Fire in the hole!

Jamie and I have benefited from another electrical fire...I promise we're not setting them! We ran across Dane Design's Web site and saw that an electrical fire started and triggered the water sprinklers...which got all of the furniture wet..which led to a sale that we just had to check out. I was a little skeptical of some mildew but I scoped things out and sniffed things out and found a sofa that looked brand new but was less than half the price! So we snatched it up and brought home our first nice piece of furniture! This is not Craig's List furniture or a hand me down (which I do love) but something we actually picked out of a real store!

We also got the chance to go to....IKEA! I do love it there and I don't get to visit very often...of course we came back with a few things that I just couldn't pass up. And who could go to Dallas and not visit Six Flags? We rode rides in the hot sun until we couldn't see anymore!

We were very excited to be at IKEA!

We'll just say the guys weren't quite as excited as we were...couldn't get them to pose...

We recovered for a few days and worked on the house again this weekend. We got the shelves painted in the living room and it's on to base boards now-oh boy! It was an eventful and fun week...and now I'm looking forward to 4th of July weekend...my favorite holiday!

1st Anniversary

June 14th marked our one year wedding anniversary...Just a few pictures from the big day.

I found a sweet surprise when I got home! Wedding pictures, flowers and some turquoise decor to match our new kitchen!

We went out to dinner to celebrate. The restaurant ended up catching on fire and I didn't get my leftovers...but we did get a free meal and a very eventful anniversary celebration to remember for a long time!

The pond is no more!

When we moved into our new house, our backyard came complete with a very nice pond full of lillies, a waterfall and lots of stinky algae! Although I'm sure it once looked beautiful, it just isn't something we're going to be able to keep up with. The deciding factor came when our dogs just could not stand the temptation to run through it numerous times a day...therefore smelling like stinky algae too. Between laying laminate floors throughout the house, Jamie decided to take on an outdoor project as well. We decided a fire pit should take the place of the pond. This is the progress made over the weekend....

With the help of a friend, Jamie took the pond out, leveled the ground, and used the existing stone to make a patio. He plans to build stone around the fire pit and run a gas line so we'll have a gas fire pit. So proud of all of his work!

Progress...

We had a very productive weekend fixing up the house! We are replacing old, water damaged hardwood floors and stained carpet with new laminate floors...We've now completed the living room, hallway and master bedroom!

We've nearly gotten the entire house painted....every room has a new coat except for the guest bathroom...there's a little texture problem we've got to work on. We replaced a sponge painted master bedroom wall with dark purple and grey to go with our grey, dark purple and red bedding.

The house still looks like a construction zone but at least we're making progress!

my first blog

My first blog post! The blog where I will probably talk way too much about my darling, but rotten little dogs that I love...Jamie, who is my perfect match and has been my husband for almost one year!...our new house that we moved into not quite two weeks ago and are so excited to rip apart and turn into our home...the things that God teaches me each day...the embarrassing and ridiculous things that happen to me when doing very normal tasks...and anything else on my mind.

Tonight..we'll start with the house since I'm sitting in it and it looks somewhat like a construction zone right now.

It all started in March...I stumbled across some homes for sale online and saw a foreclosure that looked like it had great potential. Next thing you know we're putting in an offer for a house that we'd only seen once..Jamie and I didn't even have to look at any others, we knew it was perfect for us! After a long and frustrating home buying process we moved in on May 31st and haven't stopped working on it since! We are so happy to be homeowners! After living in rent houses through college and our first year of marriage, I cannot wait to put some color on the walls. All the HGTV, decorating blogs and magazine knowledge I've been accumulating can finally be put to good use! I'll be posting all kinds of pictures..before, in between, and hopefully we can take the after pictures someday! We're so grateful to be able to buy a house and are very thankful for our friends and family who helped us move and are helping us fix the place up...Sometimes it feels like even if I cooked them about 5,000 steak dinners, it just wouldn't be enough.

Have to go to sleep now and look forward to another lovely day tomorrow...

Over and Out

(Hmm...I'll work on my closing)