House Progress

I was looking through photos on my phone last night and came across photos I took when we first looked at our house and thought about buying it. Flipping through, I really was shocked at how much we've done in 8 months since moving in. Doing a small project at a time, I think the progress just feels normal. But, woah, I think our house gets a much improved badge.

I thought it'd be fun to stack up photos I took when we were considering this house against progress photos and what it actually looks like now. Sound fun? Just an advanced warning, this is going to be a long one!

Here's what our house looked like when we first looked it last February:

Our house now:

We haven't done much in the way of landscaping, except to prune and fertilize. The biggest changes came in killing the vine growing up the side of our house - a complete monster - and a new roof that was put on before we moved in. The vines took the paint completely off that side of the house. In some ways, it helped us learn that we could tackle painting our house ourselves if we did it a little at a time. We aren't completely finished with the exterior (it got too cold to paint), but our biggest trouble areas have been finished.

Progress

Before (left) and after paint (right side)

Our backyard has really become a big part of our house and our transformation so far. See how dirty the concrete was? It's been power washed. All that you see here exterior-wise has gotten painted. The section of wood right against the chimney on the underside has been replaced. (You can sort of tell in this photo, but it started to fall apart shortly after we moved in.)

Patio after power washing:

After ripping down vines that were taking over the back, we were left with this. Sad face.

Here's our brother-in-law Ryan putting in the new wood to fix that overhang. He's been such a help in all of our progress, too. He's been our encyclopedia on how to fix things we were unsure about!

Before

After 

Before

After

Now, let's head inside. The biggest difference, by far, came from painting our cabinets. I think that really was the turning point in making us like this house. That dark color had to go. We paid a lot to have these fixed, but it's been worth it.

Before:

Now:

It now feels bright and clean in all of our rooms - kitchen, laundry and back living room.

One of our more recent updates has been to our bedroom. Here's what it looked like when we toured the house the first time:

Progress, before painting:

After:

The front living room is probably the biggest "still in progress." I have a feeling that will change this year. Here's what it looked like when we first toured it:

I think this room (and the back living room) were what sold us on this house. The biggest complaint we had about our rental is that we wanted to have gatherings at our house, but we couldn't all sit together. We have a big family and we wanted to host sit down dinners and parties and our rental was small in that department.

Progress:

We've completed painting this room and the dining room, but we're still not sure what this will turn into next. I'm waiting for the perfect couch to really be a starting point for where we take the room.

And, yes, we've hosted many a dinner in here. Here's Thanksgiving at our house:

See that half wall with the light switch? That two feet of wall is probably the biggest thorn in our side with progress of this room. To have the large dining room table we want and to be able to expand to seat 15-20 people together, this wall most likely needs to be removed. There's a good bit of work that would probably need to be done to make this happen, like moving the electrical, patching the ceiling and floor and (potentially) shoring up a beam just above this in the attic. It sounds expensive and intimidating, so we haven't even tried to seek out a contractor about it yet.

Our fourth bedroom got a makeover from a boy's bedroom to our office.

Progress:

Now:

The chalkboard wall is probably my favorite feature. We use it to plan and make lists.

Bathrooms got updates in the form of paint, new mirror (guest bath), new light fixture (master bath) and whole lot of wall patching all around. Our next move is to finish tiling up the guest bath so that it can be used as an actual shower.

Before

After

Before

After

And, finally, the living room (our most "lived in" room) has changed a lot too, but paint has been the biggest help to changing the feel of the place.

Before we purchased:

Progress:

After: 

Ooof, that's a lot! Next up, Paul does a guest post to tell you guys about organizing and making the shop the place he always wanted.

The Recipe I Didn't Believe In

You're probably reading my post title and thinking, "What the heck is she talking about?" Let me explain.

After Christmas, I was feeling motivated to get organized when it came to cooking. This past fall I had class on Mondays and Thursdays and really felt overwhelmed when it came to cooking dinner. I honestly should have planned meals better all during that time but it just didn't happen. Having my evenings back to myself, I wanted to be able to spend that time however I wanted, which probably wasn't cooking all night.

So, after digging around, I came across this helpful blog post about freezer crockpot meals. Prep your ingredients ahead, freeze and just thaw the night before you need a meal. It's been such a nice change!

One recipe stuck out to me - Mexican Chili with Cornbread. You cook the chili on low for 6-8 hours, mix up a recipe of Jiffy cornbread, put it on top, and cook on high for an hour. Voila and it'd be done! I had in my mind this recipe was going to be one big Pinterest fail.

But, to my surprise, it wasn't. I lifted the lid with one eye open to see this:

I snapped a photo and sent it to my mom and sister with "It's actually worked!" Mom said I had to tell the blog about it. Truth be told, it's been Paul's favorite crockpot recipe yet and he was eager for leftovers the next day.

I've tried a few other freezer crockpot recipes that have been interesting, like Chicken Terriyaki (below, not our absolute favorite).

Here's a few more we've made or have coming up:

Cranberry Pork Roast (also made a chicken version)

Italian Beef Sandwiches

Thai Peanut Chicken and Ramen Noodle Soup

Projects: Master Bath Mini-Makeover

What a different paint and a new light fixture can make! Funny enough, we bought the light fixture almost immediately after we bought our house, but we've been too intimidated by electricity to put it up. With new paint going up, we said it was time to face our fears and change it out.

The fixture up there was majorly rusted and I hated looking at it.

An hour and a few tense moments later (we apparently aren't that great at reading all the directions), it's up. Much better!

We've been in love the the color we painted our master bedroom and had a little bit left, so we decided to paint the bathroom with it. It's a brownish gray that leans cool, which really worked with the tile. We're really happy with how it turned out!

We also were really proud of the patch job we had to do in here. This whole room is wallpapered and there was a spot behind the top of the toilet that was peeling because it's close to water. When I went to peel a small piece, oh, I don't know, a four feet long sheet came off the wall. Trying to even it up, I ended up having to peel the wallpaper from the wall all around the window and we were kind of panicked about it. After peeling the wall seemed rough, but after Paul sanded it and we patched the larger holes, it was almost completely flat and smooth. We primed one coat to just make sure that the color wouldn't be different and that the backing/drywall wouldn't need many coats of paint. You'd never know!

Very happy with the results!

Christmas Time!

Maybe it's because I'm an adult now, but Christmas just has a different feeling now. Maybe it's the weather not being super cold. Christmas just doesn't feel as much like Christmas in some ways!

Maybe it's because we're still raking leaves every weekend. KT and I had to take a moment to go enjoy the backyard after Paul did some hard work getting up a TON of leaves. Sometimes it feels like the leaves won't end!

I tried getting KT in the spirit with a little outfit. She was not amused.

Just a few days ago we had our annual solstice dinner with the Woolvertons at our house. (Mom has a good blog post about it too.) The menu was pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself. MG and Ryan made mushroom ravioli with a walnut cream sauce from scratch after being inspired by a cooking class they took last month on their honeymoon in Italy. I kept the theme going with antipasto - prosciutto, goat cheese, stuffed olives, sausage, roasted peppers and other goodies.

The ravioli in all it's glory before it was boiled.

Of course, we had to do poppers. Funny enough, I think the tape measurer, emory board and mirror that popped out will come in handy. I still use a pair of scissors I got one year from the poppers!

Then, we noshed. Ravioli, green beans and stuffed pork loin. Such a good meal!

But, the meal wouldn't be complete without creme brûlée. Always so good! We also enjoyed sitting outside with our fire pit. Such a nice night!

For some reason, I always get such an itch to thrift shop around this time of year. Maybe thinking that people will be giving away good stuff to make way for gifts? The Salvation Army near us had some great mid century finds the other day!

But, Miss Evelyn's junk shop called Odds and Ends always has the best stuff. I snatched up a vintage pure wool throw that is so cozy and soft for $5. The good thing about Miss E is that if she can't find a tag or it's too much trouble to find, she'll just give you a low ball price. So, needless to say, she had a little trouble finding the tag!

We just got back from Christmas with my parents and sisters and I had to share one of my gifts. Mom and Dad got MG and Ryan a set of skewers just like theirs for a wedding gift. I must have showed on my face that I wanted some too. :-) So, they surprised us with our own vintage set. Me and my sisters used to fight over who got what animal skewer when we were little. I'd say the fish one is probably my favorite of the set!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Bedroom Re-do Complete

We've come a long way in our bedroom, but I'll spare you what it looked like when we first moved in. One thing I always knew for sure, the baby blue had to go. This was definitely the room that I felt was going to have the biggest impact on us because we are in here a lot. We do have a great TV in our living room, but at night, we find ourselves wanting to "be on the Tempurpedic" watching mindless shows. Not to mention, our DVR is in this room.

It's become a joke among our friends that all we do is paint. We have some friends we always have breakfast with on Saturdays and every week, it's usually comes up about painting. Luckily, with this cold weather moving in, we've put a pause on painting the outside of our house and moved inside. 

So, we put on a podcast (Start Up, if you're wondering) and got to work. The bedroom, for our taste, is actually pretty big. I'm guessing something like 14x16, but I don't know exactly. We both said we wanted a color that was darker and richer that would make the room feel more cozy. The blue just wasn't doing that for us.

While we were at it, I also put a new layer of stain on our dresser. We picked this piece up about two years ago and it's moved with us from Fondren Corner, to our Chickasaw house now here. It's always looked a little scuffed and the wood looked "dry." 

After using my stain pen on our other mid-century modern dresser, I tried it on this dresser. What I found was that the whole thing needed some love, not just the scratches. You can tell in the picture below that I took the stain pen to the entire top left dresser drawer. It looks richer and smooth.

For perspective, this is what the side of the dresser looked like. Not good!

After a little wood filler to patch a few holes and a small can of stain later, the dresser looked so much better.

With everything back in place, the bedroom feels so much better. I find myself saying all the time, "This bedroom feels so different. It feels so much better."

Part of me feels like before I was living in someone else's bedroom. Until we painted, it wasn't completely "us." It feels so nice and, not to mention, we actually did this quickly over a couple of hours and it isn't even Christmas break yet. Points for us!

Here's to the next project!

New Orleans Getaway

Ahhh... (as I sit down in my desk chair)

We just got back from a great getaway to New Orleans for a few days. A few weeks ago we were asked by our printer (who is in New Orleans) if we'd like to come to their Christmas party. We thought about it a few days, I took off work and we headed South. Paul hadn't caught up on the podcast Serial, so we listened to podcasts the whole trip and passed the time.

Our hotel was pretty amazing. They are transitioning from the W to a different type of hotel, so we got a great rate. I contemplated how much they'd charge me if I took that lamp home with me.

We also got a great surprise when we came back from our Christmas party the first night. We had mentioned to the woman at check-in that our anniversary was just last week, so this was sort of an anniversary trip too. Come to find out, she sent up dessert and champagne for us to celebrate with. We were very impressed!

Of course, we ate great food (though I didn't take as many food shots as I thought I would). We agreed that this was going to be a "where the wind takes us" trip, not rushed and planned. I had heard great things about Elizabeth's in Bywater and I'm not a girl to turn down praline bacon. I'd definitely be back.

A friend of ours, Josh, was just accepted and moved into the Bywater Art Lofts, which is this amazing project in Bywater to renovate older buildings and create a commune of sorts for artists. Here's more info.

One of the things Josh said we didn't need to miss was Crescent City Park, since it was right up our alley and just down the street. This is a project that reminds me of a hybrid between Millennium Park's urban garden and the High Line in New York. The strip connects Bywater all the way to Marigny next to the tail end of the French Market. 

At the top of the arch is a beautiful view of downtown and the bend in the Mississippi River.

That day we walked around the French Quarter, visited one of our favorite burger joints - Company Burger - in Freret and almost decided to take up permanent residence in West Elm on Magazine. It's been a while since I've been in a physical store - I've always bought online. My favorite store in the world, hands down.

One of the suggestions we got at the Christmas party when we asked about Christmas lights was Celebration in the Oaks at City Park. We kept saying things while walking through like, "I wish we had our nephews" and "If we had kids, this would be really impressive." It was fun for us, but I could definitely see how it could be magical for a kid, especially with all of the rides they had open.

Cajun Christmas with gators as reindeer was certainly my favorite thing.

We woke up Saturday morning and it was time to head back. The weather was perfect!

Of course, no New Orleans trip is complete without a trip to District Donuts. We've gotten different flavors before, like maple and bacon, but this time we stuck with chocolate and cinnamon roll. We also sampled a sweet potato and chorizo breakfast taco that was pretty out of this world. I'm going to have to try to reconstruct it at home.

It was such a nice trip, but I'm happy to be home for a day of rest before back to my last work week of the year. I can't believe it's upon us. I've got some major gift shopping to do this week!