A Birthday, a Bee and a Book

Today is a big day... it's my bff Jen's birthday! Yay! Happy Birthday!

Coincidentally, we also received more furniture today from Crate and Barrel. I actually had not ordered from them before, but the pieces are really great, and look awesome. However, the Ethan Allen delivery guys are a lot better than the C & B ones (because I know you were wondering).

We completed the guest room with a bedside table that was much needed. I fell in love with this table because it matches the green in the curtain and gives the room a little more color.

Another curtain shot:

The room:

We also received a new (and for the first time not Ikea) media center.

For the record, I was watching so you think you can dance.

I actually had a hard time capturing exactly the way the media center looks, but I love that it is so much more "grown up" than we've had previously (scroll back to our housewarming pics for the way it was before).

Also, I am loving the way the windowsill is looking these days.

We received the Longaberger basket for our wedding, the picture is an engagement shot, the pink "flowers" are actually made from painted bark and we found that and the little pot in an antique shop nearby. The green plant is the one I mentioned in my last post from my mom. Here's a close-up:

The lamp we've had (was once J's parents), but I have moved its location.

And now to explain the latter half of my title... Somehow, pests seem to find us no matter where we roam. Some of you remember how we once had bedbugs (2 years ago - after traveling to Italy) and what a pain they were. Well, now we seem to have nests of burrowing yellow jackets all along the front of our walkway/our neighbor's walkways. These things are enormous. One of my alma matters is the Yellow Jackets, so I find it a little ironic that they have decided to make the front of our house their home. Not entirely sure what to do about them though since technically they are not on our property (they are in the common area between the sidewalk and parking lot). I do feel bad for the landscapers though, so I let our HOA know. I think they are going to tell me to buzz off... I would like these things gone though because it is a little scary getting to my car in the morning. And man can these things dig a hole. And speaking of pests, our neighbors informed us that they saw a rat near their garbage a few weeks ago... I mean seriously! But - actually even talking about that issue grosses me out, so I will now switch topics....

I have recently gotten into reading Francine Rivers' books. I read Redeeming Love as well as A Lineage of Grace (actually technically - I'm only 92% done that one). I would highly recommend them. Both are a retelling of Bible books. Redeeming Love is entirely fiction based on the book of Hosea, and A Lineage of Grace is 5 short novellas on Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathesheba, and Mary. They are fiction as they add to the Bible but they are all Biblically based. Hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

Happy 4th!

So, it just so happens that I am blogging again on July 4th as I am watching the fireworks on TV with J. We were up in NY this weekend to celebrate the 4th with J's family at his grandfather's lake house - good times. Last year, we got to see the fireworks on the lake. This year... we had to go back to go to work tomorrow, so TV will have to suffice as we were too exhausted to try and go see them anywhere tonight.

After we got back from our travels (stopping in to see my mom on the way back down), I decided to finish up some more frames for the stairs. My mom hinted that the stairs looked a little empty with just the maps, so I proceeded to print a few pictures of the mapped places to intersperse. All of the pictures were ones that I had taken and I printed them on Paper Source paper I had left over from my days of endless crafting for the wedding.

I like the way it fills in the stairs more. My mom also gave us a painting of San Francisco that I hung in our upstairs hallway.

Thanks mom!

I also realized that I hadn't posted any pictures of my new desk that came in a few weeks ago (finally - ordered it in April!). I love the way it looks and it goes really well in our sitting room.

Desk:

 Practically sitting on the desk and looking into the Master Bedroom:

 With the chair:

 Looking from the sitting room into the bathroom:

 From the bathroom:

I actually haven't put much in the drawers yet as I have been too busy to get organized. Hopefully soon...

In other news, my mom also gave us an indoor plant that is now sitting on our windowsill. :) It makes me happy.

A very happy 4th of July to you all!

Using maps

Do you remember when we all used to use maps to figure out how we needed to get from one place to another? Now, we typically travel with at least 3 GPS devices in the car at any given time. I've been surveying cute map ideas.

I decided to try some of my own map artwork. :) So, mine didn't turn out quite like the photo above (nor am I that good of a photographer). I wanted to showcase some of my old paper maps that show some of our favorite places. I put them up our stairs & I do love them. 

The first one showcases PA where we went to school...

Then, Atlanta where I went to graduate school & J came down a lot to spend time. 

Then, where we live and where J has lived since after school and where he grew up (Yea - This photo includes all of DC and the Metro DC area, so it doesn't really give anything away since this area contains about 5.5 Million people). 

Also, last weekend, I bought a new hook (it's a sickness I tell you). I used to make a toilet paper holder for our half bath. As I have been mentioning before, the color scheme in the bathroom is a little difficult to match, but this goes perfectly. And it makes me smile. :) 

Painting Bathroom Cabinets (what not to do edition)

I'll start off by saying that I didn't do this project correctly. Close, maybe, but not quite. Actually the result turned out really nice, but I definitely did not do all the steps to this process, and I will do it correctly next time. Young House Love has a great blog post about how to correctly paint cabinets: http://www.younghouselove.com/2008/11/how-to-paint-your-kitchen-cabinets/.

Let's go to what I did. First of all, these are the before pictures of what I painted. As is clear, the paint wasn't looking so hot. I also wanted to bring in a richer look into the space and was not a huge fan of the white countertop, white cabinets look. We chose Behr's Bison Brown for the color. There are two reasons why I love this color. One: we loved the rich tones that it brought in without being too gray or reddish. Two: the bison is the mascot of our alma matter Bucknell, which makes it simply awesome.

First, I took off all the hardware and wiped down the cabinets.

What I should have done next is primed the cabinets so that the paint would stick better (I didn't). I maybe should have even sanded (I gave up after one cabinet piece). 

Instead, the paint took some coats in order to really stick to the cabinets. See below after one coat. 

Regardless, after a few coats of paint, I got to the result I was looking for. It took a little longer for the cabinets to be un-tacky enough to screw in the hardware. I took a few pictures trying to capture the right coloring of the cabinets. The ones with flash tended to introduce a reddish tone not actually in the cabinets. 

Before hardware: 

After hardware:

We both love the new look. I plan on doing the other one in the master bedroom as well. I think I shall attempt to do the next one the "right" way. I think that the way I did it will hold up fine (paint seems to be sticking well). But I would like to try doing it correctly, just to compare. 

In other news, our flowers are blooming! The rain and milder weather has been great. Check it out: 

My mom planted the lilies. So excited they are blooming! 

New curtains

This is going to be a quick blog post, extremely quick. Last week, I received the curtains I had ordered from Country Curtains. I also received new tension rods to hang them. I love my new curtains:

See... told you it would be short!

Hooks & Decorating

I haven't had a whole lot of time to do stuff around the house this week, but I have been making a few decor changes here and there. Last weekend, we picked up some new hooks at antropologie in the mall. I installed one in our half bath as a towel holder. The antique white really goes well with the antique white in the outlet and light switch.

I also picked up some hooks for the other towels in the master bath (after I installed the towel bar for one of the towels). I loved the flower look.

I also finally added something to the main wall in the kitchen. I had been looking for a mirror for the kitchen for a while, but I was having trouble justifying the cost at Pottery Barn of the ones I liked. I was strolling through Home Depot and I found what I was looking for.

I bought some plate hangers to hang more of the blue and white plates that my mom gave me. The fork, knife and spoon hooks are from antropologie (hook spending spree?). My plan with the mirror is to use it to write notes with a dry erase marker. Since mirror is glass, it works the same as a dry erase board.

Before shot:

 After:

After everything was up, J & I decided that it still feels like something is missing. I think it is the lack of a table and chairs set up. We do currently have a table, but it is not the end design we have in mind. But it is a work in progress.

But for now, I am loving our new hooks. I also installed guest room curtains this week, but have yet to take pictures so stay tuned...