Houzz Feature

Hey girl, hey! We've been featured once again over at Houzz.com.

It's an ideabook called 12 Inspiring Real-Life Vintage Kitchens and we're honored that our little Accidental Kitchen Remodel was included!

You should go have a look right now and be sure to read all of the comments because whoa-boy, did some people kind of...how do I put this...take it a little too seriously.

There are some cute kitchens over there and plenty of drool-worthy old stoves.

Enjoy!

Halloween, Magazines and Limbering Up for Real Projects

Thank you so much for all of your input on the dining room table. I think I know what I'm going to do and I also think that I'll probably change my mind like another five or six times before it cools down enough for me to leave the doors open and do this puppy indoors without moving it so...

 

...the point is, you're all decorating geniuses and I'm/we're very lucky to have a little online poll we can check anytime we need advice. Very lucky, indeed.

 

So, since you were all so kind with your thoughts I thought I would share with you some quick goings on 'round these parts.

 

First, with Halloween only like a month and change away I thought I would get started on my projects waaaaay way in advance. So in advance, that I actually started last year by scooping up some grave stones at Tar-jay for like pennies a few weeks after Halloween '11. They're going in the front yard along with this guy:

 

 

My mom and dad came up and got really dirty helping to create our very own grim reaper. We used this tutorial and it wasn't too hard but it was incredibly messy.

 

 

If you're wondering how I convinced my dad to spend his Saturday making a grim reaper it didn't take much convincing. This is the guy that made monster movies as a kid with his neighbors and climbed up an extension ladder with a monster mask on at one of my slumber parties to scare the living daylights out of a bunch of pre-teen girls. Ah, memories.

 

Anywho, I'll post about all of our decorations (including Steve up there) and DIY's once we get closer to the big day.

 

In other, less death-y news, Conan and I stretched our house project muscles this morning by putting up a little decorative hook on the back porch.

 

 

Phew! That was tough!

It is very cute, though and I can't wait to use it. Right now it's full of this weed/vine that's growing on our fence. Anyone know what that is? Little white flowers, smells great, gives instant headaches when sniffed? Anyone?

 

And finally, the really exciting news.

We got our copy of This Old House and guess who's in it?

 

 

Us!

 

 

Look at our goofy, little faces! I'm trying to wait until it's on their website so I can link you guys to it (like they requested) instead of scanning this in but still no luck. If you guys want to read about stuff you've already read about at length then make it known and we'll scan this bad boy tonight. Otherwise, just imagine that it says something like, "Look at these two crazy people. They showered in their basement for a year! That's nuts! It didn't cost much money. The end."

 

Sorry for the lack of enthusiasm it's just...we're just...really busy and tired and frankly, sometimes I collapse in a heap on the couch, watch the kitty tumbleweeds blow by, look at the shades we bought on vacation, still sitting their packages and say to myself, "Where do I even begin?"

 



Post-Vacation Blues

Pardon the extra long pause in posting but two weeks ago, we were getting ready for vacation, last week we were on it and this week, well...please see the title of this post.

As you may know, getting back into the daily grind after a glorious vacation ain't exactly a picnic. Every article of clothes you've ever owned needs to be washed and there's a mountain of things waiting for you to get started on after that's all folded and put away. Excuses, excuses, I know. Long and short, sorry for the delay, now we're back in bizness y'all.

So, where were we? The week before vacation was a hectic one. Tying up loose ends, cleaning like crazy, etc. Oh, and This Old House magazine sent a photographer and stylist to little ol' Wichita, Kansas just to take pictures of our bathroom and kitchen!

A little bit about that process...

First of all, the plan is for our house to be in the magazine in the fall sometime so the stylist had a whole color palette all picked out for both the bathroom and the kitchen. As you can see here, my big, new dining room table came in handy that day as it was covered with lots of stuff for the kitchen. What was the palette? Mustard.

Everybody pitched in. Our good friend Alec, who just happens to be a photo assitant here in town was able to pitch in last minute and help out as well. Here's Conan doing his number one favorite thing ever: ironing. I didn't get any great pictures of the bathroom colors because it was crowd-to-the-ed but you can see the cranberry colored towel there and it was bascially just more of the same.

They started in the bathroom because, as I pointed out to them, we kind of don't really have any air conditioning at all up there and as the day went on, it was only going to get hotter. They totally agreed with my suggestion.

Here, the stylist and photographer have a little, post-photo conference over the toilet. You know, like you do.

Also a neat little tidbit, notice that the sketch of Conan's that was above the tub has mysteriously changed? We were told a couple of days before that our nude sketch wasn't very "This Old House" friendly and so it had to go. NBD, I really like this one a lot.

Anywhoodle, we moved down to the kitchen and they styled and snapped and snapped and styled. I somehow managed to not take a single picture of how the kitchen looked (wanted to stay out of the way I guess) but just imagine our kitchen with a lot of yellow-ish, orange-ish stuff in it. Bam! Imagination!

Afterwards, they packed everything back up and hopped a plane out of here.

It was a pretty busy day. Maggie was pooped.

Now then, for those of you still scrolling, a little look at where we were last week!

First, we went to the Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa, CO. It was really unbelievable. We camped overnight and had a blast. We both agree that we wish we had spent more time there.

Then we drove up to Colorado Springs and stayed in this teeny-tiny cabin at the Timber Lodge. We stayed at this same place on our honeymoon. These things are old as dirt and as the lady at the front desk put it, they're "You really better like the person you're staying with." small.

We stopped at Garden of the Gods and had a little stroll. We snapped these pics which I think pretty much perfectly sum up the differences in our personalities. Conan is too cool for school and I am exactly not cool enough for anything, including school. But seriously, that one of Conan is going to make a BA pic when it's accompanying some smarty-pants Geologist thing he's written someday.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the United States Air Force Academy and checked out their chapel and visitor center. It's beautiful (and Free!) if you're ever in the neighborhood.

Then we went up to Estes Park, CO and visited Rocky Mountain National Park for the fourth year in a row. Surprisingly, we only repeated one hike, Long's Peak. This picture is from Twin Sisters. It was super fun and beautiful and all of those things that mountains typically are but I'll spare you any more pictures just in case you're just getting back from a vacation of your own and can't bear to look at another breathtaking vista unobscured by a pile of post-vacation laundry.

Welp, that's all for now! Thanks for catching up with us!

Houzz Tour!

Just dropping in real quick to let you guys know about our house tour over at Houzz.com!

The very kind, Cathy Lara did an interview with us and talk a little about stuff you've probably already heard us going on and on about if you read the blog regularly.

But, there are a few new photos in there that Conan graciously snapped including that one up yonder of the whole house in all of its "I need some paint!!!" glory and some of the guest room.

Read/see it all by clicking here.
or

You can just sit back with a nice, tall glass of something sweet and tea-ish and just let this little slideshow thing lull you to sleep.

Houzz Tour: A Fixer-Upper Becomes a Labor of Love

Houzz- Kitchen Remodel, Bathroom Remodel and More »

Neat-o!

We're In A Magazine Y'all!

What a way to wake up!

Got a text message this morning from our good friend Lisa with a picture of our goofy mugs (and Shorty's) in a local magazine!

A couple of weeks ago we did an interview with Women's Focus, a local magazine, about the blog, the house, our hilariously Clampett-esque home improvement philosophy "Once you've broken it, you can't break it any further!" and just whatever else we felt like spewing out of our mouth holes at the sweet young woman interviewing us. But seriously, it was a super fun time and we're very thankful.

You can head on over to their site and read the article by clicking here. I'll also add this to our "As Featured" section in the sidebar over yonder.

Fun fact: the photographer, Darrin Hackney, did such a great job considering he was being barked at constantly. Conan had to hold Shorty to calm him down and when he started to put him down Darren was like, "No! No, just leave him there." And that, my friends, is the story of how Shorty became famous through sheer intimidation.

This Old House Magazine: Our Living Room Edition

EDIT: If you want to read the teeny-tiny article, Conan scanned it and put it in the "As Featured" section down below.
Or, if you are on a strict, no scrolling diet, just click here.

Well folks, I was all set to get home from work and start snappin' pics of that "awesome thing" I found in the basement and mentioned the other day but then, to my surprise our dear reader Jenna mentioned that we were in This Old House magazine. What? Crazy, right?

I ran out and bought a copy (okay, I bought two) and took them straight to Conan at work so we could ooh and ahh over it.



There it is guys, the closest I'll ever get to meeting human teddy bear, Tom Silva.

I kind of alluded to the fact that we were going to be in the magazine waaaaay back in this post.

I never mentioned it though because we had no idea when we were going to be in the magazine and I just assumed (incorrectly) that they would give us a heads up before it came out. Nope.

But, whatever. It's just awesome and we're just as happy as can be.

Here are the AWESOME pictures Conan took for the magazine.

Fun fact, they had us remove just about everything (including our other couch) and then take a picture, put some things back, take another picture and so on.

We communicated with them via email and they would tell us what they liked and didn't about the picture. Like, "Move that chair a little to the left and center" and "move the couch away from the windows"

Compare that to what our living room normally looks like:

I'll have Conan scan the article tonight and we'll link it over in our "As Featured On" section in the sidebar if you want to take a look.

Yay!