DIY: Home Improvements

Last weekend my parents came into town and Mom and I ransacked TJ Max and found curtains and curtain rods for most of the rooms. Then we hopped over to Target where I found the curtains for the manloft and the living room. Here are the results:

Okay..please excuse the cable cord running from the wall to the TV. We are getting ready to close in that whole over Christmas and will be moving that cord through the walls....somehow...

the front entrance of the house:

The guest bedroom:

Man Loft (notice the matching curtains and Forrest's Dbacks jersey):

the master bedroom:

Post Wedding Update

Hello all! It has been too long since I last posted on the blog. So much has happened since that last March update. Let's see...I moved into the new place mid April. Forrest came home for a short stint in between teams this year and then left at the end of April to play for the Lincoln Saltdogs. I got a new job teaching high school Spanish literally about 3 miles from our house. Forrest's team won the American Association Championships and then he came back to the east cost at the end of September and went back to work for Nike and teaching pitching lessons. We got married October 17th at our Alma Mater and then spent a fabulous week in Jamaica. About a week and a half after coming home we bought a new car...a snazzy 2010 Honda CRV and just a few days later sold my lil old red Mustang. We have also joined a small group here through our church and are so happy to be fellowshiping with other believers in our community. Other than working, we have been busy making the house a bit more cozy by adding some new furniture and accents. You wouldn't believe it was the same house we walked through back in February.

I will post the link for the wedding pictures once I get them from my photgrapher. I tried to upload a few here, but the quality wasn't great and they looked so tiny. So look forward to that in a bit. I will post a few pictures of the honeymoon here. We went to Couples Sans Souci in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We were there for 8 days and 7 splendid nights of Caribbean bliss.

This is a picture from one side of the resort overlooking the swimming area, beach bar/grill, and our building of suites.

This little hut and mini palm tree were basically straight out of our room headed toward the Caribbean.

This is me holding the neat little white sea urchin Forrest scooped up off the reef for us to see (our snorkeling guides asked him to do it and then told us a story about what a strong aphrodisiac these sea creatures are).

Forrest being handsome on the beach.

It rained every day we were there, but usually for about 30 minutes max. The last 2 days we were there were the most beautiful days of all. It was very sunny and the rain held out until later afternoon. The day I took this photo we went waterskiing, wakeboarding, kayaking and sailing. We found a new adventure to take on each day!

Here are the sailboats and the kayaks all lined up by twos...I thought it was cute.

So...that was paradise in the Caribbean...and now here are a few pictures of our very own paradise back at home. These pictures were all taken yesterday, the Friday I was home from school because of the horrible Noreaster that ransacked the east coast. Last night my parents came into town and Mom and I did some shopping to find curtains today while Dad and Forrest worked on the light fixtures. One day this week I will post the pictures of the updated pictures.

Okay.....let's see what I have first....

I don't know if you guys remember the old dining room. There used to be carpet here and the walls were white. Here it is with the new wood flooring and Nanny's kitchen table. I found the two end chairs at Marshall's and the four black chairs at a consignment furniture shop for a very budget friendly price!

The top picture of these two definitely reflects the true color of this room better. For some reason this bottom picture is somewhat washed out.

Here is our little breakfast bar with the two barstools. This little area connects our open kitchen and dining room.

Do you remember the picture I took of this early on. If not scroll down to one of the first posts. It is a totally different space!

Okay here is our actual kitchen space. We have so many cool gadgets that we got for the wedding. I have used almost everything I was given already!

This will be the perfect place for the wine racks Leslie gave me! Gotta go to Trader Joe's and get some $3 wines to showcase!

This china cabinet was in my grandma's house when I was a kid. She used to keep her candles in the top drawer. In it you can see her China that really ties into the colors of our living room/kitchen.

I need to put some new hardware on it. That is my next project now that the curtains are up and the masterbath is painted.

Okay here is the living room...I can't believe how much this room has changed since February. Remeber there used to be wall to wall carpeting in this room and a nasty brown accent wall. it looks even better now with the curtains and sconces up. Our next project (after the hardware on the china cabinet) is to put up cabinet doors to close off that gaping hole that was put in the wall for a TV and have our cable rewired so you can't see it.

Here is Forrest's manloft. Every man needs his own space in a house and we have the perfect place just for him. I framed his Diamondbacks jersey for his birthday and then we went to target and got the pictures on each side of it. His surfboard and guitars make very masculine accents in the room. (this room also looks much better with the new curtains up!) We are currently looking for an ottoman to put between the two bookshelves.

Well, tomorrow or Monday I will post the updated pictures of the curtains, the newly painted masterbath, and the transformed guest bedroom. For now I am off to look up some new recipes and make the grocery list!

This was a super busy weekend. My parents drove down on Thursday night to unload the appliances because it has rained EVERYDAY since then. On Friday they came back again and we went to dinner and spent some QT together. On Saturday Fo's dad came into town to help my dad install the appliances. When I met up with my parents Saturday evening Dad was working on the washer and dryer. Forrest and I are so blessed to have amazing parents who are looking out for us. We just can't thank God enough for the blessing of our parents! We love you guys!

A close-up of our new microwave. Looks nice against the paint and the cabinets!

The new microwave (totally new...Forrest and Dad moved the cabinets up to fit it in above the stove!) Our dads worked super hard on Saturday getting the appliances in! Thanks!

The cool mist color (I really like this color!) Thanks to my friend Tiffany who helped me paint on Thursday until 11:30! I owe her big time!

The bedroom/bathroom entrances and another image of the accent wall and the other cool mist color. I really love both of these colors...but I'm just not sure that they go together. I think we are going to look for a darker color to go on the accent wall that is in the same pallet as the Cool Mist color. The accent wall is called Rolling Sea.

This is the upstairs bedroom. We're not sure about these colors yet. 

Who needs 3 layers of wallpaper border? serious?!

The soon to be replaced master bathroom lights.

The new dishwasher all installed. Soooo quiet!

Our new dryer!  

Wicker before pics

Here are pictures of what the old color was of the love seat before I finished painting.

Wicker pics

Here are the pictures of the painted wicker love seat...compliments of MamaP! We also have some beautiful cushions that match the kitchen color and provide good contrast with the shade of yellow we are going to paint the sun room.

Wicker-ed

Okay I'm in love with wicker furniture. My mom had this totally awesome wicker love seat and round side-table that she got from my sister's first house she bought. It was like a whole set...a love seat, a big chair, a coffee table/bench, and a small round table. I think it was the original wicker color when she found it and she painted it a very tropical green color and put it on our deck. She and Dad just renovated their deck at the house so they gave me the love seat and the small table. I bought some spray paint from Lowes(t) called Espresso by Home Accents or something like that. It took 7 cans of spray paint to coat the whole love seat...but it looks so awesome. We have a small little indoor brick patio/sun room when you walk through the dining room. Our plan is to paint the walls a milder yellow color from the same pallet as the Canyon Sun that is in the kitchen/dining area. The wicker furniture is going to transform that space into a conversation/sitting area. My dad is going to put big hooks in the studs to hang a hammock from. I have a blue and white hammock I picked up in El Salvador a few years ago that would be perfect for the space (we will probably keep it in the storage closet in the sun room and pull it out when we are ready to relax.. We hope to hang some artwork and pictures from our travels to decorate the room and illicit the feeling of a tropical escape. 

Also this weekend we will be getting the new refrigerator, washing machine, microwave hood (to go above the stove) and dishwasher to put in the kitchen! My fabulous friend is going to help me paint the master bedroom so be expecting pictures of all of these house updates this week. 

Early Renovations

The past few weeks we have been working pretty hard to get most of the downstairs painting done. Here are a few pictures of the rooms that we repainted. 

The guest bedroom...this bed was made at the turn of the 20th century. 

The new light in the stairwell.

The padres fixing up the towel rack for the wash stand my dad karate chopped today. 

The former accent wall (now all of the living space is painted this color).

The dining room...right now all of the kitchen appliances are in there because we just had the kitchen flooring installed.

A close up of the new kitchen floors.

Canyon Sun and the new flooring in the kitchen. Also you may notice that Dad installed new hardware on the doors and drawers.

The living room staircase and the loft. 

Here is the virtual tour!

Before

Here are some pictures of the first day that we went to view the condo. 

The view from our loft looking down on the living room (the entrance is just to the left of this picture). 

Our extremely retro and soon to be replaced green dryer.

This is our kitchen...probably where the most amount of work is going to be done. 

Forrest hanging out on our back patio.

This is our master bedroom...and Fo being silly. I can't find a picture with the dark green accent wall. 

This is the upstairs bathroom in the master bedroom....it's a little small and an unpleasant green color. We can't change the size just yet...but we are going to fix that color!

This is our staircase (in the living room leading upstairs) and behind that you can see the loft (aka...Fo's man room)

This picture is of the living room. You can see the gas fireplace and the brown accent 

wall. 

Our house...in the middle of the street

This year has been a very exciting one for Foco and me. He proposed to me in a pumpkin patch this past October, so we have been busy getting ready for our October 2009 wedding. We also just recently took on another project--renovating and fixing up our condo. We have to admit, there wasn't anything that seriously needed to be done, but since we are making it our own, we wanted to change a few things to make it feel more like our home. We were so lucky to close on the condo a few weeks before Forrest left for spring training so he and I were able to pick out the appliances, flooring, and colors for the different rooms. I promised to keep him updated on our progress back home. I also figured I would go ahead and set up a blog so that our family and friends around the country can see what we are up to.