What's New?

The purpose of this post is really just to update family from Florida with whats new around our house recently. Hopefully this will give everyone a little peek as to what we have been working on and accomplishing inside and outside the house!

Enjoy!

This is one of my favorite new things, an antique map of the county we live in. I was inspired by a co-workers decor at her house and decided to order my own map off of EBay. It was pretty cheap, so that was nice too! We got the frame at Garden Ridge and I matted it myself with some "antique looking" scrapbook paper that I had laying around! Isn't it pretty?

This is our new little hose area. Previously this area was overgrown with sweet peas and when we used the hose a mess was created...water dripped and while it watered the plant, it also created a lot of mud. This solution was easy and pretty affordable too. I like how clean the area looks now! We have planted grass seed around the blocks too...if you look closely you can see the grass peeking through the dirt. Side note: Mom my said that I was a mini-Randy (my Dad) because she and my brother would never think about doing something like this or much less get excited about it, but my Dad would. I guess I take after him!

The above shelves were a Christmas gift from my Dad and we finally have them hung! He built them for us, but didn't paint them because I wasn't sure what color I wanted or stain...so we did that. The only reason it took us so long to get them painted and up was because of winter...you can't spray paint in the winter. Anyways, I really like the shelves and hope to get some more picture frames to add soon. I also painted all the frames to match. I'm not sure which photo I like better...they were taken on different settings and at different times of the day. Funny how different they look!

And last but not least, our new living room ceiling fan! We had a fan in this room, but it was old and did not have a light on it, which we wanted/needed. We went to Lowe's to purchase a light kit and ended up with a beautiful new fan for only a little bit more money...gotta love sales! After borrowing a ladder from our neighbor since our ceilings are 10ft, and a couple of hours-it was up and so pretty! We both love it!

Well, that's a small handful of the new things around our household! Hope everyone has a great Thursday!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...everywhere you turn!

Well folks, we finally got our first snowfall this season! I had been waiting anxiously for quite some time, so I was maybe the only person who was actually excited about it. Seriously, I ran to the window at work with excitement and was met with grouchy, bah humbug comments from co-workers. Apparently people do not appreciate the beauty of snow!

What's not to love!? Well, I learned driving home Tuesday night, that driving is what's not to love. The roads were HORRIBLE in my opinion. Since I am a Florida girl and have very little driving in snow experience I thought that it might just be me, but no. Many people reported horrible roads and had serious problems commuting home. I can't even remember how many cars I passed that had slid off into ditches or fields.

It was scary!

It ended up taking me almost an hour in a half to make it home (about 25 miles), and it was dark. I was so thankful to finally be home, safe and warm. I will tell you that I prayed a lot on the drive home Tuesday night!

We snapped some pictures on Tuesday night while it was still snowing and I took some Wednesday night too. Louie is not a fan of the snow yet, but I hope he comes to like it. If he doesn't-it could be a very long winter for him!

Here are some pictures:

The flakes were big, heavy and wet. They stuck to things like electric poles, wires, trees, fences...you name it. It was beautiful!

Louie in his winter coat...poor pup was not happy!

Isn't he cute!?

These were taken on Wednesday:

Louie was so excited to see me when I came home. He was running and jumping and it was so cute. I tried to capture some pictures of him, but it was difficult! I love the above picture though...

He had to take a break and do some licking, this just cracks me up!

And of course I had to take some pictures of the glowing Christmas tree :) Have I mentioned that I love this time of year?! I do!

See that ruffle tree skirt? I made it and I love it with our tree!

LOVE the reflection in the window on this one!

Has anyone else been hit with snow this week? I am sure ours will melt because it doesn't look like we will get anymore for about a week. I do hope that we have a white Christmas for my family from Florida. I have been praying for that everyday! Have a great Thursday everyone!

New Furniture!

First, I want to report the delivery of treats to our neighbors. We went out last night around 7pm-hoping that the time would not intrude on their dinners or anything, in the freezing rain to make our deliveries. We have 3 neighbors we were delivering to, and 2 our of the 3 were home. I think they really appreciated the gesture and were maybe even a little bit surprised by it. The first delivery was at the house on our right (that's for sale) and the woman answered the door. This is the woman that we have not met, but tricker treated at our house. I introduced us and explained that we made a sweet treat for Thanksgiving and that we hoped they had a wonderfully blessed Thanksgiving. She smiled and said thank you and even reach to shake my hand...but never told us her name. So we have met, but I still do not know her name. This kind of disappointed me. The second stop was the house on our lefts- upstairs apartment. We already know the gentleman who lives there, so it was pretty easy to deliver his. He too was surprised. I hope they enjoy them!

Now onto the real post today:

 About a month ago Stephen and I went furniture shopping and made a purchase we were quite excited about!

A week ago that purchase was finally delivered to our house.

Of course the delivery time was smack dab in the middle of the day (10-2). Why do places always do that? Luckily it worked out for Stephen to leave work early and get home in time to meet the delivery men. We were a little nervous about getting the furniture in the house since we had such a struggle getting our previous furniture in. Of course, our salesman was completely confident that everything would fit even though he did not know any specifics about our house. In the end we loved the furniture (and the price!) so we took a chance. Guess what?! It fit perfectly and without any stress at all.

Praise the Lord for that!

Here is a shot of our new loveseat and ottoman:

And the couch:

And the full room:

I was so anxious to get home from work and see the new furniture. The afternoon seemed to go on FOREVER for me, but finally I made it home. It was so exciting to come in and see new furniture in our living room. I was over the moon! Until...

I noticed the above hole in the couch. That's right. Our new furniture was delivered with damage. After calling the furniture store I was told that they would send a repairman out from a furniture upholstery shop. I was okay with that. Have they called or come yet? No. So, this afternoon I called the furniture store again. I mean, it has been a week that we have had the furniture and are not sitting on it because we don't want to make the hole larger! Today I actually talked to our salesman who said he was not told about the damage and that nothing was reported. Umm, really? All seems to be well now because he is trying to get us a replacement. I am thankful for that at least. I know that this was not the store fault, or any ones fault really-it is just a little disappointing to make a large purchase, look forward to it for weeks and then find out that it is damaged. Agreed?

I am hopeful that we will get a replacement sofa soon. Please pray that he finds one in this color, because they have been discontinued...hence the great deal we got!

Also, the room was very heavy with the large ottoman and coffee table. We decided to give the room a chance without the coffee table and so far I am loving it. We moved the coffee table to the basement before selling it or donating it just to make sure we were not going to miss it. I think removing it from the room was a good decision!

All in all, we love the new furniture. The loveseat is super comfy-and we know this because it is the only furniture we have been sitting on while waiting for the sofa to be repaired/replaced. Have you ever experienced poor customer service or damaged furniture?

I CANNOT believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Where did November go!?

I am determined...

...to meet our neighbors!

Before we moved into our house I was looking forward to meeting our neighbors. I guess I just kind of thought it would happen. I didn't expect a welcoming quite like you see in the movies, but I did expect our paths to cross and an opportunity for introductions to present itself. Well, I was wrong in my thinking.

We have lived in our house since the end of July and have yet to meet all of our neighbors. In fact, the wife of our house next to us tricker treated at our front door with her child and did not introduce herself. I only realized she was our neighbor when I noticed the child-who we have met. Obviously she knew we were her neighbors, so why would she not say "oh hey, I live next door-I think you have met my husband but not me. It's nice to meet you!" I don't think that would be too difficult...maybe I am expecting too much?

Anyways, I have been bound and determined to meet them, introduce ourselves and let them know that we are right next door if they need anything. Anything like eggs, or someone to get their mail while they are out of town. You know; the normal neighborly duties. Well don't you worry about us meeting our neighbors any longer (if you were worried in the first place), because I came up with a plan!

Last night I spent some time making some cracker candy and putting together cute little fall mason jars full of the sugary treat. Have you ever heard of or had cracker candy? My husband had not and well, turns out that he LOVES it. I sent him to work with the extras today to share with his co-workers and they LOVE it too. Looks like I might be making more of this soon! We plan on delivering the jars to our neighbors this evening-if it is not raining. No matter how awkward it is for us to walk up to our neighbors house and ring the door bell, we are going to do it. I am excited and nervous and anxious to deliver these. I hope they are well received and enjoyed by our neighbors! :)

In addition to our neighbors, I left a special treat in the mail box this morning for our walking mailman/mail lady. We have talked to the man who delivers our mail once, but he and a woman switch off. I don't know who will be the lucky one today to get the treat!

What about you-was it difficult to meet your neighbors? Like I said; I hope that we can establish a good relationship with both houses on our left and right! Oh, and the house on our right is for sale...any takers?

New furniture post is coming tomorrow...I promise! Have a great Tuesday everyone!

1st Floor Photo Tour!

Catch up with the upstairs photo tour here.

Since I seriously dropped the ball on doing our home tour, I thought I would revisit that idea! J I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to get these pictures taken, edited and posted to share with all my friends and family that are unable to come and visit us! Please accept my apology.

SO…

HERE GOES!

This is our front door, on the inside of our porch. I did not take a picture of the outside door because it was dark. BUT, you can refer to this post if you have forgotten how the front of the house looks!  

The front door opens up into our dining room, which is connected to all the rooms on the first floor. You could actually just walk in circles through all the rooms if you wanted. Ha, we have our own indoor track!

To the right in our dining room we have these big bay windows (that I love). We need some furniture to fill this space, but we are in no rush to get anything. Why? Well, because we are not sure exactly what we want or what would work in this space. Any ideas?

To the left side of the dining room we have our console table with odds and ends and our staircase to upstairs. There is also a doorway into the library (that’s what we call it) and the living room, too!  

This is looking into our living room from the dining room. Louie wanted to be in the picture, so you can see him too! I am not sure what color this is, it was here when we moved in. We have discussed painting the living room, but have no idea what color we’d like to change it to.

Fireplace & TV. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the fireplace? SO much!  

Our Sofa, painting by me and a little view of our big windows. The windows on this floor are the original windows from 1883. We really enjoy the shutters on the windows and that was a big selling point for us because we knew we would not have to worry about window treatments; which can be expensive!   

This is the view from the couch, looking through the dining room and into the kitchen.    

Entering the library…    

Our under the stairs coat and vacuum closet; I am so thankful that Stephen hung the hooks for the coats this weekend. Yay for having a place to hang jackets!     

This is the light fixture in the library. I kind of like it, kind of don’t. BUT it does flow well with the rest of the house so that means something! We were told that the older couple that used to live here eventually made this room their master bedroom because they had difficulty getting up and down the stairs.      

We use this room for DVDs, books and my craft/scrapbooking things. The plan is to put a daybed in here for an extra bed and reading area. Now, we just need to get starting on making one out of old doors!       

This bookshelf has mostly picture albums and scrapbooks on it. There are some paperback books too, but you can tell that I like to take pictures and document everything, ha! The butterfly rug was made by my little brother in elementary school (not sure what grade?) and he gave it to me as a Christmas gift. I still have it!        

The library connects to our half bath and laundry room. You can also get to the bath/laundry room through the kitchen. Louie’s kennel stays in this room during the day while we are gone, but we move it up to our room at night for sleepy time.          

      

Looking out the bathroom/laundry room into the kitchen…

And the kitchen. Quite possibly my favorite room in the house!

All the other houses we looked at had such dated kitchens that we would have needed to do some serious work. We were so blessed to find this house with beautiful cabinets, counters and newer appliances! God is so good!

Those cabinets on the left open up and have drawers that pull out. That is so awesome! It makes putting groceries and finding things SO much easier!  

The kitchen sink and window looking out into the mudroom…  

This is the door to/from the mudroom. We use this door daily when coming or going.   

And the mudroom! We just put the bench together last weekend and placed it out here so we could sit down and put our shoes on. I like having a place outside to do that because honestly, shoes do not belong in our house. We ordered a nice shoe rack too, but it has not arrived yet!    

These are all our shoes that will one day go on the shoe rack!     

And this is the door outside from the mudroom, that enters the backyard.      

And that, friends, is the tour of our first floor!  You may have noticed that the pictures are not perfect, and the house is not perfect. That is because we actually live here, and it shows. This is our home and we love it! Now, come on up and visit to see it for yourself…it is a little piece of history! (hint hint, family in FL!)       

Hope you enjoyed the tour! See ya next time!