Sunlight and Mountains

Happy 2014 (okay, I’m only one month late… come on)! Oh, what a year 2013 was. While we didn’t take any exotic trips or stumble upon any large life altering events- it was a blessed year. We made such wonderful new friends, we had awesome family get togethers, and- we redecorated our home! (I might be a tad bit more enthusiastic about that than my husband… though he’s been quite the trooper.) While we were blessed to move into a home that didn’t require much work, my interior design style was screaming at me. I love minimalism. I love neutrals. I love gray and white. The dark wooden blinds were covering the best part of our home- the afternoon sunlight and the view of the mountains. So I started there. I stripped all the windows of their coverings. Then we purchased about five gallons of Rockport Gray Benjamin Moore paint, and before long… this happened:

I find myself sitting on my couch, sighing with happiness. It feels so clean, so fresh. We don’t have anything on the walls yet, so it’s still a little cold. And this year we’ll be focusing on a few major projects that’ll make it even better- new wood floors, all updated hardware, hopefully new kitchen cabinets… but until then, I have sunlight. I have mountains. And I have a wonderfully peaceful place to sit and read my book.

The view from my living room windows.

Maybe I’ll eventually put aside my laziness to take photos with something other than my phone…

Dreaming of my home office

Revisiting an old post today as I dream of my office-to-be. 

 

There’s a room in our house that’s designated for me (at least for now, pre-children). Every time I walk past it (as messy as it is), I can’t help but see it as I one day want it to be and not what it is now. I’m so very inspired by colors and styles- if I didn’t view the rest of the house as more of a priority, this space would so already be transformed.

I’ve seen so many admirable office spaces over the last year, and each one seems to spark news ideas as to how I want my little artistic haven to be.

To see a compilation of all my favorite inspirations, visit my Pinterest board. And here’s an initial color scheme idea: (note: photo is not mine,  credit here)

Whole30: Last Week Recap

Most challenging part of the week: Giving in because I’m just days away from the end. What does it matter that I hold out a few more days to start eating sugar again? I mean, really? That little voice in my head has gotten louder this past week, but thankfully my body is fighting back. Every time I have given in, I haven’t felt good afterward. It’s removing my cravings more, and more, and more. But what I’ve come to realize is that I love ice cream; that’s one thing I can’t get off my mind. So post-Whole30, I’ve decided that a sweet bowl of ice cream every evening as I’m watching tv will be my ideal wind-down time, my give-in time, my indulge and enjoy time. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that!

This week’s guilty pleasures: Fried Cinnamon Apples. Once I actually make myself peel the apples, slice them, then fry them up- I’m never disappointed! Ah, their sweet cinnamon goodness…

This week’s favorite meal: Bacon wrapped chicken breasts with mashed cinnamon sweet potatoes. You all probably know that I’m rather hooked on sweet potatoes- but I had yet to make mashed ones. They were a perfect accompaniment to some baked chicken wrapped in bacon. Ah, it was delicious.

How I’m feeling this week: Really good! And really bad! When I stay on track and eat lots of veggies, meats, and fruits, I feel like a rock-star! My energy levels are up, I’m sleeping very soundly (which hasn’t happened in a very long time), and my stomach is FLAT. Not just flat as in- no fat. Flat as in- not bloated, firm, trim… I like it. I also feel really bad, however, when I veer off course. I can’t bring myself to confess what I ate on Sunday, but let’s just say it was something “fast” and “easy” and something we grabbed conveniently after church. The rest of the afternoon was toast for me- felt sick to my stomach and… things… happened… that I’d rather not go into detail over.

Why this week is going to be even better than last week: This week I get to eat bread? Eh, in all reality, it’s going to be better because we’re actually going to start making real decisions to incorporate into our everyday life. It’s no longer about a temporary cleanse, it’s about a lifestyle change and the maintaining of healthy habits. While our Whole30 is supposed to go through today, we’re going to cut it short by a day. My husband and I decided we want an Easter meal of our own at home, so we’ll be making the works today (already have the majority of it started) as well as dying Easter eggs. I’ll start the day with some Paleo waffles and pure maple syrup; dinner will consist of ham, scalloped potatoes, cream corn, salad, and homemade rolls; then for dessert we’re going to have a homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I. Can’t. Wait.

My favorite things:

Paleo meatballs over zucchini “noodles.” Note to self: Next time buy something that can julienne as your flat peeled “noodles” were rather strange. Ah, and then there’s my bright pink raspberry tea- the bit of caffeine I receive when not drinking coffee in the morning. And last but not least, organic pure maple syrup in my attempt to introduce sugar back into our diets- the healthy way!

This next week I’ll be posting my menus and recipes- but first I’ll be posting some snap shots of our Easter meal today. Oh, I can already smell the carrot cake baking. Mmmmm….

12 Days of Christmas [Posters]- Day 4

Today’s poster I can really take no credit for. It’s simply an arrangement of scans I made from a Christmas card, probably dating back to the 1930’s, given to my great grandmother and grandmother when my grandmother was just a child. I’ve tried to do some research on it, but can’t seem to find who it was printed by or when it was printed. There’s no copyright on the card, company name… nothing. There’s something amazing about vintage Christmas cards, especially one left to you by your grandmother.

Nothing more on it than: “Best wishes and love to Maud and Mary from Lilly and Kim.”

 

Home Projects Update

Despite all of life’s craziness going on in the past months, my husband and I have managed to still press forward on some home projects. Things aren’t quite to a finished state, yet, so here’s just a quick photo recap of the last month of projects that have been started, and some projects that are still in the Que.

Bedroom mirror. $5 thrifted mirror, stripped from it’s previous army green frame. John bought wood and built a new frame for it. Still needs to be painted and the mirror attached to the frame.

Kitchen bead board- personally my favorite. It’s been painted, cut, half of it has been liquid nailed down (don’t ask why only half), trim has been picked out… I can hardly wait for the final result.

Bedroom artwork. Frame has been dismantled from it’s original glass and artwork, sanded, painted… now I just need the artwork.

Curtains. Cream sheer material has been purchased for our bedroom curtains, and a gray/white cotton material has been purchased for the kitchen curtains. Now I just need to learn how to sew.

I think it’s finally time to reveal at least one photo of my living room. It’s probably the most put-together room in my house so far. And even that room has a long way to go…

Living room. Oh… and kitchen dining area. Small- but perfect for us!

Oh, how I wish for more time and more money.

Aesthetic Thursday- Home Office/Art Studio Dreams

There’s a room in our house that’s designated for me (at least for now, pre-children). Every time I walk past it (as messy as it is), I can’t help but see it as I one day want it to be and not what it is now. I’m so very inspired by colors and styles- if I didn’t view the rest of the house as more of a priority, this space would so already be transformed.

I’ve seen so many admirable office spaces over the last year, and each one seems to spark news ideas as to how I want my little artistic haven to be.

To see a compilation of all my favorite inspirations, visit my Pinterest board. And here’s an initial color scheme idea: (note: photo is not mine,  credit here)

DIY Nightstands from an Old Desk

Now that I finally ­­­­­­­­­­have my nightstands in a semi-finished form, I’d like to share with all of you how I did it.

Have any of you shopped for nightstands before? They’re EXPENSIVE. We stood in the middle of IKEA, ready to settle for the cheapest (and most boring, with no drawers and made of pressboard) nightstands that we could find, and we were still going to have to drop $100 on them. My husband and I weren’t quite in the same mindset then as we are now. When something is just too expensive, find an alternative to get what you want- even if it’s making it yourself. Nonetheless, $100 for cheap crap was still too much for us to part with, so we went home empty handed.

A few weeks later, John came across a DIY nightstand tutorial- Chopping an old desk in half. While this made me slightly nervous, we set out to find the perfect desk. It wasn’t long before we found one, a great one with pretty curves and solid drawers. The desk was actually a youth desk (which made the ends the perfect size!), which the old lady we bought it from couldn’t understand.  “Is this for your child?” she asked us nicely. “No, we don’t have kids. But… we… just… want it. Thanks.” We didn’t have the heart to tell her we would be sawing it in half. So, we bought the desk for- bum bum bum! $20.

Now since this was our first real furniture upcycle, we had some materials to purchase which I’ll include in the total price. John bought a circular saw off of craigslist ($20), borrowed my dad’s sander and bought the correct sand paper for it ($10), used a little wood filler to create smooth edges ($5), primed them ($5), spray painted them ($15), and purchased all new hardware for them ($15). I also added some scrapbook paper drawer liners since the insides were less than perfect ($3). The only thing we have left to do to them is spray them with a satin protective clear coat. I decided this was necessary after leaving a water cup ring on the top of it the other night- dumb me.

So that brings our total (with clear coat) to $80. That’s right, $80 for two,three drawer nightstands made of real wood. It’s exactly what I envisioned for our room, and though it took some time (and quite a great deal of sawing and sanding from my husband), I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

This old desk came complete with watermarks, pen marks, and scary hand drawn messages. It’s HEAVY too, which made our nightstands heavy, but you can tell it’s more solid than probably half of the furniture we currently own.

We first had to chop off the ends and re-create an edge to match the other side. John (husband) then smoothed the edges and filled in the wood blemishes with wood filler. Probably the most time consuming part was the sanding, which we found out later he over sanded it. We wanted to get every bit of the glossy finish off of the wood, when in reality we just needed to sand it enough to get the primer to stick.

After we primed it, we spray painted it with furniture paint. Very soon we’ll be purchasing a paint sprayer since it’s the obvious way to go when redoing furniture. But since we didn’t have that yet, we just bought the cans of spray paint. Only took two coats.

Adding the hardware just made it! Love the look of the brushed silver.

Our master bedroom is well on its way to being complete. We even purchased a dresser the other day that is decent enough for us to use in our room until we have the time to upcycle it. Soon I’ll show you what our bedroom looks like thus far and what the next steps are for completing our enjoyable room.

“You fell for home ownership!”

That’s what I felt like my kitchen faucet was mocking me with when it decided to bust out a leak on me only a few short days after buying our home. It started with a high pitched squeal- one of those really annoying ones that gives you another excellent reason to not do the dishes. Then I reached for a plastic bag underneath my sink, only to instead get a fistful of water. No.

What we think happened was that since the sink wasn’t used in over 10 months, the seals dried out. It most likely didn’t show up when we did the home inspection because we only ran the water for a few short seconds vs. the 20 minutes I ran it to do the dishes. So- new faucet time. Can I just say, faucets are freakin’ expensive? Oh, my word. And of course I wasn’t about to just buy a plain jane one. John and I have decided that if we’re going to replace things that go bad in the house we will replace it with quality things and things we actually like/want. Okay, side note:

Do you find it absolutely and completely ridiculous that us Americans are so concerned with what our water comes out of? Millions across the world don’t even have access to any water. And many who do have to walk many long, often deadly miles to get to it. And here I sit, all picky as to what my water comes out of. Oh what any of those families would give to have running water in their homes. We are so blessed.

So, back to my 1st world country story: Luckily, my parents had a great faucet that they had stored away in the their garage, unused for several years. It was a really nice one too, the kind with the pull down spigot. Well, that lead to fail number two. Since that one hadn’t been used in a while, the same thing happened to the seals and after we spent an hour figuring it out and getting it installed, the second we turned on the water- LEAK. Ah, man. Then we turned to a reliable and well discounted source- Costco. They had a great quality brushed nickel pull down faucet for $85. While it wasn’t quite as stream lined as I would have preferred, I sucked it up and praised God we didn’t have to spend over $300 on one. Here’s my “happy” husband holding up his failed faucets. Now this, people, is the face of home ownership.

Let the games begin.

My Birthday

My birthday was pretty cool- despite the fact I’m now a quarter of a century old and that we shampooed carpets all morning. We left for Denver at about noon and hit up the Cheesecake Factory first. Man, I love that place more and more every time I go. Then we hit up New York & Company only to find out that my awesome discount card couldn’t be applied to my purchase because there was a store wide sale, meaning all my clothes were already on sale, so no awesome discount (which was definitely way better than the sale). I kind of wanted to scream at them that I’m from out of town and I make a trip up there only once a year and that I WANT MY DISCOUNT! But instead, I calmly put back half of my pile (I wasn’t going to let them win if I couldn’t win) and ended up with a few nice things. Then we hit up IKEA, ended up buying John a desk (which barely fit into our car), and then ran back by Cheesecake Factory to pick up a whole chocolate mousse cheesecake. Mmmm.

Then we went to my parents’ house to eat it- oh, and open up even more gifts (score)! While I got this super cool lens mug, fruit holder, and scented hand soaps from Bath & Body (love!), the highlight of the gift giving was definitely that I received a sewing machine. That’s right people- now my “if I ever sew” Pinterest board isn’t a waste and sewing might actually, literally occur. Granted, my home office is filled with unpacked boxes right now; but someday, it will happen, and I now have the equipment to make it so.

Here’s my birthday and the last several weeks from the eyes of Instagram. @melody182

Complaisant with Change

I haven’t done a blog post in almost a week now- and it’s because I’ve been so busy. In the last three days alone, I’ve spent only about 4-5 hours of non-sleeping time at home- most of which were consumed by cleaning, cooking, and sitting on the couch wanting to do absolutely nothing.

So let me recap the last couple of months for you- because they’re months I never would have anticipated for myself.

It started in April when my husband, John, was laid off from his job at an accounting firm. It was completely unexpected, to say the least. The firm was booming with business, John had just finished a killer tax season working close to 60 hour weeks, and plans were being made to train John further in auditing. Then at the end of a Thursday, he was called in and laid off. I could go on and on about the unfairness of it, how they made excuses for the work John did despite his inexperience and being thrown into situations where he was never taught how to do the accounting required for it yet expected to perform without error… but I’ll cut all of that short just to say- It was a completely unjust situation. I will say though- while we had our moment of breaking down and crying, afterwards, we were so at peace, especially John! I was so proud of his attitude, his readiness to pursue finding another job, and his outlook on everything. It made us entirely thankful for all we had and opened our eyes to see our many, many blessings. John applied for many jobs over the course of two weeks, as well as considering the options of a new career path. Of the three companies that he interviewed with, all three offered him a job. He started by working part time retail at GNC to bring in some money while he found a full time job, then started in an insurance agency (which thankfully, didn’t last long), and only a few weeks after loosing his job was offered a position working as an accountant at another accounting firm, a firm that is larger, treats their employees awesome, and pays more! Talk about a blessing in disguise.

Here’s where more change comes in… Since we really didn’t miss any of his paychecks since he found a new job within a matter of weeks, we were left with a pretty nice chunk of his severance pay in the bank. We weren’t sure what to do with it quite yet, so just held onto it as a nice little bumper. That’s when this pretty cool house popped up on our MLS search list just a few weeks later. We want to live up north, our favorite area being Palmer Lake; but our price range really hasn’t allowed for many opportunities to buy a home in that area. Well this great little house just a couple of minutes outside of downtown Palmer Lake became available, and we went to look at it. We fell in love with it, and within days were pre-qualified for a home loan and had an accepted offer. All of which would not have been possible without the money John received from being laid off from work.

Here’s us, closing on our home last Thursday. Our rental lease isn’t up until the end of August, so we’re not moving for a while yet. It’s nice to take our time painting, cleaning, and slowly moving.

Kind of happy! And cheesy thumbs-up.

But that is what’s been keeping me so busy. We’ve begun painting some rooms at the new place, fixing up our current place, bought a washer and dryer that we hauled across town in a rented truck, have taken several car loads over… and that’s just what we’ve been doing to the house let alone the usual schedule of things. So my apologies for not being very consistent in my postings- just trust me when I say it’s been really BUSY around here!

One of the main reasons why we fell in love with this house- though this picture doesn’t nearly do it justice.

While I’m ready for a little getting back to normal to happen, I’m so thankful for the change God’s brought into our lives. We’re so much better off now than we were several months ago, and it’s incredible to see God work his perfect plan. It almost changes the way we see the bad things that go on in our lives. If only we could see the big picture of all that God has laid out for us- I’m sure we’d be a whole lot more complaisant with change.