to make the tight turn to get it down the stairs. Bless them, they tried their hardest, but that thing was not going to make down into the basement rec room no matter how they tried to position it unless someone grabbed the chainsaw and decided to operate on the poor piece of furniture. Throughout this process of shimmy-ing the sofa around, they managed to take out a pretty large corner piece of drywall, located about eye level (and by ‘eye level’ I mean AN EXTREMELY OBVIOUS LOCATION), which was exactly the point in time when I learned my lesson to CLOSE EYES, DON’T WATCH, NO NEED TO WITNESS SUCH FELONIES.
The good news is that by the end of the day my entire kitchen was unpacked, most of our stuff from the old house was moved in, the new furniture we bought was all delivered (and looked quite awesome, I might add), and I managed to still be alive. Which means we successfully achieved all of our goals for the day. And a quick shout-out to our families who helped that day…we definitely couldn’t have done it without you, and promise to never make you do that again. Cross my heart.
I’d say one of my favorite things about the new house so far, although there are many, is our new bathroom. Way back when we decided to build, I made it well known that I needed a big bathtub, one that would actually fit my body and allow all of my extremities to get under the water. I’m happy to announce that I christened the bathtub the first night with raspberry bubble bath, a fresh leg shave, and a few laps back and forth. I have great plans of completing my first-ever Bathtub 100 IM in the near future.
Aside the from the gigantic tub, another big difference in our last bathroom and the new one is that we now have a double vanity sink. For the past year and half of being married, Rob and I have used separate bathrooms, simply because the master bath was just a little too small for me and all of my hair condiments and there was only one sink. It was just easier for me to use the bigger hall bathroom and spread out. Now, we are finally sharing a bathroom just the way God intended, and seeing as how the only times we have ever shared a bathroom was in a hotel, that’s a little bit how I feel right now – this isn’t really our new bathroom, we’re actually vacationing at the Courtyard Marriott.
Hello blogworld.
I’ve been meaning get on here lately and actually string together some words and form a sentence or two, but just haven’t quite gotten around to it for a number of reasons, one of them having something to do with packing and chaos and just generally giving up on any normalcy in my life until we finally move and All The Boxes disappear forever.
Luckily we make the big move in just two days, which means that three days from now I’ll be kicking back in front of my new fireplace, actually relaxing knowing that my plates and silverware and pots and pans are safely tucked away in their new cabinet homes and HALLELUJAH, NOW I CAN FINALLY BREATH AGAIN.
This week we have packed up most of our house, so our living room is cluttered with boxes, our walls are bare, and our coffee table is empty of any pictures, candles, or other decorative paraphernalia. We have been trying to use up whatever food was in our house so we had less to move, so in our pantry you’ll find only cans of green beans, a half-eaten bag of chocolate chips, and baking powder, which obviously means that dinner this week has consisted of Nothing All That Great, except for last night when my mom swooped in to rescue us and brought us homemade loaded potato soup. After I ate my weight in calories (times nine) I was in such a post-potato soup stupor that frankly, I think that’s the key to this Saturday’s move: EAT POTATO SOUP. It’ll knock me right out and I can avoid the whole thing.
I can’t tell you how anxious I am to move, unpack, settle in, and be done with this whole moving thing. Moving is really hard on a person who’s seven kinds of crazy, I’ll have you know. In the end, I know that it will all be 100% worth it. And I might even celebrate by going to the grocery store.
I’m very fortunate to have an awesome boss (Hi Dad!) who made the extremely wise decision to shut down the office this week and give all employees the week off.
I’m especially grateful for this time off, not only so I can regroup and recover from the frenzy of Christmas, but also because we have a lot to do before our move in two weeks.
Two weeks! Man, time flies.
Now that the time has almost come to move, it’s all I want to do. I want to pack, move, and unpack. Like, now. Actually, like, yesterday. Because there is almost nothing I hate more than having my house in complete disarray, except for maybe Walmart.
What’s even worse is that I have recently realized that my house is a perfect reflection of my brain.
If my house is a wreck, my brain is a wreck. In other words, if Rob leaves crumbs on the counter I become a crazy basketcase. Just ask him.
But if my house is organized, clean, and peaceful, my head is clear as well. Rob is still learning this lesson, and could really save me a lot of mental distress if he could just figure this out. I have hope that he’ll come around soon.
So just as a heads up, if you’re reading this, you may want to take these last few sentences to heart and BEWARE! PSYCHO ON THE LOOSE FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS.
So obviously the first step to all of this is to pack up the house. I’m happy to report that I have started, and have successfully packed up my china hutch. Period. That’s it.
It’s just that I feel so overwhelmed and don’t know where to start. I have really good intentions of packing all our crap in an extremely organized fashion, with all the boxes labeled and to be placed in the corresponding room, so that unpacking will be a quick and easy feat.
(Re-reading that last sentence just made me break out in hives and chew off at least four fingernails.)
(Help.)
Rob and I have plans to attack the office tomorrow and get all of that packed up, which I am hoping will relieve some of my ridiculous anxiety.
In the meantime, I’m at least going to be making sure that my countertops are clean.
Things at the house are coming together so fast! The latest developments in the kitchen are the countertops and lights. Luckily, I am pleased with all of the decisions that I made and can tell that everything is going to look nice together, which is really great news considering how spur-of-the-moment some of the decisions were made.
My second favorite part of the kitchen thus far (the paint being #1, duh) are the pendant lights. They have such a beautiful mixture of colors in them and glow so beautifully when turned on. I can already tell that they add a really nice warmth to the room.
The workers also installed all of the trim this past week. We made the decision to upgrade to a painted, craftsman-style trim package, and we love the way it turned out. Square edges, thick, and substantial. The only boo-boo was the crown moulding that they put on the tops of the columns. Not craftsman, and way too foofy for me. They’ll be re-doing that, because that trim upgrade? COST US MONEY. And basically, I paid too much money to have foofy trim in the house.
Then there’s the mantle. Completed. This picture really doesn’t do it justice, and unfortunately with the crappy lighting you can’t even see the mosaics, but they’re there. I promise.
Here’s the stairway going up. Again, we fell prey to the evil upgrade, and ended up upgrading the spindles to the these really cool square, iron ones. Because those wooden, regular, standard ones? Foofy. And I can’t HANDLE the foof!
Here’s the master bathroom, minus the mirrors. See that middle apothecary cabinet? I already claimed that for all my one or two or eighty hair products. I figure that as a girl I was born with the right to hog bathroom storage space, amen.
The exterior of the house is just about finished, as well. All that’s left to do is put the columns on the porch, stain the front door, paint the trim white around the garage doors, and paint the garage doors themselves.
It’s going to be done before I know it! But, at the same time, I’m so ready to move in right now, get settled, and have a little get together.
Housewarming party, anyone?!
