Really, these haystacks have nothing to do with Halloween. Except that I requested them for dinner last night--which we called "Devil's Night" growing up. Chris is the cook around here and night after night he whips up the most amazing meals. Last night, I had a hankering for something simple and comforting--Hawaiian haystacks. And he […]
This year, as our teeny blog grew to small blog status (parrttayyy!!!)--we've had to make some decisions about sponsors and giveaways and realized we're not on board with everything we thought we were when we started this blog. So, like everything else, we'll continue adjusting/tweaking and ironing things out over time--that's just how we do. […]
We had such a fabulous time at our costume party on Saturday and I'm back to share all of the deets, including our costumes. I won't make you wait a second more for those: Chris and I were Waldo and Carmen Sandiego and Greta-the-great was Mowgli from Jungle book. We had a hundred ideas of […]
It is pumpkin carving season (!!!) and over the last few weeks--but even more so in the past week--I have been seeing all of these beautifully carved, gilded, painted, shaved pumpkins on my favorite blogs or plastered on Pinterest. Spoiler alert--my pumpkin is no such beauty. Last weekend, we had some friends over for dinner […]
Our DIYed full-wall wainscoting is done, and on time! As Chris and I were talking about the entire project, we were so pleasantly surprised with how fast it went. We dedicated a couple hours to it on Monday and Tuesday night and then yesterday, I sanded and painted and it was done before Chris got […]
I am going to attempt to make this a quick post so I can try to get more of this paneling painted before Greta wakes up from her nap. It's always a race against nap time over here, I tell ya. Yesterday, we left you with our baseball-hall-of-fame-esque paneling. Last night we continued the quicky […]
Yesterday I mentioned we had one more quicky project up our sleeves before our party this weekend. Earlier this month, we hinted we were planning on hanging a gallery wall above the couch and I had started laying out a template: Scratch that. I take it back. For the record, I actually did get a […]
I'm glad we took the weekend to finish up the laundry room. That plumbing took Chris a little while to figure out--but he did it (!!) and having a new sink and faucet and all around easier-on-the-eyes room has made such a difference. Like every other before and after, it is fun to look at […]
Well, we tried to have a reveal for you today. Kind of. I spent the whole day yesterday sanding and painting our old vanity to bring it up to par with the rest of the room, but around 3 pm, the paint started acting weird and peeling and it wasn't looking the greatest. Chris suggested […]
Do you want to know how you can instantly change a room? Paint. But do you know what else? Trim. Maybe neither of those are "instant" but in less than a couple hours of work last night, Chris and I added chair molding and baseboards to the laundry room/half bath (I need an acronym for […]
Disclaimer: We are all over the place right now tending to unfinished business in a few rooms before our party next week. So, you might see us jumping from the laundry room to the family room to the living room over the next few days. Should be fun! Today, all eyes are in the family […]
We are halfway done getting the trim and baseboards installed in our laundry room and can't wait to show you the difference it has made. Yowza! But today, in the spirit of the season (and because Chris and I have finally nailed down our costumes for this year) we are dying to talk costumes. Halloween […]
What a jam-packed weekend we had! We celebrated Chris's birthday, shopped 'til we dropped, had family pictures taken and friends over for dinner. Since Chris's birthday was Saturday, one of my unspoken gifts to him was zero house projects--so I squeezed this one in Friday afternoon during Greta's nap. For two and a half hours […]
There were a few factors that went into choosing the paint color for the laundry room--1. Does it work well with the other colors in our home? 2. Does it match the tile flooring that we're keeping for now? 3. How will it look in a windowless room? Luckily, I had a chunk of tile […]
How does the saying go? "It gets worse before it gets better."?? Yeah, that sums up our laundry room/half bath situation perfectly. Last night, we were able to remove (almost) everything from the room, tear out the tile baseboard and give those nasty floors a good scrubbin', all while laughing about how terrible the floor […]
It's time for our annual laundry room revamp. Ha! I wish I was joking. We really would love to not make fixing up the laundry room/half bath an annual thing--but time has worn this baby down again. Last year, we took the original space: And made it more presentable for our costume party guests: Fast […]
Our hunt has officially begun for a new sofa for the living room. We always knew the Klippan was temporary. We had just bought a house and had next to no furniture, so shelling out $400 for a couch that took up a lot of room was just what we needed then. Now, we are […]
Our Ikea Klippan 4-seater couch is turning out to be not quite the easy-peasy couch we thought it was when we bought it last year. Granted, it was only $400, which is in no way pocket change, but for a 4-person couch. It doesn't get much cheaper. In that $400, was also included a white […]
Maybe you noticed I didn't post yesterday. (Maybe you didn't! Ha!) Some things have come up and I just need to take a deep breath and a break. So can we just make a date for Monday? Same time, same place? I hope so. See you in a few days, friends.
Last year we threw a costume party. Our first. While it was seriously a blast, there's a reason we don't run a party-planning blog. We have been laughing (so we don't cry?) at our mistakes for over a year. Our guests (we had between 30-40 people there) were all so gracious and fun and dressed […]
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Welcome to our online community where we've posted home, DIY, style, renovations, and family since '09. Renovating our #cljmoderncottage in Idaho and headed for new adventures in Raleigh, NC. #cljfam #cljtransformations
