It's been a long time...

Summer always gets incredibly busy for us, and Josh prefers to spend as much time as possible out in the sun, on the water. That leaves very little time for my projects.

But I did find a gorgeous house, about 3 miles from the condo that I would love to own one day. If it weren't $500,000 that is.

I let myself day dream though and occassionally search Craigslist for mid-century modern furniture to fill it with.

I'm sure I'll find even more furniture that I'd love to put in a house that I don't own...

Living Room is now Liveable!

So, a year ago (maybe more?) Josh picked out an area rug for our living room once he put down the laminate. I felt like since he did all the work, he should get to pick the rug. Somehow he picked the worst possible rug ever. It's brown and blue. Our living room has black coffee table and side tables and a teal wall.

Now that the wedding is over, I'd been contemplating re-painting the wall and finding new curtains to match the rug, but couldn't find anything I really liked for curtains and I really didn't want to paint over that wall. It's my favorite in the whole house.

So after a lot of thought, I decided to move the gray area rug from the dining room into the living room and move the blue and brown rug into the dining room. It looks great! Well, the living room anyway. Now that blue and brown rug is in a gray room. I don't know if I care enough to change that though. I'm sure I will in about two weeks. But  I really am happy with the living room! That means three rooms down! The entry way, my bathroom and the living room!

Crappy pictures aside, it looks pretty darn good I think.

And, we're back...

So now that I'm officially married and have finally got all of the wedding stuff put away, I can get back to working on the house!

We got some amazing presents for the wedding, and I'm slowly working on incorporating them into our home.

My friend Nikkie works for a kick ass wall paper company and spends a good amount of time at interior design trade shows. She knows all the best stuff to get, including HUGE fluffy towels from Restoration Hardware. OMG, I'm in love with these towels. They make getting out of the shower bearable.

So they have been worked into my bathroom decor. (Yep, I have my own bathroom. It's necessary for keeping the peace.)

She did a great job of picking a "Sarah" color for the towels and being very thorough, sent paint chips along too. Wouldn't you know that my bathroom was already the same color as the lightest paint chip she sent? I changed the shower curtain and added the orchid, and I'm in the process of looking for a print to hang next to the shelf.  I feel like once I get that added, this room is as done as it's getting.

Chair Update and Another Quick Project

So I picked up those two chairs on Tuesday, instead of Monday, and Wednesday picked up some black RIT dye at JoAnn's. Keep in mind, the last time I dyed anything, I was a Girl Scout.

Josh was freaked out that the black dye would stain our washer, and I kept trying to reassure him that it wouldn't. (Even though I was a little unsure myself. EEP!)

Last night I did one chair cover, and I'm pretty pleased with myself. See the post below for a before picture!

The seat still looks a little odd, like it didn't dye completely evenly due to some fading on the original cover. But it looks a million times better than it did before. Now if I could only get that last inch of the top to come all the way down... I'll keep trying to work it down tonight while I dye the other cover.

Since there are only two of them, I'm not really sure what to do with them. They're not really nice enough for our dining room. I'm thinking of incorporating them both into my office somehow.

Oh and the black dye didn't stain our washer.

I also finally got around to making a bag for my yoga mat. It was really simple, and not as fancy as the ones you can buy, but it works for me! My yoga mat always ended up unrolled by the time Josh drove us to the gym on yoga nights, but not anymore! Now if it rolls off the seat when he takes a corner too quickly, it stays rolled up!

I really love the fabric pattern and got enough to make some new pillows for the couch in the same fabric!

Excited and I have to share my great find with someone...

Even though I haven't told anyone this blog exists yet...
I must share this amazing deal that I just got on two chairs...

They're from Ikea, and were about $60 each brand new according to the website. The covers need to be replaced, but those are relatively cheap and/or easy to make. But want to know how much I am paying for two of them? $5. Total, not each. Roughly 25 times less than they were brand new. 

I can't pick them up until Monday, so I'll spend the weekend just waiting for them! Since there are only two, I don't know if I'll use them in the dining room or put them other places in the house, but for $5, I needed to have them because I've been wanting chairs like that for sometime now. 

Just wanted to share... 

We have food?

I also got around to organizing the pantry this week! Before trash day too, which was good because sadly there was a lot of expired stuff in there.

I organized it so that it makes sense to me. So if anyone else went in there looking for something, they may or may not find it.

It could stand to be a little more organized and I want to get some of those clear cereal containers and perhaps a few more storage cubes to finally put everything in boxes.

But tada! There's even room for the trash can to fit in there now!

And even better, all of the storage boxes came from the dollar store. Which makes them a fantastic deal, in my opinion.

Now I guess I should add the rest of the kitchen to my project list... it's the whitest room in the house, aside from the downstairs bathroom.

I also made Bentley a new bed. So far it seems like he enjoys it, but not nearly as much as his chair...

You may now enter...

It's blue. That's for sure. But I actually really love it! This was right after the paint had dried and we got everything put in the entryway.

And here it is with my brand new Sweet August handbag... and my bench. I built it myself! Which is probably why it isn't exactly level... But it's pretty good. We can always level it later I guess. Damn Home Depot boards not being up to my standards!

I got a lot of organizing in the downstairs closet done too and started the pantry. I hope to finish those both this week and I'll post some pictures of that too!

Seeing that cheery blue does make me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I walk in the door now!

$45 later...

This weekend I'm working on checking #1 off my list - our entryway.

So over lunch I made the trek to Home Depot and purchased a wall mounted coat hanger, some painting supplies and a board that I had the nice gentleman in the lumber section cut for me. This is the plan.

I'm painting the walls Glidden's Cool Cobalt. I've had a quart of this paint sitting around for a while now. I guess it's time to use it!

Then I'm adding a white wall mounted coat hanger, similar to this one.

 And finally, I'm building a bench, similar to the one in this photo. But it will be painted white.

I'm so excited and can't wait to see how much of an impact it makes!

Clarification

In my first post, I mentioned that I felt that my/our material possessions were starting to take over. But then when looking over the things that bother me, they seemed very materialistic and superficial. So let me explain.

Below I have posted a list of goals/steps to helping me find a stylish way of living.

1. Create a welcoming entryway into our home. I want guests (and those of us who live there) to feel relaxed and calm and happy when visiting us from the moment they walk in the door.

2. Organize our downstairs closets. Shockingly, our clothes closets are pretty well organized. It's our other stuff that is taking over. In the morning, I can become very stressed when looking for the right jacket or an item to pack in our lunches. Creating a grocery list is often impossible because I can't always see what I have in the pantry. I need to eliminate clutter to reduce stress.

3. Plant some flowers and vegetables. Flowers and fresh tomatoes make me happy. That's pretty much the whole reason behind this project.

4. Clean out my closets and drawers and donate any clothes that I don't absolutely love. I have way too many clothes and even more disappointing is how many of them don't actually fit into the style I'd like to have. By limiting myself to only outfits that I love, I hope to help get rid of the frazzled look I currently sport. It's important to note that I look frazzled because I am. Less choices, but better ones should help.

5. Work on some creative home projects. If you can't tell, I'm going through a major nesting phase. As we are about to become a family, I want our home to have more of a family feel to it, instead of it looking like two people and a dog use it as a storage facility. With any luck, it will encourage us to slow down a little and spend more time at home.

6. Work with Bentley, our Scottie to become a better team and establish more rules to make everyone's lives more enjoyable. (Ok, so really, I'm hoping that the obedience class we are currently enrolled in will strengthen the bond for all three of us so that Josh gives in and allows Bentley on the couch and upstairs because he's such a good boy.)

7. Establish new relationships and nurture old ones. I am friendless. All of my best friends live several hours away, and I'm lucky if our busy schedules work out to see each other once a year. Or every two. While those relationships are immensely important to me, I feel the need to reach out and build some new friendships as well. Mostly with people who will like my dog.

8. Try something new. I'm not a risk taker. I used to be, but somewhere along the lines, I started making safe choices in my life. I hope to start small, with a new hobby or making a new meal, but with any luck, I'll be racing Josh on the jet skis before next summer.

9. Get creative. That's where this blog comes in. I don't write nearly as much as I used to, mostly because my other blog turned into a wedding blog and then I got burnt out on wedding planning and was having a hard time transitioning that blog to a life blog... anyway, my writing at work has started to suffer. This blog will also be a place to document my successes and errors as I re-learn how to sew and re-finish at least one piece of furniture. Let's start small.

10. Establish the kind of marriage that other people envy. Not so that others can be envious of me, but so that I know the choices we have made over the past seven years have been the best ones that we could. We've had a lot of ups and downs, but there is no one else I could have made it through those with. So often I become so wrapped up in work or other projects and Josh does the same and then our relationship suffers. A happy home is happy because of the people and the love inside of it.

Every Day is a Winding Road...

Every so often I start feeling like I have lost my way as a person. That I'm not exactly the person that I thought I would be, or that I don't yet have the things I thought I would by this point in my life, both material things and achievements.

But I do have a wonderful life, full of things most people would love to have. A job I love, a dog who thinks that the sun rises and sets on my command, an amazing man who will soon be my husband, a huge and supportive family, 3 SUVs, a house, jet skis, boats and plenty of other "toys".

Sadly, I often feel like the material part of my life starts taking over. Our routine is dictated by repairs and scheduling to use the toys we have worked very hard to obtain. I'm often overwhelmed by feelings that run the gamut. My life is thrown together with whatever time I have to spare that day. And unfortunately, glimpses into my life make that very obvious. From my hair to my outfits to the interior of my house, nothing seems as put together and polished as I used to be.

This blog is my journey back to finding the style in my life. Prepare for a bumpy road!