Hello, it's us (we've been wondering if after all this time you'd like to read about our house still).

Hey guys, just wanted to say that we're still here and we still talk about the blog and you guys and working on the house and hopefully someday soon I'll post some "real" content again. We keep bumping into old friends who want to know what we've been up to on the house and since I've officially left my day job (hooray!) to work on Lamphouse full-time, I might have a few minutes here and there to do some actual work on the ol' girl. It is her 99th year after all, so she deserves a little extra care and maybe, just maybe, some paint. No promises, though ; ) 

In the mean time, here's a round up of what we've been up to in the year and some months since I posted last: 

For my birthday last April, my folks agreed to work on building a little "patio" for our backyard. Call me crazy but I do NOT like sitting around the fire pit, feeling all the little creepy crawlies on my feet so it was "Goodbye grass!" and hello pavers, edging, and mulch. *Sorry in advance for the cell phone pics y'all*

First, we measured, dug a hole, leveled everything out...

...then the rains came and...unleveled things. We put gravel and sand underneath the pavers and then added new edging and mulch, along with a little half wall and a mini berm. 

Here's a crap shot I took from our sunroom windows (are they dirty? I can't tell). 

And yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is an ABOVE GROUND POOL. Listen, when you live in Kansas and you don't have central AC, you do what you gotta' do. And I gotta' pool. It cost about $150 and we spent almost every.single.night. bobbing up in down in there, smelling the moonflowers, and bringing our body temperature back down to a reasonable level before going to bed. 

Sure, it makes me want to listen to High Life every time I look at it and sure it looks like a little eyesore in this photo (the grasses on the berm have grown considerably since this was taken) but man, it's a treat. 

Conan built my little boardwalk you see there out of scrap wood we had lying around and it helps keep the dirt out of the pool. 

I still want to do some type of lighting underneath the little bench edge and maybe paint or affix some fake stone to those cinder blocks but it's our little oasis and now...get this...we actually USE our backyard instead of just staring at it from the laundry room windows all summer long! 

Which is awesome because...MOONFLOWERS!! They are by far, the best part about summer in Kansas. They love the heat, don't mind the dry spells, and they smell like perfume. 

Around the same time, Conan got a wild hair (no pun intended for that wild hair pic down there lol) and decided he was sick of our basement being a totally messy, unusable space so he cleaned the whole thing out, drylocked the walls, and built work benches and shelves. There's even a little spot for the mini fridge! (Oh, and Shorty "helped"). 

Next up, we headed to Estes Park for our 7th summer of hiking until it hurts. Or, as we call it, ~a very relaxing vacation~ lol. 

Here's Conan on our descent from Mt. Chiquita 

It was pretty hazy this year which was a bummer for summits but it did make for some incredible, sort of Great Smoky Mountain-style sunsets. Here's Conan in Moraine Park, near our campsite. 

The rest of the summer and most of the fall was devoted to Lamphouse and all that photobooth-ery but we did manage to make it to our friend's wedding in Philadelphia and have a 16 hour whirlwind tour of New York as well. 

We left Wichita and drove to Kansas City at 3 am and when we arrived at Newark, we immediately just went to Penn Station and started walking. The whole day was incredible but also like a weird, half-asleep, half-awake dream. 

We walked from Penn Station to the Freedom Tower then across the Brooklyn Bridge and then trained it back to Newark. Phew! 

Philly was beautiful. So much history and neat buildings. We pretty much had the same game plan as New York outside of the wedding-y stuff: walk and walk and walk and walk. 

On our last afternoon, we walked down to Independence Seaport Museum and blew Conan's tiny, boyhood mind but WALKING AROUND IN A SUBMARINE! If you look closely, you can see him actually losing it : D 

For Conan's 35th birthday in February, we went out to Estes Park with our Philly friends for a two day run around RMNP. It was so neat to finally see what the park looks like in winter after seeing it in only the summer for so many years. 

The past couple of months have been spent getting back to photo booth stuff. We took the "Lampy" camper out for a run of photos last month. It's the first time she's left the driveway in a couple of years and she handled it like a champ. You can see all of the portraits we took and developed here on our Facebook page. 

And last but certainly not least, we added another Birdie Booth to our fleet! Now we officially have two indoor photo booths, the Grand Wagoneer Photo Booth, and ~occasionally~ the Lampy camper.

Here's Birdie #2 in our dining room this past Saturday before her first event <3

I think that pretty much brings things up to speed. 

Just a couple of low lifes, livin' the high life

travelin' all over

buildin' photo booths like it's compulsory

still NO paint on the house since we started prep like, two years ago ughhhhh....

Until next time, 

Keep Smiling! 

~ Katherine

Yellowstone, There's No Place Like Home

The thing I love most about vacation is how much it makes me appreciate coming home. Sure, it's always sad to end a trip but boy, does it feel good to use your own bathroom : ) 

Just the other day, we returned from what we'd affectionately referred to as "the trip of a lifetime" to Yellowstone National Park. So if it seems like I kind of put the projects and the guest room and the blog on hold for a second, it's because my mind was racing with campsite reservations and packing, and my most favorite pastime, making lots and lots of lists. 

If you're planning a trip there yourself or you're just curious what it's like here's a few pictures. 

We drove through Colorado and Wyoming (stayed at our first Airbnb which was really reassuring since we're planning to rent out our guest room on there in the near future) and camped in Canyon campground for four nights.

It was unreal. I'm sure that's a given but until you've seen it for yourself, there's just no way to imagine it.

 Conan had actually been once, about three years before we got married and although I had seen all of the pictures and heard all of the stories I was not prepared for a) boiling mud or b) the sheer volume of people who are there. 

Now, I'm going to brag a little bit so brace yourself. 

We celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on this trip (July 18th) and since it's our wood anniversary, Conan made me these amazing magnets! 

Can you even believe that? When I saw them, I called him at work to make sure he didn't just buy them before I went and started telling everyone he made them!

They're taken from a picture of us last year on our anniversary.

So cute, so talented, so easy to brag on : ) 

But now, vacation's over and it's back to work on the house and the Lamphouse. Before we left, we had managed to do quite a bit of work on furnishing the guest room so that our friend Lisa could stay in there while she house-sat.

New linens, new curtains on both windows, toe-smashing radiator pipes gone, two new outlets, pretty new rug, and a Dollar Tree trashcan spray-painted gold (which I will totally do a DIY of later this week, lol).

I'll post some more pictures once I've gotten everything settled and unpacked. In the meantime, have a great weekend and Keep Smiling!

A Trip to the Barn, Sink Success!

I don't know what it's like where you guys are but here in the ol' wheat state it has been (was when I drafted this yesterday) unseasonably warm. Like, over 60 degrees warm. Like, get outside as much as possible because this ain't gonna' last for long, warm. Unfortunately that came to an end today but for a few precious days, productivity was turned up and we were able to get lots done around the house. Namely, the little toilet closet that could. 

When you last laid eyes on the terlit under the stairs it was lookin' kinda' meh.

But in just a matter of a few days here and there (dad vacation days to be exact) it is starting to look a little bit like a real room!

As I mentioned, my dear, sweet, awesome, funny, smart, old dad was kind enough to spend part of his hard-earned vacation framing in the left side of the room. (Am I laying it on too thick, dad? Just thick enough?) 

My dear, sweet, kind, adorable mother (too thick?) went to Lowe's with me on Saturday so we could load up on plumbing to move the toilet pipe from its original location over to the left where it is now and so we could go ahead and run the hot and cold water from the other side of the basement, under the stairs and to where we *hoped* the sink would be. 

That's right.

Hoped.

See, we still hadn't found a sink as of this weekend and aside from my one sad attempt at Architectural Salvage, we hadn't really had time to look for one. Craigslist was coming up empty so I recommended a trip to an antique store about an hour's drive away.

Since our weather has been amazing lately, I figured it would be a good time to take the Grand Wagoneer for a country drive and see if we could find ourselves a sink.

I called first and after hearing that they had "only about 25 sinks" ~only~ I figured it would definitely be worth the hour drive. 

*it should be noted that this is only one small section of two entire buildings worth of stuff

Antique scythe anyone? 

You can see a little more of a different room in this photo that Conan took while I walked around like 

(@_@) 

So.Much.Stuffs.

So anyway, about the sink. 

Remember when I mentioned that I just didn't feel comfortable paying $45 for that sink a few weeks ago because I knew that eventually I would find a better fit for a better price. Well, read 'em and weep y'all: 

I am in love. I cannot wait to get that lil' guy (permanently) on the wall and start washing some hands in a proper bathroom instead of just a toilet closet! 

Now, if you're so inclined, gaze upon a different kind of beauty. After our trip we were on such a sink buyin' high that we drove out to the Marion Reservoir and Conan took some pictures. It's a beautiful place and it was such a nice way to say goodbye to the nice weather. 

This is a rare thing in Kansas: a day with virtually no wind!

Mountains are great and oceans are neat but the sunsets in Kansas are just...sherbet colored. Sherbet-y?

Thanks for coming on a little trip with us! Stay warm!

Hello, again

I've tried and tried to think of something funny to say to break the very thick ice that has formed on ye olde blog but rather than waste time I'll just get right to the scolding I surely have coming.

Bad blogger! Bad, bad house blogger! For shaaaaaaame!

Okay, but in all seriousness. A HUMONGOUS thank you to everyone who is still reading this blog and stopping by regularly to check in on things. It's like being out of town and knowing that all of your friends are swinging by the old homestead to make sure it hasn't turned to rubble and it's a comforting feeling and I appreciate it. We appreciate it.

In even more seriousness, a GIGANTIC apology is in order for neglecting to stop in and say a few words about where we've been, how the house is coming along and why everything just stopped after Halloween.

So, about all of that stuff. Well, to be honest with you, when you write a blog about fixing up a house you kind of have to be fixing it up in order to write a blog about it. It's a viscious circle of having to actually do things. Ugh, things! And the truth is, since the Accidental Kitchen Remodel (which, surprisingly was on one of my favorite "ways to kill a few hours blog", Hooked on Houses) we haven't really done anything big or even medium to the house. In other words, not very cool stuff to write about or to read about. Not that it's a good excuse to drop off the face of the internet Earth, it's not. It's just what happened. No existential crisis about blogging, no life-altering changes, just not much house-related stuff to write about.

So, what did we do between Halloween and now? If you want to know, read on.

First off, we drove nearly 3,000 miles round trip to where I'm from, Church Hill, TN.

The driveway up to Mammaw's house.

It was an emergency trip, brought on by the illness of my aunt, Kathy. Without going into too much detail, I will say that it was as nice as something that sad can be. My sister drove up from Alabama with her husband and kids and we got to spend a day together at my mammaw's house reminiscing about all of the crazy stuff we used to do to get on each other's nerves (sisters, am I right?).

Sarah got a cute hat at Wal-Mart. She's the cutest.

We also got to do some exploring around the property and Conan snapped a few pictures of my great-grandmother's house.



My great grandmother Goldie's house.


 

The barn

This is where my sister and I lived as kids. Well, not out in the open. There was a trailer there, of course!

Those are pictures we'll treasure forever and even though it was heartbreaking I'll treasure this trip and getting to see my family forever as well.


Let's see...what else...what else is there? I feel like there's something else that's been taking up a lot of our time...

Oh, right!
We bought a vintage travel trailer!

See, when I said that we hadn't been doing anything since Halloween, what I meant was, we haven't been doing anything on the house. See what I did there? I tricked ya'.

We've actually been working quite feverishly on this trailer.

See, sometime in late September, Conan and I took the dog for a walk and made the decision to start a business together (!!) and that business requires a vintage travel trailer.

What is that business, you ask? Well, it's kind of hard to explain but we're calling it a "Mobile Studio and Darkroom". Basically, it's like a photobooth on wheels, only we're actually taking and developing the pictures by hand, on site.
You can visit the website here and keep up with us on facebook, twitter and the 'gram.

We looked and looked for a trailer and then, glory be! we found this one for a cool 500 bucks on October 20th.

We started working on it immediately to get as much done as possible before winter and to be honest, I just wasn't sure if anyone that enjoyed reading about us fixing up our old house would want to read about fixing up an old trailer.

It had a little stove and sink and everything.
 

Now it has pretty much  nothing in it. For now...

But, I think it's cool and Conan thinks it's cool and Shorty and Maggie think it's cool so I'm going to blog about it. Maybe not super regularly because, getting ready to start a business takes a lot of my focus, but it's definitely going to get a fair amount of airtime seeing as how it's pretty much all we've been working on since October and we've got lots of pictures to prove it.

Cool? Cool.

Recap:

You guys are awesome and you rule hard at reading blogs.

We drove to Tennessesee.

We decided to start a business.

We bought a trailer for said business.

We bought a beautiful '89 Jeep Grand Wagoneer to pull said trailer.
(Pics of this next)

I'm going to give you the dirty deets about tearing apart and rebuilding the insides of a trailer.

And maybe I'll talk about the house a little, too because...you know...house blog. ^
And because I have done some little things here and there that I'd like to show y'all.

Again, thanks for sticking with us and I hope you stay tuned in for our next big adventure!


Keep Smiling : )