Tuesday Miscellany

More random, not important enough to have a whole blog post, tid bits today! 

This was in the October West Elm catalog, but since when did West Elm use Harry Potter font? I laughed out loud when I saw it and ran over to compare it to my books. Yep. You too can have Harry Potter font on your dishes. I know that's my goal in life. ;)

Rob removed the ugly ugly globe off the florescent kitchen light. It was casting a weird green glow. Now it's a jumble of wires but maybe it will motivate us to get it changed pronto!

I found $5 mums from Lowes in the clearance aisle. 

And I got a new entrance rug. Of course, right after Rob's parents left we had a first frost and I forgot/ didn't know to cover them. They are dead now. :( I will plant them in the back yard though. 

Plus I stole the baskets they were in since they were still in good shape. I have a basket addiction and Loki has a photo bomb addiction!

Our front door still has the sticky goo that the winterization notice left on it. I CANNOT GET IT OFF!! Please help. It is tacky :(

I put the wreath up too... after the mums had died. The wreath works well to distract your eye from the peeling horribleness of the door. 

See? What stickyness on the door? What peeling paint job? All there is is Pumpkin Glory! ;)

Lastly, I've been painting the trim. It's not a huge difference, but its a bit more crisp white now. See the new paint and the old cream one? I am too manly to use painters tape. Hence the slight dribble on the carpet. 

Laundry Music!!!

Our new washer is so cool. It sings to us!




I don't have man hands by the way, that's Rob's freaky double jointed fingers! If you hear giggling at the end, that's me barely holding onto my excitement.We are such dorks.


(PS this is my first time embedding a video so tell me if it goes wrong!)

Mancave Lighting Switch Up, Fan-tastic

For some reason our house has a lot of ceiling fans considering the square footage it has: 4. One in the mancave, living room, master bedroom, and guest bedroom.

The bedroom ones are fairly functional so they're staying for now, or will be replaced with another, prettier, version. But the ones downstairs are just dumb-- plus, the lone bulb in them throws off such a puny yellow light (see the master bedroom glow?). So, we are brainstorming replacements.

The mancave one in particular irked Rob because it was missing it's glass shade. When we were at Ikea months ago in August, Rob picked up the $15 LEDING spotlight to replace it.

Then it waited in it's box until our guests arrived and we put Rob's dad to hard work putting it up there for us! Southern hospitality at it's finest. ;)

I was going to donate the fan but I accidently threw away the fan blades... whoops :(

Ta da!

Just don't step back and take in the rest of the room...

... It's still a wreck. All of the stuff in it is Mancave stuff though at least, we've managed (well, Rob has) to clean out the other stuff. 

Also don't mind the newspaper mummy... it was halloween decoration that never got finished. We'll save it for next year. 

Rob is planning on adding a bar top along the side wall where the bar stools are. 

And yes, that's Rob's Union Jack. He also has a St. George's cross English flag. He's probably going to hang it behind the futon. Gotta represent his home! (as an aside, I really love the union jack and I like using it in our house, but it does bug me when other people use it... we have a claim to it since Rob actually is British, so I feel like other Americans who use it are kinda weird... or posers or something). 

We went with the futon in this room, instead of the extra couch (our free roadside find!), because if multiple guests come at once, the futon  folds out to full size and can sleep two extra guests. So at a pinch, our house can now sleep 6 people, versus 4. I've owned that futon since I was a Sophomore in high school and I can confirm that is deliciously comfortable to sleep on since it was my bed for so many years. The golden oak wood tone might have to go though!

Plus, the futon takes up less floor space than the free couch (which is huge at 9 feet long!!), so we might be able to squeeze in an extra chair for maximum gaming. 

As you can see, this room is tiny (although it's the same size as my dorm room my freshman year of college was!) 

The wall where the bike is, is where the 32 in flat screen will be hung on the wall, over his army trunk he found. I have no clue what he's going to do with the bike. 

Anyways, progress is happening!

Before - 

 After -

A Look at the Living Room

These pictures took a while and I have to warn you... there are a LOT of them from every possible angle too haha. I had to wait for the curtains to be ripped apart and resewn in order to take them-- the room looked skanky without them.

If you remember wayyyy back to June when we lived in our old rented townhouse, I had these lovely dotted curtains that my Nana sewed for me 3 years ago from Ikea fabric (they no longer sell it, sorry!).

Well they were basically just 3 panels sewn together since they were originally made to cover sliding glass doors... about 2 apartments ago. I still LOVE these curtains. I looked around for months to see if I liked anything else more (since they ARE getting a bit old), but no, nothing compared to the big happy ikea dots. So I asked my Nana to seam rip them, and somehow make 3 panels into 4 for my two living room windows. So she did, because she's the best ever. 

Anywho, as you walk in the front door, 

Once at the TV, if you turn around and look back at the front door, 

This was SO difficult to arrange. It's basically a square room (17 x 18), and we needed it to do double duty as a living room and a dining room, plus we had to keep a consistent path through to the kitchen. We sort of managed.

The pictures make everything look smaller and more closed in, but there is a large 5 foot gap between the couch and the table and chairs. 

See? And our couches always look wrinkled, I blame the leather. We got both of them for $200 from my aunt when she upgraded. They're 10 year old Sealy down topped couches and they're the comfiest couch you'll ever sit on. I like the camel color of them, it's much better than dark brown leather would be. Plus, they look good from their backs, which was useful in figuring out our layout!

The $4.50 oiled coffee table. I am still on the lookout for a better fitting table, mid century modern is gorgeous but it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the furniture. I'm thinking of turning it into an ottoman too. Tufted!

The walls are crying for stuff to be put on them :) And paint. It needs paint so bad, the walls look OK in these pictures, but in real life they've got all different sheens since we scrubbed them with TSP, and there are patches in the drywall everywhere! It looks crazy. 

That ceiling fan is the devil! We are going to have to do something about the lighting in here now. One ceiling fan won't work for the two different areas of the room.

I dislike the speakers, but that TV has awful muffled sound without them. That's a 42 in. plasma. We got it on craigslist last fall for $300 from an old man who never used it (meaning it has it's full life still). :) It is awesome for playing Black Ops on (hence the xbox hooked up to it). I play Call of Duty with Rob and I rock the G11. Did you know that plasmas are the best for gaming? Plasmas have better black levels, which means the picture quality is crisper with less shadows... just don't leave something paused on the screen for a few days. Newer plasmas don't have such an issue with burn in though. Sorry, I dorked out for a minute there... moving on, 

I want to paint the inside of the door too... Rob thinks I am crazy. It might be alright once the walls are painted though. Don't mind the random bookcase behind the sofa, I'm not sure what to do with that yet. 

There is about 5 ft. between the front door and the back of the sofa. It's actually kinda nice as it's like a little entry area. It looks tight in the pictures, but again, there is loads of room and it looks normal in person. So, there is a path to the kitchen, but you do have to initially walk around the one sofa. 

The table is about the only piece of furniture that did not get bumped or bruised in the 3 month hiatus in storage world.

I want to add a small side board/buffet at the head of the table to store dinner stuff in and to look pretty. 

We also have this giant pile of frames waiting to be painted/art-ified/ hung on walls. When we get the pictures moved, a ficus tree is going to take their place.

The curtains are 3 panels magically turned into 4, they have a 4 inch hem at the top and are clipped up. The bottom hem is about 10 inches. I like them thick and meaty. ;)

Those rods were difficult. They're the not Allen-roth brand from Lowes and I had to saw off some of their length. I was worried there was some metal rod in it since it took ages to saw through it. It's nice to know they use tough wood though. I don't normally shorten rods but I had a 4 ft pole and a 6 foot pole on hand, so I cut off two feet to make them both 4 ft. :) 

And no worries, Franklin the turtle is being moved into the mancave soon. I know his tank is less than lovely.

Do you like his base? I got that for $1 at the Restore! It will look good after it has a makeover :)

Whew that's a long, picture heavy post. Enjoy! 

Smokin'

To break up the slew of not so great pictures, I thought I'd post some gorgeous photos that Rob took during our weekend with the guests in the Smokey Mountains (of TN).

My personal favorite photo due to the sunlight streaming in:

Some water,

Lovely views,

These log cabins confused me, they're in the middle of a scenic road north of Gatlinburg... They're obviously lovely but completely random in my opinion. 

Some peaceful aloneness,

And COLOR,

I loved this tree the most. That eye wateringly vibrant shade of candy red is my favorite.

Yes, NONE of these pictures are edited. It was just that gorgeous and perfect.

I am going to put these into prints and hang them somewhere, I think!

While driving to our hiking trails, we even saw a momma bear and her two cubs! So sweet to watch... from a very far distance. Some people (foreign tourists) went right up next to them. Dumbasses. 

And for giggles, here's some bear poop. 

Mr. Bear was very regular ;)

You're welcome!

Really really bad pictures

Thrilling post title I know ;) Here are some other (awful) pictures of the rest of the house (excluding the living room!).

Look away if you expect gleaming pictures of loveliness and unpacked spaces. We have been very busy so yeah we still have boxes everywhere. No judging people.

Ahhh I'm blinded by the cheap "oak" cabinet glare!!

Oops I forgot to close the trash can lid. Oh well. The counters are super cluttered too. I haven't figured out the best organization just yet! 

Here's how it looked a few days after moving in:

About the same! Ha

The blue tape along the ceiling is where we cut in with ceiling paint but then haven't gone back and rolled on the rest of it yet. Lazy. 

On the other side of the kitchen we have this GORGEOUS (sarcasm) table I found at the Restore for $5. Oh and a $2 arm chair and a $1 ugly curvy one. Those will both be gone. 

I'm planning on getting some $30 ikea wicker chairs to put on either side of the table, repainting the table, and figuring out something to do with that chandy. Rob likes it, I think it's weird. I do like the table though, it has potential. 

Wide angle view so you know where you are, in between the pantry and the downstairs bathroom/ mancave.

 As a tangent, check out my new dishes! Canopy brand knock off Pottery Parn Emma dishes. Oooh Ahhh.

Oh, and here is the mancave.

Well, we needed somewhere to stash the junk for now! We're going to work on setting this room up this weekend. Rob is dying to play xbox in here.

And lastly, the upstairs bathroom. Rob let me have that pink rug from ikea ($2.99!). I snatched it up in seconds and hid it under the other stuff in our cart in case he changed his mind. :)

This is why I haven't shown the pictures yet and please view the mess kindly! The house is really not pretty yet aside from the master bedroom, guest room, and living room :( Baby steps!