11 July 2011

One More Thing Crossed off the List

I'm surprising myself how many of the items on my to-do list I've actually been able to complete. Lucy was due on Saturday and although she didn't come, I did get a chance to tackle another task I've been putting off.

Back in March I posted this picture of the wall-o-wedding pictures. We framed and hung a few of our favorite shots from our special day. 


Only problem was that we had one more picture to hang, but ran out of frames. All the frames on the wall are IKEA Ribba, so I wanted to make sure it was a Ribba frame to complete the wall collage. Problem is, the closest IKEA is in Philly and I didn't really want to drive the 45+ minutes just for a picture frame.

A good friend of mine who lives 5 minutes from IKEA mentioned the other day that she needed to stop there and pick up a few things. SInce I knew I'd be seeing her for dinner last week, I asked her to snag me a frame. 

Keeping myself busy while Jordan was at work, I framed the last photo and hung it on the wall. Now more than 3 months later, this project is finally complete.






Here is the to-do list as it stands today:

  • Work on guest room for potential post-baby overnight guests - this has since been post to post-baby to do list

  • Organize decor on new living room shelves

  • Bonus points if I can do the above without purchasing anything new 

  • Finishing touches in nursery (paint touch-up, fix window treatments, etc)

  • Ceiling fan for nursery

  • Blinds for skylight in nursery - still trying to figure how to tackle this one out without spending $200 on a custom blind

  • Find a mirror for nursery 

  • Clean and spruce up outside (front and back upstairs and down) - front done, back in the works.

  • Hang family wedding photos in upstairs hallway - dragging my feet on this one. I cannot commit to a layout

  • Decide on a spot and hang Jordan's anniversary gift

  • Reupholster dining room chairs

  • FInd pillows for dining room bench

  • De-clutter dining room -  ehhh this is half done...

  • Purchase final frame for wedding wall collage in living room 

  • Re-organize linen closetJordan actually tackled this when we were cleaning a week or so ago. It was impromptu (he just tackled it on his own) so I never took any pictures to document.

  • 10 July 2011

    40 Weeks, 1 Day


    40 weeks and 1 day.
    Both Kate Hudson and Victoria Beckham had their babies this weekend.
    Come on Lucy!!

    The Great Outdoors

    One thing we tackled during our three day holiday weekend was the front "garden" (if you can call it that). If you remember, this is one of the things on my Baby Countdown To-Do List. We haven't done too much out back on our deck besides giving it a good cleaning and moving our table and chairs up from the basement. 

    The front simply needed a good weeding and power wash along with a few potted plants to add a splash of color. Here is how it looked once we were finished. 










    $6.99 planter on a $3.99 plate from Marshalls





    $9.99 planter on a $3.99 plate from Marshalls.




    There are still a few eyesores out front that we have yet to take on (or figure out how to fix).

    We don't hang a flag, but this flag pole was screwed into our aluminum siding when we moved in. I'm afraid to take it off and see the mess underneath. I wish I could find a different way to use it, but nothing has come to mind, yet. Some day down the road we'd like to replace the aluminum siding and until we have the time and money, this will probably stay as is. 



    Besides repainting the white wall underneath the siding/windows, I would like to find some way to cover up this mess of electrical boxes. They are necessary, but just not very pretty. 


    Please note Jordan's snake killer aka shovel. There have been some snake sightings in our neighborhood the past two weeks (including one inside one of our neighbor's houses - in his bed). Jordan and snakes do not get along. Although I will say the snake sightings seemed to be declining since the appearance of the shovel.



    A gift from my parents. Our own door knocker. They also gave up the new nickel door handle and kick plate (which I didn't think to take a picture of). Next we will replace the gold handled storm door with a matching nickel one. 

    Like I mentioned, we haven't really done much with the back deck, yet. The front was more a priority since everyone sees it when the come over and we are anticipating a lot of guests in the next few weeks once Lucy is born.

    Here is how the deck looked at the beginning of the summer. We (and by we I mean Jordan) have since given it a good power washing and brought the table up form the basement and set it up with the chairs. The cooler and random extension cord have since been removed. The icicle lights are leftover from our NYE party. Some people may find them tacky, but we actually like them and they add a nice light when we turn them on at night if people are over so we haven't wanted to take them down. 








    Plans for the deck include adding some nice, colorful potted plants and getting rid of either the branches or the actual trees that hang over the deck. We don't get much sunlight because of these trees, they shed leaves all over our deck, and they are starting to reach so far over the deck the branches are butting up against the back of our house.


    Here is how the deck currently looks:

    Here is our view of the creek behind our house.





    Pretty, right? So we'd like to get things spruced up so we can sit on our deck and enjoy this view.

    09 July 2011

    Must See Blog: More Design Please

    I have found one of my new favorite inspiration blogs. While playing around Pinterest (yup, I joined a few weeks ago thanks to Danielle over at Neat and Tangled and now I'm hooked!), I came across this website.



    Not only does it have great decor inspiration photos, but this website offers tutorials for some of the coolest DIY projects I have ever seen.

    Here are a few I'm itching to try (although I want to do them all): 




    Tutorial Here




    Tutorial Here




    Tutorial Here






    Tutorial Here




    Tutorial Here




    Tutorial Here




    Tutorial Here

    Be sure to check out More Design Please, and not just their DIY section!

    06 July 2011

    Post-Baby Wardrobe

    With literally days (hopefully) to go until our little girl arrives I treated myself to a little online shopping spree last week. I needed to spruce up my post-baby wardrobe and get myself excited and motivated to get back to where I was before being pregnant. 

    Today my goodies arrived! I get so happy when my online shopping orders come in the mail. I love to open everything and put all the new clothes on hangers and rearrange my closet. It also encourages me to purge some old clothes that I don't wear in order to free up some space for my new ones.

    Here are some of the pieces I scored. 






    And of course some pretty jewels. I find myself wearing the same jewelry all the time so I figured a few new fun statement pieces will inspire me to mix it up a bit.



    (This isn't the exact necklace, but I can't find it online. 
    You can see the one I actually got in the pictures below.)

    I also got one more necklace but can't find it on the website anymore.

    As soon as I opened the F21 package I couldn't wait to purge some of my old jewelry and replace it with my pretty new gems.