Weekending Working on the House

This weekend was full of house work which was fun but exhausting. I feel like I need a solid 2 more days to get everything done.

Friday night I was planning on meeting with a friend to go to the Orlando Southern Weddings meet up. I was really excited to meet the SW girls and get a gourmet popcicle but the weather was pretty rough and very unpredictable so I decided to skip it since I had an hour drive home. Even though I was bummed I missed the meet up, it was nice getting home to Stephen and catching up on some shows. My birthday gift from Stephen finally came in the mail and he got me a wooden monogram, which I love and spent the better half of the weekend painting white. Can't wait to put it in our dining room!

I had to laugh because he got me the kind with the ring around the monogram because he knew it'd be more rigid #engineerproblems

Even though the weather was awful in Orlando, it was beautiful back home

Saturday, I cleaned some and then got to work painting a bunch of different things. So far, I've painted about 7 things... I'm pretty sick of painting now. Stephen worked really hard on the outside of the house by adding numbers on our house and replacing the front lights. We decided to grab Chipotle for dinner and on the way, there was a beautiful, full double rainbow. It was so bright and beautiful - a great reminder of God's promises! After dinner, we decided to run over to Homegoods just to look around (I was 100% not planning on buying anything on this trip - super surprising!) but at the very end, Stephen found a great table for our living room. This table is so neat, it extends out and becomes almost a full sized table. We figured it was functional, practical and cute #engineerproblems so we splurged and got it before someone else could buy it. After bringing our table home, we worked on hanging up more pictures.

 

Sunday we went to church and then hung pictures up all day. It's so nice having pictures hung, it's really starting to make our house feel like a home. I also finally got our wreath up on the front door!

Tried our hand at a gallery wall. That gap is for a wooden "H" that I still have to paint and re-hang

Got the pictures hung in our living room but now we need to find pictures for them

Today I'm headed off to Atlanta for a few days for work which should be fun! It's hard leaving the house though, when there's so much to do especially when we're expecting guests this weekend. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Linking up with Biana.

Five on Friday

I can't believe it's finally Friday. How in the world is it that my birthday was barely a week ago but it feels like months ago. Time slow down!

One
When I saw that ABC was going to make a TV show about the Mercury astronauts, I wanted to watch it but was worried it was going to be like Desperate Housewives. I just love the Mercury astronauts and their story, especially after watching The Right Stuff but I'm not into shows that promote cheating and affairs. After seeing so many bloggers talk about The Astronaut Wives Club, I wanted to check it out and see what all the rave is about. I watched the first episode a few nights ago while cooking and it wasn't too bad (granted I was half watching it)! I hope the show keeps up and doesn't turn bad... we'll see how the next few episodes are.

Two

Two big things I was waiting on for the house finally arrived this week! I have to go ahead and apologize for the crappy pictures but I'm super pumped about getting them. The first is my red buffalo check curtains that I got for our guest room. I've been looking for red buffalo check curtains everywhere and basically if you didn't want to spend over $100 per panel, these were the only option. I really like how they turned out and they work perfectly in our guest room. Can't wait to show you the rest of the room on Tuesday! (Please ignore the missing blinds, we have to redo all the blinds in the house)

Three

The second thing that arrived was the rug for our living room. I've been on the hunt for a blue and white rug for our living room and finally pulled the trigger a few weeks ago. The rug is a little darker than I was expecting but I still really like it. The quality also seems to be really good and it has the perfect thickness. I'm a little worried that it clashes with the curtains but I'm hoping neutral chairs will balance out the room. 

Four

I have to complain about primer - it is the worst thing ever to try to clean. We have 2 big, black picture frames that I needed to paint white so we decided to get a pint of primer and just use it as paint. It actually worked wonderfully and the picture frames look like I bought them with the white color. However, cleaning the brushes is basically the worst thing ever. Since it's meant to stick, it gets EVERYWHERE and doesn't come off! I swear, I'm going to have primer on my hands for weeks after finishing up painting. I'm seriously thinking of buying lots of paint brushes so I can throw them away instead of trying to clean them every time I paint. Does anyone have any tips for cleaning paint brushes with primer? #rantover 

Five

On a somber note, there was a terrorist shooting in Chattanooga yesterday that injured a police officer, two others and killed 4 Marines. I am very thankful my family and friends were not harmed during this terrible tragedy but others cannot say the same. Please pray for the city, for the injured people and for the families of the 4 Marines.

Loves & Hates

Last week, Christina tagged me in a post about 10 things I love and 10 things I hate which was so nice of her! And then, I totally blanked about it until I saw Owen's post yesterday - thanks for the reminder ;)

I'd love to see what y'all think about my list and if there's anything you agree with :)

LOVE
1. Monograms
2. Having a house - there's so much space!
3. Chino shorts
4. Staying at home with the hubby
5. Curling up with a good book/movie while it's dreary outside
6. Fall (but the up north fall, not the FL fall)
7. Being at my parents' house
8. Basically anything southern (food, accents, clothes, names, sayings, words, hospitality, etc.)
9. Thanksgiving & Christmas
10. A clean and organized house

HATE
1. Scary movies
2. Bugs! We're trying to get rid of all the bugs in and around the house. Since it was foreclosed, the bugs kinda settled so we're slowly pushing them out (it's really not that bad I'm just dramatic)
3. Not having TV
4. Yard work - really learning I don't like this one especially during FL summers
5. Taylor Swift... I know, I'm awful
6. When people exaggerate their stories
7. Being far away from my family
8. Indian foods
9. Alcohol - I just can't do it, it all tastes so gross to me
10. Not having snacks when I'm hungry - nobody likes a hangry girl

Side Note: This list does not include my loves for Jesus, Stephen, family, etc. Those are always my #1

Linking up with Annie.

Home Tour Tuesday | Master Bedroom & Bathroom

I'm so excited to finally start sharing some pictures of the new house Stephen and I just moved into (and just moved was like 3 weeks ago). Our full story of how we found our house is here.

I'm kicking off my house tour series with our master bedroom and bathroom. I do have to warn everyone that the house is still a mess and super empty. We're just now starting to get out picture frames, but it's hard because there is a lot more furniture we need to buy and I'll want to use some of our frames for those pieces. I'll definitely keep posts coming with updates as they come along.

Here are some pictures of the bedroom and bathroom before we moved in. I didn't include any pictures of the bathroom after we moved in because it looks pretty much the same. I'll definitely post some more pictures when we get more things in the bathroom. 

We really need to replace all of the blinds in the house but we figured we'd work on that later since they are all functional. The day after we moved in, we heard a big crash and saw that the sliding blinds in our room had completely fallen out of the wall! So we had to make a mad dash to Target to get a curtain rod and some blackout curtains. They're actually working out really well and I'm glad we were able to get them at such short notice. 

When we got our furniture delivered, they brought the wrong mirror so we had to get that delivered a few weeks later. It really makes a big difference having a mirror on the dresser.

I found this picture at the Kirklands' big sale last weekend and thought the colors were perfect for our room!

I'm obsessed with the amount of room we have in our closet now! There is so much storage and things aren't busting at the seams anymore. I still need to create a jewelry area on the chest of drawers and get some better shoe organization. 

Furniture: Ashley Furniture

Bedding & Green Pillows: At Home

Mr & Mrs Pillow: Homegoods

White Picture Frames: Bed, Bath & Beyond

Weekending

This weekend was filled with grilling out, shopping and house work - it was so nice having a full weekend at the new house! Friday after work, my boss hosted a little get together in honor of my birthday. It was a lot of fun and we all had a great time! (I did a total blogger fail and didn't get very many pictures)

I've never grilled anything before so I got the grill started then forgot about it so good thing guys were there to watch it and actually cook everything

Saturday we slept in then went shopping for the house. It was a lot of fun to finally purchase things instead of having to wait because we didn't have anywhere to keep it. We ended up getting a lot of pictures from Kirklands since they were having a big sale and picked up our remaining curtains and curtain rods from Homegoods. We also ran by ikea and it always shocks me when I see how many people are at that store! It's chaos at the Orlando store. On our way home, we had to stop in and get a free slurpee at 7/11. This is seriously the best deal ever - I mean, who would ever turn down a free slurpee?

After our shopping & slurpee adventures, we worked on the house and had our first cookout of the summer at the new house. Stephen made delicious brats and corn on the grill and I attempted Lisa's sweet potato fries which were good, but didn't turn out crispy or pretty like hers. I feel like I'm using my spiralizer wrong, but I don't know how you could mess that one up. For dessert, we tried out Stephen's new smores roasting rack for his grill and it worked really well.

The perfect Florida summer evening

We've got to get outdoor furniture and a new grill

Sunday, we tried a new church that we really enjoyed and then ran some errands. One of those errands was to Lowes so Stephen could get a bunch of things for all his house projects. Afterwards, he said it was so much fun and he loves going to Lowes... um yeah, not my kind of fun but he does stick with me when I go to Target ;)

It's been so nice getting things hung up in the house. I really do feel like it didn't feel like home to us yet because we didn't have anything on the walls or any curtains put up. This week I'm finally kicking off my house tour! Come back tomorrow for the master bedroom and bathroom. 

Linking up with Biana.

Five on Friday!

One
Yesterday was my 24th birthday, and I had a great day! Thank you for all your sweet comments and birthday wishes and thanks to everyone who made it a special day!

Before work, Stephen surprised me with flowers and some banana bread with a candle and then at work, I was surprised with a decorated desk, munchkins and a someone brought me an adorable gift! For lunch, we went to a Japanese steakhouse and celebrated with fried ice cream, fried cheesecake and a fried banana. Stephen and I were planning on going out to dinner last night but I was so tired I didn't feel like dressing up and going out (and the restaurant I wanted to try isn't open yet) so we ran to Homegoods to buy a tv stand that I saw 2 days before (but it had already sold :( ), got some Greek food, picked up an ice cream cake from Publix then headed home for presents and cake. It was a great birthday and I couldn't be more blessed with another year filled with Jesus along with amazing family and friends!

How cool are these balloons? 

Finally got my Kate Spade purse!

Two
Speaking of tv stands, I saw this amazing one at Homegoods in Hilton Head but didn't have a way to get it home (Homegoods needs to get in the shipping business) so I didn't buy it. Now, I'm trying to find it online so let me know if you see anything like this!!

Three

Sunday was Stephen and I's second Anniversary and since we were driving home from vacation, we couldn't go out to eat. I wanted to make something a little different so we opted for steaks, balsamic roasted brussels sprouts and Greek cucumber pasta. Everything was delicious, especially for the Greek pasta (yay for mom getting me a spiralizer!)

We didn't want to get a cake since Stephen just had one for his birthday and I was getting one for mine so we split a yo-yo cookie from Publix and that was the best decision!! It was SOO good!

Four

I'm so excited that I can finally start writing about the house, give a tour and post updates! I know everyone's been wanting to see a house tour so I've kept everyone hanging long enough - I'll start my posts next week! In the meantime, we finally got the rest of our master furniture delivered this week so here's a small sample.

Five
Happy Shark week!! I've never gotten into shark week but I do have to be a total cheese and tell y'all about my Shark steam mop that I'm loving! We have all tile so the floors are hard to clean but Stephen got us a Shark steam mop and it's life changing, seriously it's so good.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! My boss is throwing a cookout at his house tonight for my birthday then tomorrow Stephen and I will be shopping for the house and cooking out ourselves! I'm looking so forward to having a weekend at home.