It's All Greek To Me!

I've been waiting for this moment for months now, anxiously hoping and wondering how these beautiful and vintage-looking lights would look in my dining area and living room. (Thanks to a special friend for hooking me up with them:) The electricians installed our lights on Wednesday and last night I went over to put up the crystals with my mom and Sydney and Sophie. I don't know what I would have done without their help...it took us 2.5 hours of non-stop hanging and decoding the instructions. My mom and I each attacked a light and Sophie and Sydney unwrapped each crystal and handed them to us. 

Totally worth all the work.

The instructions were very intimidating at first!

The living room chandelier without crystals.

My little helper.

The large dining room light (at least this one

is closer to the ground)!

Little helper #2 (they didn't

get to bed til 10:00)!

Half-way done! Great work, mom!

It's finished!

My master light...not my favorite

but it will do!

Kitchen pendants.

One of my favorite rooms in the entire house.

The 1/2 bath.

Sconces going upstairs. White shades

that turn yellow when turned on?

Wish I would have known that sooner!

Outside light.

Kids' bath...hopefully the mirrors

are going up today!

Master bath.

Sophie and Sydney's room.

I need to purchase MANY light bulbs today!

Cate's room!

Appliances Are In!!

All of our appliances went in yesterday! The kids are most excited to have an ice dispenser in the fridge:) It's fun to think about all of the fun memories that will be created around this kitchen and the special moments to come.

Three Times a Charm!

 I have been on the search for the perfect area rug for our new home for MONTHS now. I have slowly but surely come to the conclusion that it just doesn't exist. But, my third rug purchase is as close as I will get to finding the "rug I see in my mind" so I think I'm going to call it good! I LOVE the pattern on this rug but just wish it wasn't made of wool and so scratchy. And since we're a "no wearing shoes in the house type of family", it's just going to have to scratch a few feet along the way:) 

I spent the better part of three days over at the house

cleaning the first layer of sawdust off of the entire house.

When I finally felt like it was safe enough to lay this 

rug on the floor, Sophie helped me carry this large 

9 x 13 down the stairs to see what it would look 

like in our living room.

A close-up of the pattern.

Thank you Sophie and Sydney for keeping

me company for three days! A special shout 

out to Leah and Ingrid too for their help

with washing the walls!

Mistake or Miracle?

So we had something quite eventful happen today...nothing like keeping all of us on our toes! I went over to our house to watch our kitchen counters go in. Upon arriving, I realized that they weren't the counters I ordered!! Ahh! Two years ago, these would have been one of my first choices for counter tops, but last year I fell in love with another counter top that was going to help bring in just a touch of that lovely rustic feeling and complete my kitchen. 


Everyone quickly investigated to find out where and how this all went wrong and it turned out to be a small, one-word mistake on both ends of the transaction. I could have had them uninstall the counters and bring me the ones I ordered, but at half off I decided to keep them:) Will I regret this someday? Maybe, but in the end, they're just counter tops and this is just a house. "Someday" none of this will matter at all.

Our six-seater counter.

Appliances are going in very soon!

I brought over a bar stool to try with it...

what do you think?!

It's All Coming Together...

It has been so long since I've had even a moment to post about our most recent building updates that I don't even know where to start! I could write about the lack of sleep, wrong paint color choices, the paint store screwing up our paint color choices, the fun additions, the cabinets coming in, my wallpaper dilemma, my many area rug purchases and returns, my lack of time to work on my Craigslist projects, or how fun it is to see so many ideas coming to fruition. Instead, since I'm completely exhausted right now, I think my best option is to just let the pictures tell the story. Enjoy!!

You may have noticed that the red door is gone.

New color choice coming soon!

Driveway is in and a small portion of our area is seeded.

I love my "chunky" pillars!

Fun, stamped concrete.

Who's coming over for some hot dogs?!

The side patio.

Sophie and Sydney's room:

the wrong color.

This is NOT a Floridian condo!

 Ahh, much better.

Cate's room. It looked WAY brighter in person.

TOO bright in fact, so we repainted (and when I

say "we", I mean Alan and my Dad:).

Yes, much softer and lovely.

Fortunately, we got one room right. 

Unfortunately, Carson doesn't like it:)

A fun board and batten wall.

What it looks like finished.

My master tile...choosing the grout color.

Here is what it looked like before grout.

My master bath cabinet with tile.

I love that the kitchen now has cabinets!!

Our peninsula!

Still loving my fireplace!

Painted doors waiting to be hung.

The kids' bath.

Thanks for looking! The finished project

will be coming soon!