Tile Floor Before and Afters

Today, we had our tile floors cleaned, grout repaired and stained, and all sealed.  They look sooooo good.  Now, remember, we haven't been in this house even a year yet.  We aren't sure how the floors were maintained before, but this should last for years.

Kitchen before (I picked the grossest area to photograph so you could really see the difference):

Kitchen after:

Entry way before:

Entry way after (doesn't the lighter grout make a difference?):

Our new hobby of Antiquing...

So, I googled "Antiquing" and it actually came up with a definition for those who are interested.  It "is a shopping activity."  I agree.

Matt and I have gone to antique malls years ago (like probably more than 10), but we just went again with the girls this weekend.  This time around, we actually have a house to outfit with cool stuff and I have a little more of a "vision" for what I might like to look for.  It was a LOT more fun.   It helps that some of the blogs that I read talk about finds they've scored and made work in their homes.  It gives me a little bit of inspiration.

The girls were very creeped out by some of the dolls that we saw, but we all agreed that antiquing is kind of like a treasure hunt.  You find one cool thing, and it makes all the creepy dolls worth it.  ha.

So, here are our finds...  

(please excuse the not-great pictures)

We bought 2 old pop wooden crates.  Super cool.  Abby wants to look for more.

And, that cool bird cage.

...and this neat old school desk.  The girls are obsessed with it.

In the future, I'm thinking of keeping my eyes out for letters.  Maybe not the whole alphabet, but possibly an arrangement of just the first letter of our last name -as many as I can find.  (picture from Pinterest)

I also love this idea of collecting globes.  They look cool up on the cabinets.  We saw several but they were more than I wanted to spend. I need to keep looking...  (picture from Pinterest)

Do you antique?

Banana Muffins the day after the snow...

Good Morning!

Right now it is officially -10 degrees F outside, without windchill.  Delightful.  

To give our furnace a little help this morning, we thought we'd bake our breakfast, and I thought I'd share my recipe.

Now, I know everyone has a banana bread/muffin recipe, but this one is particularly good.  I think it is because it doesn't use white sugar, only brown; and it has a lot of vanilla in it so it a much richer tasting banana bread.

I'm trying to link up a google doc with the recipe on it.  Hoping it works.  Click here for the Banana Bread Recipe.  I always make it as mini-muffins because they are loved here.  

I think our snow totals yesterday were about 10 inches.  Now, all the talk is just of cold, because it is seriously dangerously cold and windy.  EVERYTHING is closed here. 

Yesterday, Matt and I decided to give the driveway a second go of shoveling late in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, I had "just" given Lily a bath, so she couldn't go outside to play because she had wet hair, so, only Abby could go outside to play.  It wasn't all bad, though, because Abby got some good "big kid" playing time with the girls next door.  

They built the cutest snowman ever:

...and sledded off the mound created by the plow in the cul-de-sac.  He really created a big one right between our houses!

(Also, check out the really cool snowman that the high school boys created at the house in the background.  

It's huge and really cool!)

When I opened the blinds this morning, I found some tree limbs down in our back yard VERY close to the house.  Part of me wants to go outside and check the roof, but I'm not sure what I would do right now if there was a limb up there.

Stay warm everyone!

Leaves, leaves, leaves

As I type this, Matt is in the back yard, tackling the fall leaves back there.  We teamed up in the front, and then I had to head in to feed Lily lunch.  After I finish the blog, I'm about to head back out.  

I think we are the last on the cul-de-sac to get to it.  With Matt being out of town for over a week, and our travel out of town 2 weekends ago, we just haven't had time.  This is our first year with leaves like this.  This is definitely the disadvantage of the big trees!  The only good part of getting to it so late is that most of the trees are done dropping leaves, so our work should last.

This picture is from last weekend, but the background gives you an idea of the back yard's leaves.  Totally covered.  You can't see the grass at all.

Here is the from, after we started today.  Matt was blowing the leaves out of the flower beds and I was raking.  We were surprised how many bags we filled in the front, and it wasn't even very bad!  I'm jealous of communities that can just rake them out to the curb and they come get them.  We have to bag them, and it's a lot more work.  In our city, you can put up to 40 bags a week out during November and this week some of our neighbors had a lot.  I'll be curious how many we get.

Well, I starting to feel guilty, so I better get out there to help....  :)

UPDATED TO ADD:  I helped for about 35 minutes and now we're out of bags so we had to stop.  So close to begin done, and yet, not.  

Landscaping Day 4

Landscaping Day 2 Sneak Peek

Today's work was more foundational in nature, in that there isn't as much of a transformation, but a lot of prep work for the big stuff.

Here are some "little" sneak peeks...

Blank Canvas

It is very exciting outside my house right now.

Today was "Demo" day for the new landscaping.  The guys arrived about 8:00 this morning and have worked all day, pulling out everything.  They saved the day lilies for anyone who wants them.  Email me or message me on Facebook if you'd like some.   I don't think they'll last long out of the ground.  I have someone who will take anything left after everyone gets what they want, so hurry if you want any.  I'm thinking they should be planted in the next 24 hours or so?  What do you think?

Look!  Truly a blank canvas!  What you can't see is in the middle of the yard are some plants that will be planted tomorrow.  They'll be bringing more.  I can't wait.  More pictures to come!

Landscaping Plans are done

So, the one thing we hate about our house and knew that we'd have to completely redo is the landscaping.  The current landscaping it has is an eyesore, and definitely stands out, and not in a good way, in our cul-de-sac.  Luckily, we have an amazing landscaping design company that we worked with when we built our last house.  It's a husband/wife team.  He's the muscle and she's the design.  She pulls in amazing varieties and hybrids of plants.  I learned a lot last time around about the power of texture, and different colors popping at different times, etc.

When we saw the yard on this house, we knew we would call them and consult right away.  We actually walked the yard before we even closed on the house.  Well, we finally met with her and got to see the plan.  It's beautiful.  We're pulling out everything, pretty much (especially in the front yard) and starting with a blank slate.  We'll do it in stages, but it's going to be gorgeous.  We have a couple tweaks to the plan, but here is her drawing.  Isn't it pretty?!

Also, just to give you an idea of some of the crazy plants... I can't remember all of the varieties, but I did remember these:  Believe it or not, these are both hydrangeas!

The pink and purple one is called "Twist and Shout" and the pinkish/red one is called "Pinky Winky."  Have you ever seen hydrangeas like those?!?!  Crazy cool.

This is one of the plants that she is putting a bunch of in assorted colors under our wooded area (it's called Astilbe).  Crazy.

Plus, there will be lots of other things, daisies, but not standard daisies.  Some cool ornamental grasses, and more.  I can't wait to show you!

Question of eternal significance: where should I hang my pictures?

In general, Matt and I are very fast unpackers.  We still have some organizing and settling to do, but we were pretty much out of boxes that first weekend.

We haven't hung anything on the walls yet.  Something about, what feels like, the permanence of nails in the walls, and deciding exactly where you want things, has slowed us down.

However, I'm ready to get some things up.  I had to take most of these pictures down when we staged out house to sell back in August/September, so I miss having them up, but I can't decide where to hang them.

Here is about what will be included in my grouping (one or two might go in a different room).  (Excuse the messy quilt rack.  I probably should have cleaned it up a little before taking pictures.)

And here is the gigantic wall that I want to use.  I'm just not sure how.  Center them, put them to one side.  I really don't want them to take up the whole wall- that would be weird.  Should I pick a different place?  What do you think?  (there is a fireplace on the left wall and it opens up to the front door to the right)

How do you display your family pictures?

Today's new home project: Bathroom windows!

So one of my big projects this week was to do something about the windows in our master bathroom.  We have two semi-circle windows above our tub with horrible, dirty blinds in them.  One of them keeps falling, plus they don't let in any natural light.

Today, I finally figured out how to get the blinds out.   They were screwed in and they had dead bugs behind them and were nasty dirty.  It was really gross.

So, once I got everything clean, I put up a pretty window film after doing a little research.  It looks really pretty, and clean!

It was hard to get a picture where you could see the design AND both windows, so this doesn't really do it justice, BUT... it looks soooo much better!

oh my gosh. we actually moved.

Oh my gosh, you guys!  We finally actually moved!!!

We slept in our new house last night.  Soooo weird.

The move went seamlessly, really.  

Matt and I have both have sore feet today and both woke up really early this morning because we went to bed so early last night-we were so tired.

The girls come home today.  I still have a little more work I want to do in their rooms before they get here to make it a little more "done" before they get here.  

The kitchen is pretty much completely unpacked, except we desperately need to go to the grocery store.  Our bedroom and closet are in good shape.  Today, we'll just plug along.

Our movers were great.  They did it faster than the estimate predicted (local move was charged hourly), and the guys were great.  I recommend them if you move (It was the best $ we've spent).  Their third-party guys were also fabulous and got our washer/dryer and playset all set up.

Here was a little picture I posted on Facebook of some dishes I haven't seen since we listed our house back at Labor Day.  Oh, how I have missed you ramekins and pretty dishes!

Thanks for all your prayers.  Now, we just have to get used to this place. :)