"Forever Home"

I'm not sure where I first heard the term Forever House. I'm sure it was somewhere in the blogosphere, or perhaps twitter.

At the time we were living in our adorable little cape cod, happy as clams & maxed out on upgrades. We had talked about totally redoing the kitchen or adding a second bathroom but knew that as soon as we did this our house would turn from a starter home to a family home and the house itself was not large enough to contain a whole family. Jus, me, Jack, Edie & Layla, sure, but a family?

When we bought our first house the plan was to live there for at least 5 years. Modernize what we could, bump up the curb appeal and build some equity. I imagined that we would bring our first child home from the hospital to this house, where we would have created a nursery space on the other side of our bedroom.

While Jus & I have always kept a running list of houses we love but buying a new house wasn't on our radar. When my grandpa called my mom and told her she had to see a bank owned house Jus & I tagged along. After we went in the back door, climbed up three feet to the kitchen, walked through one kitchen to the dining room I turned to Jus and said "I want this house."

Fast forward 7 months and here we are, slowly making the Behemoth ours.

The kitchen will be what I decide, we have rolled on the paint and we have argued about who should trim the bushes. This is the home that we have worked on and the one that we will call home for the next several years.

But forever?

That's a pretty significant word  and we just aren't sure if we're ready to make that type of commitment. I've always dreamed of living in a bungalow or loft and Jus loves the house across the street and dreams of a house on a cliff.

So for now we'll call the Behemoth ours and cherish the time we've put into it while realizing that somewhere along the way it might not be ours anymore.

Do you think you'll find a forever home or is an ok for now home the kind you crave?

Time to Sell

Hello Lovelies,

Sorry I haven't been around for a while, we're knee deep in the moving/selling process and it's driving me crazy!!!!!!!! Yesterday I packed up my next giveaway and I promise once life settles a little more (which should happen later this week) I'll share our new home with you, have a giveaway, & maybe even organize another package exchange!

But for now I thought I'd turn to you for help in selling our happy little home.

Jus & I are selling our 1943 Cape Cod Style home. It is 1200 square feet. 3 bedrooms, including 300 square foot master bedroom with built-ins. 1 bathroom completely remodeled in 2009 includes ceramic hexagon tile. Spacious living room open to kitchen with lots of storage. Hardwood floors upstairs & down. Full basement includes laundry room. Includes new range & hood, fridge, washer & dryer. New roof in 2009, some new windows and window treatments. Shaded fenced in front yard is perfect for pets or children. Mature peony bushes, many perennials & window boxes are a gardener’s dream. Storage shed & carport in back. In a quiet & friendly neighborhood in Goshen, Indiana.

If you happen to be from the area (or looking to move to the area) or if you could pass the word along we'd greatly appreciate it!

Love for now & see you later!

XO,

Cole

Hip Happity Monday

Good Morning, darlings! How was your weekend?

Ours was good, very busy and fairly productive.

Remember our new friends M & M that I've gone on and on about?

Well, this week they got married in California. They invited us about a month ago and with the cost of flights and hotels we knew we wouldn't be able to go.

Then, last Monday Jus & I decided that we would drive 2100 miles to surprise our friends at their wedding. I packed, we made arrangements for the dogs and then we got to talking; about the mortgage payment, the fact we have a wedding this year, and the idea that this would have to take the place of our honeymoon, and we realized that sometimes it really sucks to be a grown up.

Then my parents got involved and offered to buy us plane tickets for our birthdays, we could stay with a friend and make the trip super cheap. But then our plans fell through and plane tickets skyrocketed.

I'll admit I was a little mopey about the situation until I came up with a great way that we could still surprise our friends. They recently bought their first house and have been working at making it their own, on the docket is redoing the kitchen and they hadn't had time to paint it yet. So Jus & I headed over to their place Saturday (luckily they had given me a key to get their mail) and painted. M & M had chosen the color so all we had to do was slap some paint on the walls but it was fun to know that we would surprise them.

M & M's kitchen mid painting

After we finished painting at their place we came home to paint our back hall. Way back in December Jus tore down the ugly wood panelling and last weekend he & his dad installed a new back door. We picked a color called "Lemon Pepper" and I'm not sure if I like it or hate it, but we're planning to add some cork tiles to break it up. I'll be sure to show you the finished product, but for now here's a picture of Jus painting up a storm.

Sunday we cleaned the house and saw "Inception" which I would highly highly recommend.

All in all I'd say it was a pretty good weekend, and just because you all seem to like weddings as much as I do here's a picture of M & M that our friend took right after they got hitched, don't they look happy?

Have a happy Monday lovebugs!

Hello Tuesday

Hello lovelies!

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday, blogger was being a weenie and not working so I took some time to work around the house. Jus & I set up some shelves I had gotten at an auction when we first moved into our house.

They aren't perfect, they're not super sturdy, one is taller than the other, and they aren't the prettiest but they're big enough to organize our books and all of my random etsy stuff. (Which all needs to be added to the shop!)

I thought I'd do my "Two Things to Know" today since we missed yesterday. As always, if you'd like to play along just leave a comment letting me know!

1. If you want your cut peonies to last longer add sugar or Sprite to the water. This is probably a couple of weeks late for most of you but I promise this works, I always add sugar to mine and I think they last longer.

2. Grace Potter and the Nocturnals new album is being released today! I've mentioned our love for GPN before but I am so incredibly excited to get their new album. Grace has a killer voice and I think she is a great example of an entertainer that is sexy, talented & real. So go on, go buy GPN's new album and dance around your living room tonight (I promise they aren't paying me to say that, except if Grace wanted to be my friend I'd be down).

3. I'm hosting another package swap! Check back in at 2 EST for the details!

Garland Lovin' (and a little Tuesday wedding)

Lately our house has been a garland making factory. A couple of months ago I saw this adorable coffee filter garland around the web and was dying to recreate it.

via

When I got our new headboard I knew we had the perfect spot for one of these whimsical beauties. I thought it would be fun to add some color to our bedroom so I used silver cupcake liners and a mix of yellow fabric I found at a thrift store.

I cut the yellow fabric to be the same sized circles as the cupcake liner and strung them on to some crochet yarn. I hot glued every other circle so they wouldn't slide around.

I love the color that it adds to our bedroom and decided to continue my love for these garlands and use them as decoration at our wedding reception.

Our reception is taking place in a building that my grandfather owns. We're renovating the second floor and it will be customized just for us!

The ceiling is getting fixed, the floor is getting refinished, the walls will be painted, & the room will be rewired.

I've been tea dying coffee filters and Jus & I have been stringing them together. We're making 10 garlands that are 26 feet long, and if you're thinking that's a lot of coffee filters, you'd be right.

One batch of coffee filters drying

We spent 10 hours working on these this weekend and I love the way they're turning out.

Leftover Valentine's Day heart garland & coffee filter garland

Lately I've been looking for a garland to replace the heart garland we have hanging between our kitchen and living room and today at Target I found the perfect replacement!

As soon as I spotted this six pack of paper fans I knew I had to go home and put some craftiness to work. I opened each fan and hot glued the attached strings to the next fan.

I ended up using two packs of these fans and had three left over that I hot glued together to make a decoration for our back door.

I love how summery these make our house look and expect that Target will be running out of these beauties soon.

Have you made anything for your home lately?

100 Photos: Day 99

I loved having forsythias in our bathroom so much that I bought some fake cherry branches. I'm not sure how I feel about having fake flowers in our house but I love how cheery they are.

PS Can you believe that tomorrow is my 100th photo?

How I Spent My Monday

This could probably be a reoccurring post since I don't work on Mondays and I usually spend the whole day enjoying myself.

Lately I've been really hating our "headboard" I love DIY projects and I liked the concept of our headboard I just didn't like the way it looked.

Need a reminder?

I had been thinking about finding some old windows to use as a headboard so I headed to my favorite local thrift/consignment/vintage shop and this is what I ended up with.

What do you think? Jus has requested a garland to hang on the windows so I'll be working on one.

While I was at the store I found this original scratchboard of a promethea moth. It is signed "Philip A. Reddel 1/19/72" and I really love this little beaut.

After my thrifiting adventure I went to Target and was beyond happy to see that they were thinking along the same lines as I have been and were stocking $1 pinwheels!

Wouldn't a bouquet of pinwheels be awesome for a bright, summer wedding?!

I was also totally smitten with all of the gorgeous Liberty of London line at Target, have you checked it out yet?

I kept loading Liberty of London things in my cart and then taking them out when I found something else I loved. Here are the three things I got, but I might be heading back later in the week to pick up the things I passed by.

I also got Edie a little treat, she was feeling a little naked at our party Saturday so I got her this adorable little dress.

Yes, we I dress Edie up, but in my defense she actually likes wearing clothes.

Do you ever spend a day splurging on fun goodies?

PS Don't forget to sign up/pass the word along for the Brown Paper Packages exchange! I'm so excited!!!

What I did last night...

I hope you'll forgive me for not having this weeks roundup ready today. (I promise I'll post it tomorrow!) They normally take a couple of hours to get together and last night I was too busy working on a surprise project for Jus.

Since he's been working till midnight every day we've only gotten to spend about 5 hours together this week. I wanted to try and do something fun for him.

When we first moved to our house Jus was very excited to have a guitar room. He immediately decided to paint it red and got to work trying to decorate it with concert posters. I can't remember who mentioned it first but one of us said it would be cool to have something unique painted on the wall. We tossed around ideas, drug our feet, and finally quit mentioning it.

But this week I decided it was time, so this is what I did last night...

(10 points if you know who this is)

I am really pleased how well this painting turned out. Turns out I didn't quite waste all of the money my parents poured into an art degree.

Yup, that's right. I was an art major, not the painting and drawing kind (I actually had a drawing professor tell me that the reason my drawings were interesting was my lack of technical skill).

I studied graphic design but a semester away from graduating I realized that I wouldn't be designing the kind of things I wanted to be designing and decided to step away from graphic design, and once I did that I forgot how to use all of the designing programs, and the rest is history.

So what did you do last night?

(Ed. Note from Cole- I wanted to take some more pictures in the daylight last night there wasn't any way to not get the glare. I made a graph on the wall but I freehanded the painting itself. Last night when Jus came home I was sitting on the sofa but he noticed that the guitar room light was on so he went in and ended up doing a double take. He said it was the best present he's ever gotten.)

100 Photos: Day 58

This is what I get out of the shower to. I think Edie's trying to tell us she's cold.

Two Things I Love Around My Home & Two Things I Just Love

I've been wanting to give you a tour of our house but it is too messy and there are still too many projects that need to be done. So for now we'll just have to stick with playing along with Kassi from BacWoods Fern's Two Things I Love Around My Home Tuesdays. I love seeing what everyone loves around their home so hop on over and play along!

The first thing I love is this piece of Polish paper art that I picked up at an antique mall last summer. If I could fill my house with paper art I totally would, I feel so lucky to have found this beauty.

My second favorite thing is maybe my favorite thing in our entire house. I absolutely LOVE our bathroom floor. I wanted these tiles for so long and they were the first thing in our bathroom remodel that I decided upon. They set the tone for the rest of the bathroom as well.

And now on to the things I just plain love....

I love you lovelies and all of your wonderful book suggestions. I love the idea of doing book reviews but need to think about it a bit more before I launch another series (isn't 3 enough). As for my favorite books I'll be doing a roundup of them this Thursday so you can load up your bookshelves.

My second love for today is the outfit I wore yesterday. I am by no means a fashion plate but lately I feel like I've been stepping up my game a bit more. I think my style has been positively influenced by the super stylish ladies I've found online.

What are some things you're loving today?

PS Remember to sign up for my GIVEAWAY if you haven't!

Taking Care of Things

First off I want to let you know that I had a very productive day yesterday. I had some luck thrifting and then I went grocery shopping so our fridge is stocked for the week.

Last night I cooked dinner. (Hooray!!!) We had whole wheat pasta tossed in olive oil, garlic & basil and topped with shrimp. Jus had candied carrots (which I hate) and I had an artichoke (which he hates).

I'm feeling very proud of myself and am anxious to get back in the habit of cooking every night. I really love cooking and trying out new recipes, thanks for all of your ideas and help yesterday. I'll try to share any delicious recipes we happen upon.

Now, on to Tuesday things. I thought I'd play along with with Kassi at BacWoods Fern. Every Tuesday she has a link up featuring two things around your house and I love seeing what's in everyone else's home.

The first thing I'm featuring is this floral stool I picked up at an antique mall for $18 when I was visiting my sister at Indiana University. I know it's probably more of a kitchen thing but we don't have room in our kitchen and it's too cute to hide so it sits in our living room.

I'm not entirely sure if I get to claim the next thing as "mine," I'm sure Jus would put up a fight, but I really love the guitar room in our house. Jus is an awesome guitar player and it's nice to have all of his gear tucked away in the guitar room. Jus spends a fair amount of time in this room and I usually head there first when I get home from work, it's also where he proposed.

I especially love that he has his guitars hanging on the wall, I think it looks so freaking cool and is a great way to store them when he's not playing.

If you'd like to play along hop on over to BacWoods Fern and link up but be sure to leave a message so I know you've played along!

Happy Friday!

Are you as excited for the weekend as I am?

For some reason yesterday just really wore me down. I think it's that time of the year. I am so tired of winter. I want sunshine, and more importantly warmth, 40 is not warm, 80 is warm.

I'm also itching to do something fun around our house, lately, all I've been working on is wedding stuff, and while that's fun we haven't had any big projects in so long that I'm starting to get bored.

The first project we need to do is our back hall which still looks like it did two months ago.

If I had my druthers we'd wallpaper it will cork board. I think it would be tons of fun to have a place to stick all of the bits and pieces of our life. Unfortunately this stuff costs about a dollar and a half a square food and we need approximately 80 square feet. This is something I feel we need to correct ASAP.

The second project I'm dying to work on is a new headboard.

I'm not crazy about the wood paneling in our bedroom and tried to make a cool, graphic headboard but I'm really not crazy about the pipe cleaner flowers we have now. I'd love to have a sweet headboard made from plumbing pipes. Kind of a modern take on an iron headboard.

Lastly, something I've wanted to do for a long time is to paint the front hall with chevron stripes.

I am dying to paint the wooden panel doors white and think it would be awesome to add some pattern to the walls.

In reality, this weekend is pretty busy for us, we're moving a friend's home store, going to a wedding and trying to crank out some save the dates. Alas, maybe we can squeeze some home remodeling in in the down time.

What project are you dying to do?

Two Things I Love Around My Home: Love Style

I'm glad you're enjoying the love stories series as much as I have been. I've got some great posts for later today and the rest of the week and am so excited to keep sharing them with you.

I wanted to participate in Kassi's Two Things Around My Home again this week and thought I'd stick to the topic of love.

The first thing is actually two things. I love my little heart wall in our kitchen. The heart on the left is from a horse bridle and my mom gave it to me for Christmas last year. The heart in hand on the right is actually a bottle opener and I got it for Christmas this year. I hope to keep adding heart related things on this wall (I have little collections like this all around the house and love it).

The second thing I'm loving lately are these little Lovebird salt & pepper shakers. I picked them up at Target a couple of weeks ago in their dollar section and I think they are so sweet. I also think it's sweet that Jus didn't know they were lovebirds at first, he's so cute. I have a feeling you could pick up a set of these if you'd like, Target's cool like that.

Be sure to head on over to BacWoods Fern and play along! But be sure to leave a comment telling me you did, I love seeing the little things that make your house a home.

Stay tuned at 10 & 3 today, I've got some great guest blogs lined up!

Two Things I Love Around My Home

Kassi at Bacwoods Fern features two things around her home that she loves and invites her readers to play along.

I love seeing the things she and her readers love about their homes so I thought I'd show you some of the things that make our house a home.

The first thing is actually pretty new to our house. My parents gave me this vase for Christmas. My mom found it at an art gallery in our town. I love the bright pop of color.



The first is the coffee table that my grandpa made me. My grandfather is incredibly talented and luckily we receive handmade gifts for birthdays and Christmas. A couple of years ago I told my grandpa I wanted a coffee table.


Knowing my love for books, he designed this after the cover of an art deco book.

Our coffee table is definitely one of the first things people know when they enter our house.

If you'd like to play along hop on over to Bacwoods Fern and hook up to the MckLinky, but be sure to leave a comment so I can see your favorites!

Do you have things around your home that you absolutely love?

Just What We Needed

I met with my grandparents and got a super wonderful totally amazing present.

Remember our sofa issues? Well, Layla has had a nasty old skin infection for the last couple of months (thus the lack of Layla pictures) and our sofa has gone from bad to disgusting, stinky and almost unusable.

Because I love you, and ONLY because I love you I will share it with you. Please please please* don't judge me based on the fact that this nasty thing hung out in our living room for the past year.

See how horrible it is?

Well, my stepgrandma is the best thrifter in the world. I know you might be shaking your head no right now but I'm telling you the truth, she goes to thrift stores, antique malls and resale shops more than anyone you know, and it pays off. And luckily, Jus and I have benefited.

After telling my grandparents our sofa woes they graciously gifted us this gorgeous craftsman inspired sofa.

I love love love this sofa. It's super duper comfy, clean, and it matches our living room. HOORAY!

*Pretty pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top.

Happy Monday

Happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Jus had a great time in Chicago and loved Second City.

My weekend was pretty low-key but also great. Saturday my Mom & I went to an auction and I was able to scoop up these lovelies.

First I scored this awesome floral still life for $40. The original auction tag on the back says $125, not too shabby.

The colors tie the kitchen into the living room so well, I absolutely love it.

But the real deal was this drawing, I'm pretty sure it's done with pastels but seriously, how can you not love it?

I'm not gonna lie, I really think the period makes it, don't you?

Did you find anything awesome this weekend?

A Good First Impression

One of the problems with owning an old house is that there are always projects. I imagine if Jus and I live in our house for twenty years we will get to the point where we will finally be done working on projects, but for the time being there is one project right after the next.
One project I've been dying to complete is tacking the back hall. Our back entry way is pretty terrible, when you walk in the back door the basement stairs are right in front of you and the doorway to the kitchen is to your left, this area is teeny tiny and somewhere along the way somebody decided to put some wood paneling up.*

While I was working Saturday I got a text from Jus saying that he was working on the entry way. I can't tell you how tickled I am that Jus decided to deal with said wood paneling and he even took some pictures so you could see his progress.

Halfway through...ugh, I can't tell you how terrible our hallway is.

All of the paneling is off now and the hallway looks a lot better and a million times bigger.

I am so excited that this project is started, now all we need is some paint and some hooks.

My Love for Today: Jus, who starts projects in the same way that I do.

My Happiness for Today: I know I said we weren't doing any wedding planning until after Christmas but we're too excited. I'm off to try on some wedding dresses today with my mom, Banan, Jus's mom, and my two aunts.

*Isn't it a little hard to believe how much paneling is in our house?

Success!

Saturday I stopped by a small thrift store that I hadn't been to before. Even though the store was teeny tiny I was able to find these lovelies.

I found this lovely lamp

It replaced the green industrial lamp that was hanging out by our rocking chair.

Better, no?

I also found this flannel blanket. One day our living room will contain piles of flannel blankets.

I was so excited to find this lovely mirror. It reminds me so much of the Eleanor that we have hanging in our bathroom.

Since we already have our mirror I thought I'd spread the love and put this one on etsy.

Jus had a productive weekend and put up our Christmas lights. I am over excited for Christmas and can't wait to decorate but I'm making myself wait until after Thanksgiving.

Did you have a successful weekend?