It's A Celebration!

This title is inspired by my sister's boyfriend.  You will only get it if you are me or my sister.  Sorry if that's not you.

I am FINALLY writing on my blog.  My summer has officially started.  Even though the last day of school was a week ago, today is the first official day that I have had absolutely nothing to do.  Coincidentally, I spent it doing tons of stuff.  Mostly outside work.  But I'm okay with that.  

Today is also the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of living in our home.  Yep, we closed on this house on June 15, 2011.  So, to celebrate, we spent most of the day working outside, we had a great lunch and dinner at home, and tonight we will probably watch non-stop episodes of Weeds.  

And to celebrate, I am going to make this Post Number One of a few posts to update you on our lives.  Three posts will be house-related and one about us.  Because my summer mind is thinking "house work house work house work".  I took tons of recent pictures of our house so I will try to split it up into three posts so you aren't looking at 700 pictures at once and so I can get a break from uploading them.  

I figured I would post in 3 sections: downstairs, upstairs, and outside.  Outside has seen the biggest transformation, but we have done some awesome work everywhere :-)

Starting with the living room... Here is what my living room looked like last time you saw it:

And here it is now:

Now too bad, but not too great, either.  This room has been kind of neglected due to "inspiration" issues.  I am terrified of spending money on things if I don't know if I will like them.  Anywho--I got a sewing machine for Christmas (Josh's gma's old one) and I am in love!  Josh's mom taught me how to use it and I can't stop.  That little yellow and white chevron pillow is my first thing.  Don't think it will stay in this room, but whatever.  The curtains are the real deal, though.  I got the fabric online for MUCH less than I would have in a fabric store and I got to work.  I won't bore you with those details, but I will say I'm in love.  Also--the lamp is new.  It's from Target.

The view from the dining room.

How SWEET are these?!  I wanted something cool and funky, but not too in-your-face.

The view from the foyer...

...speaking of foyer... I did some adjusting in there as well.  I have actually never shown you our foyer.  Silly me.  I have been wanting a console table there for convenience sake (as well as pretty-ness).  So when my mom was visiting a few months ago, she offered to pick up the tab and off we went.  We found it at Target...

The view from the living room.

This sweet table is made of REAL wood and it was only 119 bucks!

From left to right: the white candlestick is from a local fabric store; the rattan cup, Marshalls; the blue bowl for keys, Anthropologie; the wooden tray, Target; the white ceramic flower, Michael's; the two glass vases, Goodwill; the planter, IKEA; the beautiful lamp, Target.

I love this palm plant.  It creates oxygen.  That's sweet.  And that lamp even makes Josh drool.

Anyway--enough of that table.  Back to the living room.  Remember this unused and boring corner with my new Target chair?

Well, it's still kind of boring, but MUCH improved:

The sweet curvy lamp is from *surprise* Target.  I made the little pillow from leftover fabric from the curtains.  The white pillow is Walmart.  And the little table is from *surprise again* Target. 

I piled some cool books on the bottom.  The top has another sweet ceramic tea light flower and an awesome flower, which was a gift from a student.  Oh--and a picture frame that still has the models in it.  haha.

The dining room looked like this last time:

And like this now:

Pretty much untouched.  We are still working on some ideas for this room, but they take money, so they have been put on the back burner.  We did expand the table with the leaves company and then were too lazy to put them back.  I did bring some beautiful hydrangeas in from the yard, though:

 

The kitchen last looked like this:

And now:

My favorite ever.  I painted an old chunky frame white and added this awesome lemon photograph that I bought on art.com.

Oh!  And remember the pantry?  I hated it...

Well, look!

I painted it the same color as the kitchen.  It looks soooo much better.  I hung some pots (which I have not planted anything in yet) and added a white frame with free art (from an old wall calendar).  

And see that little white key ring on the wall?  It's actually a small ceramic sea horse.  How precious.

Picture of my niece and an aloe vera plant, which I planted in a dessert dish because I did not have a pot.

 There you go.  A VERY long post about my downstairs.  Upstairs coming up!

An Updated Ironing Board and Our Messy Pantry

On Saturday, the WVU game was on and while Josh and his parents were at a sports bar watching the game, I was at Home Depot picking up paint chips and Marshall's looking for who-knows-what.  I left Home Depot with a ton of paint chips (one of which we actually like) and left Marshall's with an awesome mirror (updates on that later) and a sa-weeeet new ironing board cover.

The ironing board that we currently have is as old as dirt.  That's something my grandfather would have said.  But seriously, it is.  Josh's mom gave it to us about a year ago when she bought a new one.  It was so old and to be honest, pretty ugly, so she didn't mind getting rid of it.  However, she was shocked to find that her new ironing board, which was made of plastic, was wayyy less sturdy and definitely not made well.  This ironing board is practically made of steel!

 

Yeah, it's big.  And heavy.  And old.  And ugly.  But it works like a charm! I found out this weekend while Josh's mom was visiting that it was actually HER mom's ironing board first.  So, this thing is probably older than me.  And I'm pretty sure that the fabric is original.

So, I found the ironing board cover I liked best at Marshall's, purchased it for $9.99, and got inspired.  I couldn't leave those green legs, though, right?  So I decided to spray paint them.  I took the old cover off, threw it in the trash, flipped it upside down, and went to town.

I flipped it because it would be easier to paint the legs this way, and I ended up painting the underside of the board as well.  It went from that puke-green to this beautiful, clean white:

I had to paint in the garage because it was raining.  And I had to do it immediately after I got home, rain or shine, because I was so excited.  I know, it's the little things.

I let it dry/cure for about 24 hours and then brought it inside, put the new cover on and our ironing board went from this:

 

to this:

Ahhhh... feels so much better.  And I love the pretty cover.

And I put it back in our very cramped pantry/laundry room.  

I LOVED this room when we first moved.  It was right off the kitchen with easy access.  I had never had a pantry before, so I was psyched to put our dry goods somewhere else than the cupboards.  And the laundry room was in a convenient, but out of sight place.  But guess what?  The door doesn't even close because the washer and dryer are too big.  Darn.  So it's always open, like this:

See all of those appliances and things at the top?  I am happy to have them out of the way and nothing on my kitchen counters, but I am sad to be looking at them all the time.  I am thinking of putting something over that area, like maybe a curtain or bamboo blinds or something.  And our pantry is very big and happy on the opposite side of the washer and dryer:

Since the door to this room doesn't shut, Josh and I were thinking of putting a different kind of door there, but lately I have been thinking that a really long, subtle curtain would look good, too.  We will see.  So there you have it.  Our updated ironing board and our messy pantry.  Have a beautiful Monday!