Some more accessory finds!

The last couple of weeks, I have found some GREAT deals on accessories. Just wanted to share a few:

This is the little $60 Ikea shelf/console in our foyer. We just bought the kitty sculptures today. I think both of them together were $10 at TJ Maxx. We also found the cube basket today for $7 on clearance. I only wish they had 2 so that we had one for the bottom righthand cube as well. I would like to eventually find a spot for the kitties in our as-yet extremely sparse loft, but for now this is a good spot for them.


I'm still struggling with this little corner shelf unit. We picked it up for $10 at a flea market before we moved into the house. The shelves are really small and don't hold much. I seemed to have started to collect bird figurines, so for now they have a home on the awkward little corner shelf here in the loft. This is DEFINITELY a work in progress. I'd like to add some small picture frames, candle holders, and maybe some kind of miniature houseplant. I don't know, I'm still looking for inspirations on what to do here. The three birds on the second and fourth shelves were a set purchased at Kirklands for $8. The little vases were $1 each at the Salvation Army, and the bird at the top was $2 in the clearance section of TJ Maxx.


I was looking for some black & white floral art for the loft and came across these at Kohls. They were $30 each and I had a $50 giftcard, so only $10 out of pocket! Now I just need to decide where to hang them...


Time for a kitty break...


Ok, kitty break over...

Now onto the guestroom (or as my husband's best friend likes to call it, the "toothpaste room" due to the wall color).

Got this really pretty starfish box at TJ Maxx for about $5. It's hard to tell from the pic, but the edges are distressed. It's so cute!


Still shopping around for the perfect big oval mirror for above this short dresser, but for now I have this little one propped up as a temporary solution. Got the little basket at Goodwill for $1, the seashell spheres were clearanced Christmas ornaments at Kohls, I think they were a couple bucks each. The little seagrass pot was $10 at Kohls. The lantern is an Ikea find. I really wanted a bigger one, but couldn't find just the right one, so this one will do for now.



That's all for now! Still haven't gotten our dining set. Hopefully next weekend. Fingers are crossed!

Goodbye, ugly brass grappling hook!

I still need to show you some of the fun finds from last weekend's shopping spree, but I thought I would start with one of the larger items we purchased.

As I have mentioned previously, I hate, hate, HATE the builder brass fixtures around our house. We are slowly but surely swapping them all out for oil rubbed bronze and frosted glass fixtures. Well, one of the worst was the ugly brass candelabra-style fixture in the dining room. It was one of the first things you see when you walk through the front door, so it HAD to go fast! My husband just swapped it out this afternoon for one of our shopping spree finds.

Here is the ugly grappling hook already removed from the ceiling:


And here is the new fixture!:

Soooooo much better!

We took down all the Christmas stuff yesterday, so the house feels a bit refreshed, but more empty. Just means I need to do more decorating!

Oooh! And I'm so excited...I am holding a swap meet for my girlfriends in early February. Everyone is going to bring 5-10 new or gently used items they don't want, and we'll take turns swapping them for each other's stuff. I suggested stuff like decor items, small appliances, books, DVDs, jewelry, handbags, etc. Really anything. Can't wait! Maybe I can get some more stuff for the house!

A little exterior sparkle...

Sorry it took me so long to post this next entry. We had our housewarming party last Saturday night and it was a hit! All of our friends seem to love our new house. We got so many compliments! And it was lovely to see everyone after spending so many weeks working hard on getting it ready. I felt like I hadn't seen any of our friends in AGES!

Anyways, we had to go smaller scale than I would have liked on the outside of our house. First, because we don't have a tall ladder yet to get to the roofline on the top story. Second, because we don't have $30194873108461438701 to buy all new lights & decorations! Hopefully we can pick up some good stuff for next year in the after-Christmas sales. We bought 2 strands of lights BOGO at CVS, bought some cheap greenery garland, used a wreath I had made three years ago for the door, PVC yard candy canes from the dollar store, and for the rest we worked with what we already had.

In-progress pic:


Door & walkway. Excuse our horrid lawn...again, the house was vacant for 6 months before we bought it (over the Florida summer too) and the lawn was grossly neglected. It's one of our priorities for after the holidays:

Close-up of door...We hope to get nicer & bigger porch trees in the future. These little ones were cheap finds 50% off at JoAnn's, embellished with berry/bead things (also 50% off).

And last but not least, the broader view of the whole house:

Merry & bright!

We are finally making some progress on our decorating. It is becoming more and more obvious that I will have to scour the after-Christmas sales this year in an attempt to really build up my holiday decor stash. But we are making due with what we have and having a ton of fun decorating our new house.

Last week I put up our tree:




I've been working on the miscellaneous stuff all week. Found these great star wreaths & the retro tree toppers on either side of the "HAPPY" sign at Dollar Tree!




Just got this little modular shelf unit for our foyer at Ikea for $39 last weekend! It was fun to add some holiday touches to it.


I bought these little snowmen tealight holders this weekend for $15 for the set. I knew I needed something for the powder room, since when we have our holiday parties, this is the restroom the guests will use. Aren't they cute?



Next up...exterior decorating!

Some decorating progress pics.

The living room is pretty sparse (luckily right now the Christmas tree is helping with that), but I love my red couch so much, I could not resist sharing. We actually got a new coffee table since this pic was taken. I also want to put some floating shelves on the blank wall to the side of the couch.


The kitchen is probably my favorite spot so far. Still working on building out my accessories above the cabinets. I absolutely love the plates over the pantries. They both have a little bird sitting on a branch.

The guestroom was cobbled together with a furniture set that my parents really wanted to get rid of (yay, free!). We gave the set a fresh coat of white paint, and will be adding new hardware as soon as I decide on some. My mom had this brand new comforter set on the bed that she asked me to take (free again!). I am going with the coastal/seaside look in this room, with light blues, whites, and sand colors. The print over the bed is of a lighthouse and some grassy sand dunes and the lamp is a Goodwill find that I painted white & added a sandy-colored shade. Since this pic was taken, I have already added a round seagrass mat under the lamp on the nightstand, and a silver lantern tealight holder on the short dresser. This room needs some serious accessorizing, but I am buying a little here and there as I go. The furniture set came with a mirror that is supposed to go over the short dresser, but I think I want to find an oval mirror instead...maybe one with a light wood wicker/woven frame.

My blank slate.

I thought I would post some pics of the house from the night that we closed. It is a TOTAL blank slate. White walls & builder-grade everything. I absolutely HATE every single light fixture. But it has SO much potential. I love it more and more everyday.

Here is my husband opening our front door for the very first time as a homeowner.

This is our foyer & dining room taken from the entrance to the kitchen.

The kitchen...Again, very basic, but I LOVE the dual pantries!

This is the other end of the foyer, standing near the front door, looking into the entry to the kitchen & family room. The center is one of two entry closets, and to the left is the stairwell. Just to the right of this pic is the laundry room.
This is the U-shaped upstairs hall, taken from the loft. The doorway on the right is to the master suite. To the left are 3 guestrooms & a guest bath.

Master bedroom.

Master bath...

I think you get the idea...it's a pretty builder-basic house. Needs lots of pizazz! Pretty soon, I will post some "after" pics to show you what we've done with the place! We are still working on it (I'm sure we will never stop!), but it's starting to come together.

Soooooooo tired. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Well, we FINALLY moved into our new house. Due to delay after delay, we did not actually close on the house until last Monday night! Long story. We painted a few rooms on Tuesday, then the movers brought our stuff on Wednesday, we got appliances on Thursday, and have been unpacking and fixing everything up ever since. I am EXHAUSTED!!!!!!!

Very soon I should have some pics to share. I need to finish straightening up and adding a few items here and there. Everything HAS to be ready (or as close as possible) soon because we have relatives coming for Thanksgiving on Tuesday! Eeek! In the meantime, here is a teaser pic taken while we were painting the kitchen:

Finally can post pics of my husband's finished product!

Fun with stencils!

Tadd (who actually tends to be slightly more crafty than me at times) and I were roaming the craft store yesterday, when we came across some really cute stencils. He suggested we buy a few, plus some blank canvases and try to make some art for our new house. I thought it sounded like a simple enough project, so we bought the stencils, canvases, some cheap sponge brushes, and four tubes of paint and headed home.

I spread out an old shower curtain on the floor of the living room, put on our DVD copy of Ratatouille (we are big Pixar fans), and we got to work.

Here is what we started with:


Tadd wanted to do two long, skinny canvases, and I wanted one big square one. His idea was to paint one black and one white, then take the bamboo stencil and do layers of different shades of green, going from light to dark, and then dark to light. I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to do with mine when I started. I just kind of played with the stencil shapes as I went. Here is a work-in-progress pic:


Tadd's is hard to see, but at that point, he had only done the darkest shades of green, so it kind of had a tone-on-tone effect against the black.

And here are some finished products. Tadd's black canvas is done, and he has started on the white one. And mine is completely done.



Mine is going to probably go somewhere in the master suite, probably in the bathroom. Tadd's will go into his "man den". It was a really fun project, and very easy.

I'm back...and very tired.

Back from my whirlwind trip to NYC. Had a great time, but I'm so sad it was so short. Weather was overcast, but the temperature was perfect! And it never rained.



I attended an event at the Central Park Boathouse, which was lovely. Then we went to an after party at the W in Times Square. LOVED Times Square! Loved Central Park too, but there is just something about Times Square...magical! I told my husband we HAVE to go back on a real vacation. I think he would love it there.



I came back to some problems with the house...could be potentially good, but it's still making me nervous. The bank did their appraisal and it came to $8000 less than the offer we made. Our agent is in the process of renegotiating our offer down to what it is worth. It means everything is currently in a holding pattern...But getting the house for $8k less than what we thought we were going to be paying sounds VERY appealing. I just hope it all gets ironed out and we can keep the same 10/15 closing date. Tadd and I already got time off approved for the week after closing so we could paint/fix up the house and move. I just want this process to be OVER so I can start focusing on the move!

On our way...

My husband Tadd and I are in the process of buying this:


We are going to be homeowner newbies. Closing is October 15th. We have a lot to do. Should be interesting...