Natural beauty

These beauties were magically delivered to me at work last week by Cory for our anniversary. They have since made it home and are brightening up our kitchen wonderfully.

They are all bright and open and filling our home with their fragrance. Nothing better!
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Hitting the ground running!

I've been battling the awful cold going around here for the last two weeks! I am back in action today with my fancy silver slippers and taking today with full force.

You would think that with all this time off at home, I would have tackled some stuff around the house, but you would be WRONG! I spent most of my time sleeping, trying to fight this sickness off, and when I was feeling well enough, i've been busy with my Princess House business, at meetings and training sessions. It's going well and I think I might just need to share some of my new fall stuff!

Other than that, we've been busy getting acquainted with our 5 month old fur baby, learing her quirks and quips and trying desperately not to have accidents in the house. It seems to be working, as we've only had one incident since we got our carpets cleaned 2 weeks ago, and that's cause I was sleeping! She's full of energy and really a funny girl, but she's starting to calm down a bit too, which is nice! We've also decided that the dog park is amazing and one of our favorite places EVER!

Today: I have a house to clean, invitations to send, an office to organize so that I can in there, be inspired and WORK! But, it's our anniversary today, so I am blowing those plans outta the water and instead, after work 1, I am going to enjoy a nice dinner at a brand new restaurant and hopefully go see "the town".

Enjoy yours!
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Have a Seat..... NO WAIT - DON'T!!!

We love entertaining.  Unfortunately, it's come to the point that our furniture (the stuff I bought when I first moved out on my own...) isn't really up to snuff for having people over.

Don't get me wrong, it's all served us well but let's face it - It was cheap (all I could afford) and while it looked great back then, is looking a little worse for wear now. 

Not to mention, isn't necessarily working with the new house, or my current style.

Let's start with the dining set:

Yeah, it's not too bad from here.  But the finish on everything is a reddish color which doesn't work with the dark wood floors or cabinets.  Plus, it's super glossy, which reflects every smudge, crumb, kitty foot print. 

The table however, is salvageable.  It's sturdy and a nice size for our space.  It just needs to be refinished, so that will eventually get a makeover.

The chairs however will NOT be making the cut. 

The style is just not working for me.  Plus most of them are actually cracked from some of our heavier guests.  Not to mention the seats....

Yes, I realize it would take me all of 10 minutes to re-cover these babies, but why go through the trouble for something I don't want to begin with?

So, moving on - there's our sofa and loveseat.  I actually really love the style. 

Plus, they are pretty comfy.

However, several years later, they are in rough, rough shape. 

I will spare you the photos that make you think we are disgusting, but here are some sneaks:

Obviously comfy, they might not be the right style for the space.. I'm not sure.  Plus, the high arms make using end tables difficult!

A once bad kitty, did this to them...

While it may be difficult to see in this sunny photo, but they are also permanently stained in spots.  Like that dark corner there.  No, that's not a shadow, it's dirt from 2 cats and a dog.  Also, most likely Cory.  (they were never this dirty when I lived alone... for almost 2 years....just saying!)

Lastly, the beigey tones aren't working so well with all the bright white I love! 

I am however, unsure if that means I need something colored or something white....?

Plus, I think convincing Cory that something white (however washable) would be a good idea...

So, with my dirty little secrets shared I am now on the look out for new soft furniture for our main floor.  Unfortunately, we don't really have the budget to buy all new stuff, so I will be scouring for deals and steals and hopefully finding things I can alter myself.

Feel free to drop a line if you have some ideas or some great finds that you think might work!

Wallpapering: Part 1

The wallpapering was suppossed to be started and finished today.  Unfortunately, that never happened.

We fully intended for it, I mean, we started.....  But then the following happened:

1. I had bought 2 rolls.  They weren't from the same lot however.  We noticed the 2nd roll looked different when we bought it... but attributed that to the light.  Wrong move.  The look we wanted was silver damask on grey/blue.  We have gold damask on aqua.  DRASTICALLY DIFFERENT! 

I was about to run out and buy more when Cory worked his mathematical "magic" and decided that we could do the one wall with only 1 roll...PERFECT!  So we set to work rolling out, matching pattern and cutting.

2. ... except he forgot to take into consideration that we needed to match patterns.  Matching patterns means lots of wastage.  Especially if you don't have 2 rolls......

So we admitted defeat for the night (it was too late  to go out and buy more anyhow).

But since I think all good posts need a picture or two, I will leave you with some pretty wallpapered spaces from other places!

via Decorology

Decorpad

Hopefully, we will get the papering finished by the end of the week!  Wish me better luck this time!

Coming Clean!

Two things happened today:

1. I cleaned the office.  Just yesterday, you could barely get in the door, let alone see the floor or find anything.  What prompted me to do this?

Well, let's just say that this little lady isn't so great at alerting anyone that she needs to go outside.... and unfortunately had been making quite the mess of our carpets.

Fortunately/unfortunately for us, she doesn't really bark or whine....

Needless to say, it was starting to smell a little like pee on our upper level - and that just wasn't working for me.  So today, a carpet cleaning company came and saved us from having to eventually rip up the carpets. 

Now, our upstairs floors look like this:

This is Finley's room/Guest room that will soon be getting a little makeover.

This is the main hallway, which was the worst looking area!  (there was also an incident at pur housewarming party the involved ketchup chips and too much to drink....)

Our bedroom wasn't bad, but it's nice to know I can play with the animals on the floor up here now without worry!

The landing also had it's fair share of stains.

TA DA!  Fresh and clean.

Thank you carpet cleaning man for getting everything out.  I love that our house smells fresh and clean like Lemongrass and can't wait for it to dry!

Unfortunately, I feel bad I had to short you $50 for scratching my kitchen floor and trying to charge me for something you didn't tell me was extra!

blogger and i are not getting along....

I've been trying to post, I swear, but we're having some technical difficulties lately.

First, I brought the usb port on the desktop upstairs.  fine, whatever, I'll use the laptop.

Then, I somehow broke the laptop (although just my profile) and can't view most sites, or anything that requires flash player.  I've tried downloading a new version, and CAN'T.  Will be bringing laptop in to visit our IT guys this week!

Oh, then when I decided to get smart and just post via Cory's profile, I get all these posts ready to go... and for some reason not only will half my photos not load... then blogger refuses to post them!!

Geeze louise!  Bear with me... I'm working on it!

Front yard update!

Oh, and before I forget, here's an updated (very poor quality) picture of the front yard from Friday around 1:30. Yes, through the screen door!
You might notice, we have a tree!

I am hoping that when I get home today, I will have top soil covered by grass, some shrubs and rock!

Keep your fingers crossed for me!
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Down and out!

Hope you had a nice long weekend! I had an extra long one since I was off from work on Thursday and Friday. Still got some vacation days to use up!

I had high hopes up getting tons accomplished, but instead caught a serious head cold and injured my knee pretty bad at the dog park, which put wallpapering on hold till next weekend.

We did pick up a few odds and ends for the house though, so I will post about those tomorrow, maybe once the bubble my head is in, had subsided!

Anyone have any tips for wallpapering?
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Hole-y Moley!

I lay in bed this morning anxiously awaiting the sounds outside that I had been waiting all summer for...

When I finally popped out of bed and peered out the window,  a huge smile swept across my face.  You see, we have this beauty in our front yard:

Yup, that's a big hole!  Here's a look at the whole yard as it sits.

Yeah I know, doesn't look like much.  Plus, I am worried that hole is too close to the sidewalk...

But it means good stuff is coming!