The British Invasion

This past weekend we got to meet our friend Liz's super fun, British boyfriend at the wedding.  In anticipation of meeting him, I had to have a serious chat with Dave.  Dave enjoys butchering all sorts of accents at any occasion.  He actually sat through my family's Thanksgiving brunch in an adult turkey costume while speaking in a Russian accent.  I was (secretly) impressed that he made it to cocktail hour before whipping out his British accent in front of Ben.  Also, the bride is Russian and her dad's accent was showcased during his Father of the Bride speech.  Dave's head almost exploded.  So in keeping with the recent British obsessions, both musical and personal, Foundations has been on repeat the entire week.  The lyrics are, I dare say, cheeky? (I couldn't help it.)

New York Bound

Dave and I are headed to a wedding in New Jersey this weekend and we get to stay at the brides pad on Friday night in New York!  It's Dave's first time to Manhattan since he was a kid and I don't know how I'm supposed to show him all of my favorite stuff in 24 hours.  I think we're going to start in Times Square and head south to SoHo, hitting landmarks along the way.  By landmarks I mean, "that's where we ate cheese fries served by alarmingly beautiful transvestites at 5 am".  The important kinds of landmarks. Not to mention the fact that we (I) get to hang out with the college girls on Saturday!  It's going to go so fast....

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Florence + the Machine

One of my resolutions (I hate that word, but that's what it is) is to re-edumacate myself on music.  I spent more time in college hunting down new songs with friends than watching tv...and maybe going to class.  So it's time to get out there, read some good blogs and download new tunes.  I came across Florence + the Machine the other day and I dig it.



Check out her other songs; You've Got the Love, Drumming Song and Dog Days Are Over.

Homemade Headboard

There is one major eyesore in our house, despite all of the work that's been done. It's our bedroom. Serial killers wake up in nicer bedrooms than ours. It's the classic decision to leave the bedroom until last because no one else sees it. Yet, we live here. We should have the nicest room in the house. We've started making minor changes and hope it's complete in the next few months. So I saw this headboard at Urban Outfitters and I thought it was adorable. I love any furniture with nail head trim.

We took the measurements from their site and went to Home Depot to pick up a piece of MDF.  Just your typical Saturday afternoon... sawing a hunk of wood off the back of the pick up truck in your driveway.  Our neighbors think we're a bunch of rednecks and I like it.

 

 

 

We sprayed the wood with some adhesive and put down the batting.  I bought a curtain for $5 from the Crate & Barrel outlet without unfolding it entirely before purchasing.  There was major sun damage and it couldn't be used.  So I put the sunbleached fabric down first and then put down the final layer of gray suede fabric.  

We bought nail head trim that comes packaged as a roll so that every ten nail heads needs to be nailed in, as opposed to individually nailng them in.  It would've been impossible to keep them straight.  Even the roll was harder than I thought.

We did the single layer of trim around the outside and, voila, it was done!  We think it looks pretty good for our first project like this.

Another angle that includes the gorgeous, gold mirror that my sister got us for our wedding!

The Urban Outfitters headboard is selling for $280 and we probably spent $50 to make ours.  Now we need to work on the rest of the room that you can't see!  

I'm baaaack!

Well hello again.  It's been quite a while since I've posted and, like most resolutions, it took about 2 weeks to kick in.  The holidays were busy with lots of family fun, some house projects and the third annual Ugly Sweater Party!  Our friends made it ridiculously easy to have them over.  We got a keg and some prosecco...they brought wine, beer, booze and enough food for 50 people.  Oh and I did have to dress Bruno in his own ugly Christmas sweater.  I know - it's become a problem.  Here's a little family pic;

All the pretty girls and their homemade outfits.  Please note a pregnant O in adult bunny pj's with feet!  I'll spare you the visual of her husband in an identical get-up.

 

I think everyone had a good time.  Lots of drinking games, spilled beer everywhere and some grown men singing "flip, flip, flipadelphia!" 

 

And it wouldn't be an official theme party without prizes!  We had some newcomers place, as well as our first joint, married champions.  Dave took this opportunity to fulfill his dream of impersonating Miss America;

 

We also squeezed in Avatar.....which was unbelievable!  So good that we wanted to document ourselves looking like a bunch of Avatards. 

So the resolution is on and I plan on posting more often.  I should have some new house reno project pictures soon!

Dave is the Man

Tearing down walls, poring over cracked walls for weeks until they're silky smooth, constructing arches in doorways, erecting closets out of thin air....not nearly as impressive as building our mantle.  I can't articulate why this remains the most impressive thing I've seen Dave do in our house so far, but it is.  And it only took him two pieces of dentil trim from the Depot.  Here is the original.

The original fireplace had that lovely brick border that needed to be covered up.  I also wanted those sconces torn out of the wall and I'm sure I'll regret that some day.  To be fair, the wires were covered in shredded twine so I'm not sure how long they would have worked before burning our house to the ground.

This was our first encounter with tile and it made my head spin.  I don't know if you know this, but grout comes in colors.  Picking out the tile was hard enough.  Can't they just make grout-colored grout?  These decisions tend to paralyze me enough to never finish a project.  We took the easy way out and got white tiles with slightly gold, antiqued edges and grout that the lady at the tile store recommended.  We figured we could always throw her under the bus if we didn't like it.  As all things in this house, tiling was a first for me.  Not as easy as it looks on TV.  Even with the mesh backing, they're far from perfectly flush.  We'd just finished the tile and were nearly enjoying our collaborative efforts until I stepped on the wet tile and smooshed them all around.  It's fine.  You can't see it from the pictures and that's all that counts, right?  You're not even looking at the tile because you're distracted by the enormous porcelain deer head.  I know it.

 

The deer head remains nameless, but I'm open to suggestions.  It's a conversation piece.  Not everyone enjoys it as much as we do, but most people are amused and kind about it.  We didn't buy it as a joke.  I repeat, we didn't buy it as a joke.  We totally love it.

 

King of Hearts

One of the first projects to be completed was our first floor bathroom.  In part because it was heinous, but mostly because it's so tiny that we could knock it out pretty quickly.  Not a weekend project.  As we've learned, nothing in an old house is as easy as it looks.  Here's a little taste of what the previous owners had left in their wake;

Please note the overwhelming use of red; in the floor tile, the tp holder, the towels, the light switch, and even the doorknob.  Then behold how they tied the aforementioned color into the border.

 

It's difficult to see in the picture, but these suits carry around to all four walls.  It's quite whimsical, which we're not opposed to.  It's just not our style. 

This bathroom butts up to the kitchen and Uncle Richard went through the wall to put in some updated electrical for us.  Once that was patched, we painted the walls gray, the doorknob black, hung some crown moulding (left over from the kitchen), installed the towel bar, hard wired a chandy and changed the faucet.

 

The after pictures don't really carry that "wow" factor that I'd like because the bathroom is so tiny I can't get a good shot of it.  I also think these pictures make a strong argument that our camera isn't as great as we once thought it was.  But, I think you get the basic idea.  I love the two pictures we have hanging in there.  The boston terrier print is from Mod-Dog.  I know dog paraphernalia isn't for everyone, but these are the least cheesy items I've seen yet.

Heck, they even have cat prints.

And the other is a Valentine's present that I got for Dave fully knowing that it was really for me.  I'll work on that for this year.  They don't have the one I got anymore, but here are some samples from the Keep Calm Gallery.

 

Even in my selfishness, the print I got him says Olive Ewe.  I love you.  Get it?  It's kind of from the heart, right? 

I digress.  So there you have the belated first floor bathroom before and after pics.