Totally Floored

Since moving into our house in May of 2008, Jared & I have done very little "renovation." Our house was brand new so it didn't need any real upkeep. We bought furniture the first year, added a patio in the summer of 2009, and have done very little since then. When we bought the house, there were very few things that I would have changed on the inside. My major thing was the steps. The steps that lead upstairs, are front and center when the front door is opened. They were carpeted. The first day we looked at the house, I remember loving how bright, fresh, and clean it was. Then I had these nightmares of Jared's work boots on that beautiful white carpet.

Well over the 3 years that we have lived here, he has done pretty well with the carpet. What I didn't mention was our lovely, darling, center of our world dog Dudley. When Dudley was a puppy, he would go pee outside and then come inside, run to the top of the steps, and pee again. Lucky for us, he only weighs 5 pounds, so he pee is more the size of a quarter, not the lake or puddle we would have with a bigger dog. Never the less, it was gross. For a long time, we couldn't figure out when he was doing it. He would go outside, so we figured he was good. As he got older he stopped doing it, but the damage was done. We (Nannie included) used every carpet cleaner known to man to clean that carpet. And for a while it would look okay-but I always hated it.

With the prospect of a little one somewhere hopefully in the near future, I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted that carpet out of there. I did not want to replace it; I wanted hardwood. The plan was to have hardwood in our dining room, and the hallway upstairs. This would flow nicely with the existing hardwood and give our entryway a nice look. Little did we know how hard it would be to find someone who would do the stairs. They needed to be sanded, stained, and finished. Well, we finally found a great carpenter who jumped right on it. Here are some pictures from the project. I took them with my phone, so the quality might not be the best.

Dining Room before

(I didn't think to take pictures before we moved the furniture out)

This is just inside the front door. Notice the dining room to the left and stairs straight ahead. Also of note is Dudley's gate.....

In process of removing carpet...

It took alot of convincing to get him to help me. He worked on the tack strips while I did the staples.

While we waited for help to move the big cabinet, I got this nasty shot. None of these spots were visible on the top side. I guess this is why animal's can always smell where they went. GROSS!

Dining room at sub flooring level. There were no pet stains on this.

Dining room final product!! I love it!!

Stairs before:

Stairs in progress:

Tedious! The tack strips were very difficult. We were trying to do as little damage as possible.

Cleaning...and more cleaning....

Once the carpet was up....on one not quite so beat up!

This is once the carpet and tack strips were up....looking rough!

All stained and ready for paint!

I had agreed to paint the risers once they were stained.....here they are when I first started. For whatever reason the he didn't lay the hallway upstairs until after the stairs were finished, so, you will notice, there is no nosing on the top stair.

A sneak peek of it almost finished. I like how even with limited light it looks so much better painted.

Final product! Well, minus the one piece of trim that goes where the riser meets the tread.

We stayed away for a week while the stairs were done. We were glad to be home. I will post more pics once I get the dust cleaned up and the furniture how I like it. We also need some RUGS!!! I didn't tell Jared that when we discussed the budget for this project!!

Brooke's Baby Shower

This past Saturday I hosted a baby shower for Brooke, with my friends Megan and Mallory. Brooke has been my lifetime best bud, college roommate, and now wife to Jared's best bud Jason. While we certainly thought at the end of last year that we would be experiencing this journey together, (we were only due 1 week apart) it has actually probably worked out that we have some time in between babies. It allowed me to focus my energy on having a nice shower for her, something that I know she will do for me some day.

We started off with wanting owls as part of the theme. After some evolution, we ended up with owls on the invitations, which had some blue in them. We ultimately ended up with blue and orange as the main theme. I had purchased some pinwheels (the larger size) from Hobby Lobby to put at Brooke's house when Leyton is born. They somehow made their way into the shower theme the more Megan, Mal and I talked.

We decided to have it outside at my house.

This is a picture of the 'walkway' to the backyard that we lined with pinwheels.

In looking at many different blogs, we had several ideas we wanted to incorporate, yet keep it all looking put together and not so busy. This idea we saw in a picture from a wedding. We changed the colors of the fans, and mounted it to styrofoam. Brooke now plans to hang this on Leyton's nursery door for a while.

Hobby Lobby also had small pinwheels. We had these in blue, yellow, and green. We tucked one into each person's place setting and it was one of their favors.

Here is a picture of the centerpieces. We used vases that I already had and anchored the pinwheels in gumballs. I went to Wegman's and got huge gumballs and jawbreakers to fill the space.

This shows the overall tablescape. You can also see that we used Orange Crush as a favor. We used the Cricut machine to cut out L's and circles, then used stickers to attach them together. We then hot glued the L to the ribbon on the crush.

Stay tuned for more pictures from the baby shower!

Spring...Maybe?

It is hard to believe that it might actually be spring time. I certainly hope that it will be consistently springlike weather really soon. It has been a long winter and I need the Vitamin D! I was happy to put out some of my new spring decorations. I have a hard time finding things I like for my front door, because it is green and sometimes things I like just blend into it. I found this cute sign, that Jared hates, for $7 at Hobby Lobby. Dudley likes the warm weather too, because it means we leave the front door open and he can people watch. He mostly watches Marley, the lab across the street, and barks. He also barks at all kids on bikes....lovely!

These guys are showing signs of spring and that I need to get weeding! These Iris' came from a friends house 2 years ago, and have not done much since transplanting them. This picture was taken more than a week ago so they are really out there now. This might be their year!

The trees in our front yard are also showing their lovely colors that they only do for about one week out of the year. This is the Japanese maple (I think) that was planted when we bought the house. It is doing quite well; what you don't see is the fountain cherry that we planted to years ago and only has buds on like 2 branches.....so annoying.

I do not know why only the yellow on yellow daffodils have bloomed. Well, now that this pic is a week old there are some others and these are fading. I planted a ton of bulbs so that they would all be in bloom at the same time and look plentiful. I guess I will need to plant more! I have color for a while, but it is more sporadic than I would like.

Another tree shot!

Daylilies well on their way!

My favorites--Hyacinth! I planted a four bulb multi pack when we moved to this house. This year I have about 12 blooms! So happy. The blue/purple bloomed first, but I do have a pink and 2 whites currently!

I am going to enjoy April to the best of my ability and anxiously await April showers to bring May flowers!

Day 4: Your Favorite Book

I rarely read books anymore, and when I do it is usually garbage and not worth calling my "favorite book."

So instead, I am going to post on a more current topic for me: my Gala! The annual Chamber gala is always the last Friday in January. This year it happens to fall on my birthday. It is our biggest event of the year and is our only formal event. I am looking forward to it very much. It is the event where we present Business of the Year and a few other prestigious awards.

I thought today I would share our invitations. I got a small committee together to help with the event and one of them recommended The Silver Starfish for our invitations. I loved working with Kristen. I would highly recommend her. These lovely "All American" invites hit the mail yesterday.

I guess I need to spend some time with my new camera to get the best shots! They are a bright white card stock with navy and red writing and a lovely "presidential" graphic at the top. They have a thin red border and are mounted on navy linen paper. I love them. Here you can see the graphic better that made me go with these in the first place. I can't wait to see what the members think!

Day 3: Your Favorite TV Show

So I am off to a great start to 2011 and being a better blogger!

I am not a huge TV junkie, but I do have some favs.

Growing up we loved watching TGIF on ABC on Friday nights. Sometimes I wish it was still on for those Friday's when you had a long week and just want to stay home!
But, its not, so we move on.

Anyone who knows me well could call this pretty easily: Jeopardy!
I love Jeopardy! I especially love the Teen Tournament, and College Tournament; I am sure it has to do with my increased knowledge on those levels!

Brooke and I both love Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and we watched them all through college together. Even now, if we are stuck at the Fire Dept. we will make the guys turn it to Wheel and Jeopardy. One time, Brooke even signed us up for the best friends Wheel. We never got called, and she even mentioned signing up again a few weeks ago.

Wouldn't that be nice! I could handle $10,000 in a half hour!