Ohh em gee!

Seriously, I apologize for the lack of blogging, it seemed like Andy got home last Wednesday and we hit the ground running. We've been planning a get together for the first weekend in February since we moved in, partially to hang with our friends but partially to light a fire under our butts to get the house in some semblance of order. With him being gone so much it's been a bit of a challenge, especially last week when I managed to hurt my neck and couldn't do much more than laundry. However, he got home Wednesday afternoon and once I got home from work we started running errands and really we haven't stopped since. There's been a lot we've needed to pick up for the house and a lot we've had to do. I have lots of projects to share but just haven't had the time to share them. Promise to do so soon.

Also if you are around Saturday night stop by the new place, we would love to see you!

Hobby Lobby FTW

As you know, we have been slowly acquiring bits and pieces for the house even before it was finished. Now that we have moved in and started work on the house I wish we would have waited. Things just aren't shaping up the way that we thought it would and we've bought a couple things that I would like to return. Luckily, Hobby Lobby, where I bought one of the items in question, offers returns for credit for returns without a receipt. Woohoo! that's going to make things a little bit easier for me because I am certain I can find things to buy at Hobby Lobby. In fact I had a nice little find this past weekend when I was visiting my parents. We decided to pay a visit to Hobby Lobby because all their wood and metal ware items were 50% off this past week. That's where I found this:

Pardon Murphy's nose, he's a curious pup

It's a wall mounted coat rack, which is going to be perfect for the area just inside the front door. I'm weird because I've always wanted a standing coat rack. I'm not sure why, I just really like coat racks. I know I'm odd okay? Moving on...a standing coat stand would not work in our front hall, there just isn't enough space there, so this wall mounted version is perfect! The best part is that it was only $10! I can't wait to see how it looks on the wall. Slowly but surely the house is coming together. I promise to do a house tour post pretty soon, I just want a little distinction between the rooms.

Living Room Partial Preview

So our living room is coming along nicely. This is the one area in the house I would love to have finished by the time we have our house party since we will be mainly be hanging out there. I apologize in advance for the crappy cell phone pictures, I'll drag out the good camera when everything is actually done. Also please ignore the pile of crap poking out from the side of the couch, that's stuff that doesn't have a home yet and the TV out in the middle of the living room, we need our media center to be done.

General view from the kitchen

Shelf behind the couch

 Just so you get an idea of where we are going: there is going to be some kind of art behind the couch the media stand will be pushed against the far wall (which isn't really pictures here), I'm going to add something to those lamps to make them look bigger (like maybe foam wrapped around the spindly part), I'm going to get some matching frames for our pictures to put on the shelves between the mirrors, I'm going to get a glass bowl with filler for the long shelf behind the couch, we are going to add another chaise to the other side of the couch plus another shelf behind the couch, we are going to make a coffee table, and last but not least we are going to get/re-purpose a chair for the far wall. Whew, I'm a little tired even typing that out, but hopefully it turns out like I'm picturing it in my head.

Picking Colors: Living Room

We have gotten our living room in some semblance of order, in fact I finished painting it last week. I should have some pictures of the semi-completed living room tonight but in the meantime let me tell you about how we decided our color selections. We selected the living room paint color way before our house was done because we had the model to base our selection on. The paint color we selected is called Opal Silk by Behr:

It's a little lighter looking in person but I love it. It's bright and welcoming. We loved this color so much we decided our couch color on it. Voila:

Ikea's Karlstad modular couch in Kordal Medium Grey. While we were at Ikea we also found this rug:

So we have this rug and the couch as well as some white shelves for behind the couch (it'll make more sense in pictures). We knew that we needed to pick some colors to accent the living room, so we headed to Lowes and Home Depot to take a look. We brought home some paint samples and compared them to the couch and wall color and wound up selecting these two:

Top color is Tibetan Orange by Behr, bottom color is Caribe by Behr. The media stand is going to be the Caribe and the Tibetan Orange we used as a basis for throw pillows and wall decor. I'm really excited with how this looks together. Hopefully you will see it in tomorrow's post and like it as well!

Overloaded

Our entire house is beige. AKA blah. Now I admit we did pick beige as our paint "color" but it really is overwhelming to be in a house that is suppose to be yours and not have it really feel like yours. Our house feels more like a model than a home. It's not just all the beige, it's also all the rooms that are half empty because we just don't have furniture to put into them. This has turned my head into a scary place because every day I am making lists of things I want to do to make this house a home. And folks my lists are like scary long. So to help make us accountable and also get my thoughts organized I'm going to share the list of things I would like to get done. To help us out even more I'm going to highlight the ones I want to get done before our friend house warming (We are also planning on having a big family and friend house warming in the warmer months so our families can make the drive down if they want). This list is in no particular order:

• Paint living room (Completed 1/12)
• Paint the front room, media room, office, and our bedroom
• Put mirrors in the hall and half bath
• Hang toilet paper holders and towel bar/circle 
• Hang curtains and/or blinds in all bedrooms
• Re-cover black and white chair for living room
• Put legs on the record player stand to make it higher
• Make or buy a liquor cabinet
• Finish media stand for living room
• Unpack all boxes that aren't going into storage
• Hang mirrors, shelves, and decor in living room
• Buy an additional chaise for the couch and shelf for behind couch
• Buy a bigger TV for living room
• Figure out art work for front room
• Buy Star Wars posters for Andy's office
• Buy desks for Andy's office
• Make accent pillows for living room 
• Get big TV and the old couch up into the media room

I know that there are more things I need/want to do but I just can't think of them all. I think I may have to start carrying around a small notebook and pen to keep track of things when I think of them. 

Moving is hard

I finally have access to the interwebs folks! We just got our internet and cable connected on Sunday, so freaking crazy! Anyway, that's my excuse for being gone for so long, plus the whole moving thing. Good news is we are all moved in to our house, not that we aren't unpacked nor do we have anything in the slightest semblance of order but we are working on it. Let me tell you having four days to get out of the old house and into the new house was crazy hard. It was so stressful and tiring but so worth it since we are in OUR house. We are homeowners, it still doesn't feel completely real, like some days I will be sitting in the living room and think "Oh my gosh, this is our house, we own it!" It sounds weird but I still do that sometimes about being married. I think it's the whole feeling like a grown up thing, I still see myself as a kid in college (and act like it).

Anyway, we are completely loving our place for the most part, there are a few minor annoyances but nothing too major. For example we don't have sod so our yard is just mud right now so we have to walk the dogs, which we haven't had to do in nearly 2 years.We freak out at any damage we do to the house (like a hunk of drywall that was taken out when we were moving furniture in). Plus no one can find us, since we aren't on Google Maps, people like the pizza delivery dude and our internet and cable provider. Other than that things are great. We've been working on organizing and unpacking, slowly but surely. We need to get our butts in gear though because the first weekend in February we are having a house warming party and I would like to have most of the house set up and organized. I actually planned the party to motivate us a little more, I think it's working.

Anyway, that's my little update, I've got a lot to share about the projects we've completed since moving in and all the projects I want to undertake in the near future. I promise to post a little more often now that we have our connection back up!