Beach Week 2014

We just got back from beach week! Such a nice break from reality.

Of course, we started off the trip with drinks on the beach.

 Brody was a big part of beach week this year because it was his first time! We had a good time calling him Pharrell because he looked like him with this big hat.

 Lots of pictures were taken of these two cuties.

 Of course, the food was incredible food. On their night, MG and Ryan made Red Lobster-style biscuits, grilled squid and crab cakes.

 They followed all of that up with Bang Bang Shrimp. It was incredible!

 We ventured out one day and went to The Gulf for lunch. If you're ever in the area, you need to try it out. The food is good (the menu changes every day) and the atmosphere is very cool. 

 My mom had told us about a group of artists in Orange Beach near where we ate lunch, so we had to check it out. We got to watch one of the apprentices blow glass.

 Mom had me take pictures of her oyster stew. Here you go, mom.

 Here's our house for the week. It was the perfect size and arrangement for our family. We've already booked it for next year!

 Now, let's take a moment of silence for the outfit at McDonald's in Gulf Shores on our way home. Please tell me this isn't becoming a thing?

 When we got home, KT was all over us. I'm typing this blog this early because she howled all night long because she wanted to be with us. Needless to say, we weren't as appreciative. :-)

Wrap Up

I'm still having a hard time believing it's summer. Time is going so fast! 

My birthday was this week and we celebrated with dinner at Bravo! The special was salmon with pineapple mango salsa and candied bacon. The bacon wasn't all that special, but the fish and salsa was incredible. Paul and I split that for dinner along with a filet.

 Our new magazine came in this week! This is one of my favorite ones we have done. I've been pushing for Paul to make a few changes as far as how pages and ads are arranged and I think it makes a huge difference. We also focused on some things like recipes and pictorials, which we haven't done much of, that were really fun to put together.

 This weekend we also had fun right down the street from us at Jackson Streets Alive. It's a cyclovia, which essentially means they shut down a section of street to automobiles and it's opened up to any kind of human-powered transportation. There were plenty of bikes, games, roller skates, music, and food trucks. We had a lot of fun!

 KT, on the other hand, was at home sulking because the shades are getting in the way of her yard watching. We have an east facing house, so it gets really warm in the den in the afternoon. Such a hard life...

Here's to the rest of the weekend!

Project: Bar Stools

You may not remember, but in our Fondren Corner apartment, we had some bar stools we really loved that I had found on a school supply website. Not having any kind of bar in our rental house, they got stored in the garage. Moving into this house, we found the need for stools again. Ta da!

But, the problem was that our stools were for high counter height and these needed to be for normal counter height. 

Paul was telling this to our carpenter who fixed our drawers and he told him the easiest thing to do was to buy a pipe cutter and cut the legs off. Easy, right?

We grabbed a pipe cutter on one of our many trips to Lowes and Paul got busy. It really went smoothly.

We measured and figured that our legs needed to be cut to 24 inches long, so I marked each of the legs to the right spot. Paul adjusted the cutter and started spinning. The way the cutter works is that it clamps on to the right size, then you tighten it into place and spin it completely around the pipe. As you go, you additionally tighten it and spin until the pipe is cut.

 Here's a comparison between the tall height and the height we cut to - about a six inch difference.

 Here's the after:

We're pretty proud of ourselves for figuring out how to make it work! For only a $13 tool purchase, I'm pretty happy to be using the stools again.

Progress: Cabinets

Man! It's been a roller coaster getting all of our cabinets painted. But, after two weeks of eating out every meal and living out of boxes for almost four weeks, it's finally done! This weekend we finally started putting food in the pantry and dishes in cabinets. It felt nice for everything to have a place.

Another projects we waited to do until the painters left was install our new bamboo shades. I'm in love. Our house has taken on a "beach" vibe without us really knowing it, and these shades really make a difference in the room. We have an east facing house, so we get direct sun in the back room for half the day and it gets hot in the den. We can already tell a huge difference in the back room and how much our air conditioning is (not) coming on.

 Here's a look at the den (what we're calling our back living room) after the painters were finished. It feels so fresh!

For comparison, this is BEFORE:

It truly felt like a cave!

Here's an in-process photo of the TV cabinet:

Here's AFTER:

We're very happy with the way it turned out. So much so, we had it as our top priority to finish off the kitchen with new countertops, backsplash, floors and taking out some cabinets. Having this done, we think we've moved it down the priority list a few notches.

On to the next project!

Progress: Kitchen

One of the biggest projects we knew we'd have to tackle immediately when we moved in was all of the cabinetry. Somewhere along the line, the previous owners had taken it upon themselves to paint all of the cabinets in the kitchen, den and laundry a very dark espresso brown. It made everything seem like a cave! Not to mention, they did not do a good paint job.

Here's what it looked like when we were looking at the house before we purchased it:

 These cabinets (below) are on the side of wall behind the countertops above. All of the twelve drawers had seen better days. Many were broken and they couldn't slide easily in and out. 

 We asked my mom's cabinet maker to fix them for us. He made all new drawers, just using our drawer faces on the front. When they're back in, we'll wax the sides so they can glide in and out.

 This past Monday, the painting began, much to our surprise! Our painter called us Monday morning and said they'd be there in the afternoon to get the process started. (Commence heart attack) I came home at lunch and we immediately started throwing what little we had out of the cabinets and off the countertops. 

Here's what the kitchen looked like after plastic went down and doors came off.

 We went with Alabaster by Sherwin Williams. (We're lucky to have saved hundreds of dollars by using my brother-in-law's employee discount. He works at the industrial division of SW just south of here.)

First side got painted and were super excited to see how our color turned out.

 After the kitchen got sprayed:

 Almost done, which some of the doors back on:

Can't wait to have everything back in place! They'll be touching up doors and painting the walls and trim on Monday. I can't tell you how ready I am to be able to have our plates and cups in a permanent spot. Being a control freak, I've had to really calm down about having everything in boxes for weeks.

Progress

Phew! Time flies, but we're making progress on our new house. We closed just over two weeks ago, but a lot has been done since then. 

An hour after we closed, we already had paint purchased. We said that if we did anything before we moved our stuff in the next day, it was to paint the back living room. With the help of almost all of the my family working at once, we got it done in a few hours. It's nice to have that done.

 Next day was moving day, which was really smooth because of our wonderful movers. I sat at the other house and just walked around.

 I tried to document just a few of the flowers that were blooming in the back yard. It doesn't hurt that we bought our house from a Jackson Garden Club member.

 We finally got things moved in and in place, so here's a "in progress" picture of our back living room. Since then we've hung art on the walls and done some other small things. We aren't putting anything in the bookcases or drawers yet because everything that's brown will be a crisp white in about a week or so!

 We also experienced our first homeowner jitters when a string of really bad storms came through. We were still without cable and internet, so we had to watch a live stream of the weather forecast on our iPads.

 We also had some fun with Arts, Eats & Beats. Such a good time in the neighborhood!

 The next weekend we went camping on Enid Lake. Such a pretty place.

 KT is enjoying her new space. She has so many windows to look out of and so many spots to lay in the sun. She has to prioritize!

 We've had a few people over, including my whole side of the family (and then some) for Mother's Day/Brody's baby dedication. It's so nice to have a whole front living room to fit all 18 of us comfortably, with room to spare. This is definitely why we bought this house!

More to come, including progress pictures of various parts of the house.

Spring Fever

Time flies when you're having fun, right? It's been a packed couple of weeks. I'll be happy to have a few days off for Easter next week to pack, because we close on our house and move in two weeks!

New favorite thing: Pineapple and mango salsa from Whole Foods. I can't get enough. I've had it on chips, fish tacos, you name it.

 Last weekend we had our annual girl trip with my mom, sister, aunt, cousin, and, for the first time, Brody! We spent a few days in Bay St. Louis and had a great time. Here was the few of the canal from our back deck.

 We explored downtown Bay St. Louis while we were there and stopped in the old depot which has been turned into the visitor center. They had Mardi Gras costumes displayed and, yes, that is a hamburger and hot dog suit.

 After walking around, we made our way to lunch near the beach. Mom got a pretty impressive Bloody Mary.

 That afternoon Brody got to take his first steps on the beach. 

 We realized we were really close to the Lazy Magnolia Brewery, so we decided to take a brewery tour that afternoon. It was very fun to see where all the beer is made. Surprisingly, the operation itself is not in a large area like you'd think!

 After I got home from the beach, we finally got a sold sign on at our house! This weekend they replaced the roof and had another crew doing other work to the house. I'm so ready to move in!

 We've had a good laugh lately among our friends that Rachel, who is Jewish from Connecticut and doesn't have children, got tapped to plan the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Not knowing anything about egg hunts, Southern finger foods, or much about children in general, it's been hilarious to see her reactions to everything. Here she is with her first Easter egg ever this past Saturday.

For lunch yesterday we headed over for Broadmeadow Neighborhood Association (the top part of Fondren, just across the street from us) for crawfish. These bugs are HUGE this year! One wanted to tell you guys, "Hello!" 

Have a great week!