Weekend Recap

This weekend was such a busy one around these parts! Poor hubs. He has been working really long days, and, on his days off, I had quite the honey-please-do list for him! He was a trooper, as always, and got everything knocked off his list! And, we eventually managed to find some time for some much needed (for him!) R&R!

We have lived in our condo now for 18 months, which is so hard to believe! It took us a good year to get anything hung on the walls, and I am probably the slowest decorator ever, but the more we do, the more it becomes "ours", and we both love that. Before moving here, we had accumulated a lot of things - and have some pretty large pieces of antique furniture, which are all great, but were not really doing so well into our 1,200 square foot downtown condo. Back in December, you may recall, I got a storage unit during my "self-imposed college break", and started clearing out clutter (it was like an episode of Hoarders (which I have never watched, but I caught an episode of "Playing House" last week on USA and this is how they described it)) - the "keep" pile, the "trash" pile, the "storage" pile, and the "Goodwill" pile. I got a lot of stuff cleared out of here in December, and that felt fantastic! But, it still felt cramped in here because of some of that aforementioned really large furniture. So, we made an executive decision last week to get some movers in here this past weekend and move 7 or so pieces of furniture over to the storage unit. It feels like a brand new place in here! There is so much space! I could have a dance party in our guest room (I did a little bit)! It's wonderful!

Moving furniture took up most of our morning on Saturday, and then putting together furniture took up most of the afternoon (because why would you ever get rid of any furniture without buying some more, right?). Really it was only one piece of furniture - an entryway bench for our foyer - and then a few cabinets and shelves and things. But we were busy, and we got a lot done!

Yesterday, we had a bit more work to do, and then Harris cooked up a wonderful lunch - ribeye, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus. There is a farmer's market right outside our front door on Saturdays from May to October-ish, and went by on Saturday morning and got some strawberries, yukon potatoes, and the biggest asparagus I have ever seen! - all of which are locally grown!

Was I kidding?!?

We signed up for a local fruit and veggie delivery service that will start later this month, but will definitely still be hitting up the farmer's market too. We both love having that fresh produce, and also getting the chance to support local farmers and businesses.

As for the upcoming week, Harris is leaving tomorrow to go back to Arkansas for the week, so Lucy and I will be holding down the fort once again. I have made my work to-do list for the week, and have to say I have already had a pretty kick-butt kind of morning! Yay Mondays! Finally, the best part of the week, my friend Michelle is coming for a visit on Thursday, and will be here till next Monday! I am so excited about this! Michelle and I became friends in my last job - we worked on the same team. We just have very similar personalities and get along so well! I haven't seen her since January, and, she has never been to Virginia, and I loooove playing hostess so this should be a lot of fun! We will have a girl's night on Thursday, and then Harris will be home on Friday, so the three of us will have a great weekend, I am sure!

Hope y'all have a great Monday!

A Guest Bathroom Fit for a...Guest

Do y'all remember waaaaayyy back in April when we teased you with details concerning our "home improvement" projects? Well, 3 1/2 months seems like as good a time as any to provide an update, complete with pictures! I promise it in no way, shape, or form took us this long to get the darn bathroom painted. It did however, take some time for me to find just the perfect accessories, and who wants to see a halfway finished final project? No one? That's what I thought.

View from the door!

In love with this shower curtain! It is part of the Kate Spade collection
from Bed Bath & Beyond.

Don't y'all love this?! It is a paddle towel hook (4 different hooks)! All credit goes to Harris
for this idea. We found a shop on Etsy that makes them!

Love the accessories in this collection!

I needed something to go over the toilet.
We found this (also at Bed Bath & Beyond!), and it was perfect -
perfect size, perfect theme, perfect colors!

Just a snap of behind the door to showcase the two colors.

Until we replace the sink, I dragged this little table in to hold our guest towels!

I have to admit, I never would have seen myself choosing the shower curtain/accessories that we chose, but, as soon as I saw it in the store, I knew it would be perfect. It tied in the whole theme, and had exactly the perfect colors. Luckily, Harris was sold too, so there wasn't even deliberation to be had! Overall, we are very pleased with how things turned out! We have had two sets of guests since it has been finished (my folks, and then my sister and friends), but we would love more, so please come use our guest bath!

Now, if only we could get our contractor to finish the tile in our master bath, we could finish painting and decorating in there!

As of Late

I know we keep teasing you with projects and saying "we'll show you when we're done...", but, sadly we are just not done yet! Harris is working an inordinate amount of hours (I really love using the word inordinate, it sounds so dramatic to me), and I have been traveling a good bit. We did, however, just purchase a few new lovelies from Etsy, which will help enhance the finished product of the guest bathroom - hip hip hooray!

I do travel quite a bit for my job. Usually it looks something like this:
Drive to airport --> Wait in airport --> Fly to destination --> Pick up rental car --> Get to hotel in time to sleep --> Wake up for meeting --> Perhaps drive to new destination and repeat hotel and meeting scenarios --> Return to airport --> Fly home --> Drive home from airport.

It is very rare that I am not alone on these adventures, and even more rare that I actually get to have an adventure. I know, I know - woe is me (how sad is it that I had to stop myself from typing "whoa is me" - I must have Joey Lawrence on the brain this morning). However, just a couple weeks ago, I was able to meet up with my co-worker in New Jersey for a whirlwind Northern Jersey/Manhattan trip. It was nice to have a comrade for my meetings, as well as someone to actually plan to go to dinner with (versus ordering room service or the quickest/fastest thing in route to a destination). Here are a few shots of our adventures (all in NYC, because, really, who has adventures in Jersey - no offense Snooki):

Traffic in Columbus Circle

Bright lights, big city!

 

Heaven in the form of a doughnut, from the Doughnut Plant

Union Square, and a man painted entirely gold. Where else would this happen?

One of the new towers at Ground Zero

DNA Testing on wheels

Also, I just got back from my parent's house in North Carolina, where I went for the weekend to help my baby sister get ready for prom. Just me and ole Lucy driving down 95 to help this sweet girl get all prettied up for her last big high school hurrah!

Doing makeup

Morgan and her bf, Al

The hubs actually has a couple days off this week (yay!). Unfortunately, the weather man is calling for some t-storms over the next couple of days, so we might be house-bound for most of it, which isn't entirely a bad thing!

Weekend Projects: Painting a Bathroom (or two!)

This past weekend was fraught with projects! When I told Harris about my little arts & crafts project (which was started this weekend, too!), he relayed some of his own ideas. His, of course, are much more home-improvement centered than mine, and include things like painting our bathrooms, installing new fixtures, and so on. We decided to get the ball rolling this weekend, and after a trip to Michael's and Benjamin Moore, we were ready to get started!

So, I kind of forgot to take a "before" picture of the bathroom before we started painting, and, in the midst of taking all kinds of pictures of our new home when we moved in, we somehow didn't think it was terribly important to photograph the bathroom. I did, however, find this one photo, which at least showcases our accent wall, which is the color we were trying to compliment.

After much deliberation at the Benjamin Moore, we decided on a really pretty golden yellow. The whole color scheme in both bathrooms now will be focused around blue, yellow, and white.

Harris demonstrating the proper rolling technique

Trying my hand at being a rolling pro - it's a lot harder than it looks!

Yay! Look at me go!

Loving the color so far

We managed to get the full first coat painted on Saturday in the guest bathroom, however, we severely underestimated how much paint we needed, and didn't know that Benjamin Moore is closed on Sundays. So, the guest bathroom is in a bit of disarray for the next few days, at least.  I will be sure to share more pics of the final project. In the meantime, I am having fun picking out some new things for the bathrooms!

I really like this waffle shower curtain from Pottery Barn for the guest bathroom

And these towels (of course monogrammed!) for both bathrooms, from PB as well