A Sorry and an Update

I'm sorry, I know I've been MIA lately, I've just been soooo busy with life, house renovations, etc. So here is a sneak peak of what I have been busy with:

 Bathroom Demo!

This is just the beginning of my bathroom renovation! I promise to give you full details when the project is totally complete (by that I mean, I've actually decorated it! The big stuff is done now I just need to add finishing touches). Also sorry for the crappy phone pic, in the midst of remodeling the bathroom I couldn't find my camera!

But since I have been neglecting my blog lately I guess I should add a little more substance to this post, so here is an entirely different (and much simpler) project. Really, its just my dining room decor, but I like it, so I will share it!

 This is how our dining room looked in the MLS pictures and when we first viewed our house. 

These are how the dining room looks now, and yup those are a bunch of power cords on the ground, my hubby thinks thats a good place to charge all things electronic. 

So the things I like about this room:

• I like that is much less sparse now, it looks full and lived in
• It is bright, thanks to those windows
• It has color, and I LOVE color
• It has storage
• Its a little funky, and a little eclectic, but not over the top weird (at least in my opinion)
• Oh and there are a few details in this room I really like, but you can't see them well here, so maybe I will take close up pics and show them on another day.... But they are, those bird pics about the shelves, they are so cute and they are just on wood and I think they are great. I also have a very cute wood owl on the shelving unit that I think is just so cute (he is my new love) and a little wire peacock also sitting on the shelving unit.

Some things I want to do with this room still:

• I like the chandelier I have in this room but it is a swag and I'd like to make it the regular light fixture, I'd like to remove the funky light fixture in the ceiling because not only is it ugly, it gives off bad light, and it is in a weird spot, its more in the center of the whole room as opposed to over the table. 
• I'd like to put in a chair rail or wainscoting simply because I think they are pretty
• Possible crown molding...?
• I also want that short wall just behind the black bench to become a bar, I will put a granite slab on it and make it a bar on both sides hopefully (obviously it wont be quite that simple... but still, it should be a fairly simple project)
• I'm sure there are more things I'd like to do, but at the moment thats all I can think of

So thats all for now, and I promise and update with my whole bathroom reno soon!

It's Birthday Time

Yup, its the truth, I am officially old. On June 1st I had my birthday, and this was not just any birthday, it was a milestone birthday and it was my first birthday as a married lady. It was birthday number 25!

Now I know that 25 is not in fact old, but it sure does feel old sometimes! Anyways I had quite the 25th, my husband makes fun because he thinks I had 4 birthdays, and honestly.... I did, and thats just the way I like it!

So on Memorial day weekend I celebrated my birthday with my husbands family, we helped his brother and sister in law paint their new house, then we spent time with the in laws and had a great time. They spoiled me with gifts and lots of love and it was great!

On Wednesday (my actual Birthday) 2 of my coworkers treated me to lunch at Thai (my fave and our birthday tradition), and after work my husband surprised me with reservations at a nice restaraunt in town. I got home and husband was all dressed up for a night on the town! He also gave me such a great gift! A Kindle!!!! For anyone who doesn't know what a kindle is you should go to amazon and read about it, it is basically an ereader but it is so freaking fabulous, the one he gave me is my second one because my other one is older and is big and bulky for carrying in my purse and my new one is cute and compact. I guess for most people this wouldnt be the most exciting gift, but I am a major reader (my hubby calls me a nerd, but whatever!) and I have been wanting this for a long time, so it was a great gift!

After dinner we went and had my favorite dessert- Frozen Yogurt, yummm!!!! We have a new yogurt place in town so I had been dying to try it, its all natural, fat free, freshly made everyday from fresh ingredients, and it was soooooooo good! Now I can't wait to go back!

My biggest birthday celebration didn't come until Friday and that was the party my hubby planned for me (it wasn't a surprise because he knows how I feel about big surprises, and it is not good!) but it was very sweet! He knew I wanted to revel in my youth so he planned my party at our local skating rink! It was such a great idea and so fun! So pre skating all our friends came over and my husband bbq'd then we prepared ourselves for some fun and silliness and made our way to the skating rink and then strapped on our skates! First I should say we were all a bit terrified, none of us had skated in YEARS and lets be honest, I am like the farthest thing from coordinated- and last time I roller skated I broke my wrist, oh boy!

I don't know about your skating rink, but ours has not changed one bit! The skates are even the same from when I was a kid! Fortunately we had a great time, no one fell, and we had no injuries!

My husband even booked the party room for us, complete with decorated walls, soda, cake and candles, it was pretty great!

This is a terrible picture, but you get the idea, and yup thats my husband in the background.

The next day we had dinner celebrations with my family, great food, great company, excellent party.

All in all it was a great birthday season, I was very spoiled and I loved every second of it!

When one door closes.....

...another one opens. But really one door got taken off and disposed of, and another one got installed and now opens and closes beautifully!

For a wedding gift my grandmother (shown below- isn't she beautiful!) bought my husband and I a new front door.

Its a pretty awesome gift considering our old front door was funky, hollow (bad for keeping the elements outside and our central heat or air inside), and not closing very well (we had to lock it from the outside for it to actually close), and had like 3 windows very low that were not clouded so we had minimal privacy! Unfortunately I don't have a good picture of the old front door so you'll just have to imagine it, but I promise it was not pretty!

When choosing our new front door we wanted something pretty that didn't look just like everyone elses front door, but wasn't too fancy or pretentous for our older, not extraordinary, with a small entery way house. We also didn't want to break bank since it was a gift. And in case you didn't already know this, front doors are mighty expensive! Esspecially if you want a fiber glass door, which is what we got since they don't conduct heat or cold, and they don't dent or  wear easily. Plus if you have an older home (I don't know about a newer home since I don't have one...) its a pain to install, I'm very glad my grandma also included in her gift having a professional install it, because the prehung door we bought was a standard size, our our older homes door area was a not so standard size, it was a good 3 or 4 inches shorter and an inch narrower than the new door! So they had to cut a new hole and do a bunch of other tweaking to make the new door fit perfectly, look pretty, and open and close easily. Just so you get an idea of what a big project it was (since I had no clue) the installer came at 10:15 am on Monday and we had to leave for some pre made plans at 4:45 pm and he was still there working away! I think he left around 5:30pm, so this was a BIG project. So even though it was not cheap and was a lot of work, I think it made a huge improvement in the appearance of our house! Here is a picture after it was installed, we still need to touch up the paint around the trim, re paint the trim, and paint the door but you get the idea of the door we chose and how pretty it looks!

I really want to paint the door like an aubergine color- a purplish red, sort of wine colored. and the trim the same off whitish color as the rest of the trim, however my husband just wants to paint the door the same color as the trim.... So I guess we'll just have to wait and see who wins, I have a feeling that this time my husbands going to win simply because he's the one who will be doing the painting.... and I suppose he should get his way sometimes!



Wedding Details

So, here is a little recap of some of our wedding details. These are the details my mom (because shes wonderful) and I worked our butts off to try and make perfect that I'm sure no one will remember, so I made sure to have my photographer get pics of it all so that all my work was not in vain!

Here you go.

The rosary around my bouquet is my grandmothers, its the rosary I remember her praying with all my life, so it was my something blue, and obviously it was borrowed too- (however my other something borrowed was my necklace from my other grandmother, I loved having pieces from both of them on my wedding day!) 

 This is one of my very favorite "details" of my wedding. It is a purple, green, and blue (wedding colors) chandelier that hung next to the archway we got married under. It was definitely a labor of love! First painting it was a pain, and then trying to figure out how to hang it, where to hang it, how to make the lights work, etc. was ridiculous, but it all worked out and I love it, now I am going to hang it in my office!

My shoes!!!  You can also see our arch in the background with our chandelier.

 So this is our first kiss, but look past that and you can see our arch with peacock feathers woven in it.

 

1 of my 3 cupcake trees- we had 350 cupcakes! I loved them! We decided to do cupcakes instead of cake since we don't really like cake, it was cheaper, and we didn't want to do a cake cutting. 

Our cupcake topper, two little peacocks sitting on a tree (a cupcake tree that is)! 

I had an agua fresca bar, we had I think 3 or 4 different types of agua fresca and lemonade (in case you didn't realize, I am hispanic, so agua fresca for those who don't know what it is, is a Mexican fresh fruit drink)

 One of my centerpieces. We used assorted clear, blue, green, and purple glass jars, and we places some flowers and peacock feathers in a few of them, I also had alternating blue runners, or long peacock feathers as runners. 

 The table settings looked like this (but hopefully they had a straighter spoon). Each table was alternating as well with a green big napkin and a blue smaller or vice versa- blue big and green small. As you can see, I LOVE color, and I don't shy away from bold, I also tend to not be especially traditional!

Just decorations....

The big picture!

 This pic isn't really a detail but I wanted you to see my bouquet because it was absolutely gorgeous, I LOVED LOVED LOVED it, so here is one angle of it, sorry I don't have a better one on my computer! 

I hope you enjoyed the details we worked so hard for, I know I did!

House Painted!

Whew! My house is officially painted! This is a huge relief, and I will be honest it was a much bigger job than I expected. I told you that a friend who used to be a professional painter was helping us with it, but he is just one guy and our house needed a lot of prep, so the prep took about 2 1/2 days alone- with scraping paint caulking, taping and covering windows, then painting the main color of the house (thank God for the sprayer) took about 4ish hours, then we still had to paint all of the trim and the garage- so in all it took about 4 days to get the whole thing done, but its done, woohoo!


Here is a picture before, in case you forgot.

Here are some pictures mid painting project- the house was painted but the garage and trim still needed to be done

And the mostly finished product! One window trim still needs to be painted but here is out freshly painted house!

Now I am just working on sprucing up the yard, planting some flowers, etc. It is slowly becoming more and more like home!


Linked up for the first time, check out the blogs and everyones remodels, before and afters, recipes, crafts, DIY projects, and such!

Wedding and Stuff

So I got such great news today! My house is going to be painted this weekend, woohoo! I am seriously so excited, here I just said I was crossing my fingers it would be soon and now my husband took the initiative and got it planned, yay! I should be honest and say we aren't actually painting the house ourselves, a friend of my husbands was previously a professional painter but has retired, so he is going to do it for us cheap, and we'll help of course! I am so excited my house is going to be slightly less funky looking on the outside (unfortunately we still need to tackle the landscape)! Anyways, I promise to post update pics when its done!

Now that I've said all that on to some wedding recaps! I'm kind of over the whole wedding thing (I know I'm terrible), it was so fun and so wonderful, but so much work, so I'm not going to talk too much about it, I'll just give the highlights then give you the link to my wedding video and and some pics. So.... we had Mexican food (because I'm Mexican and thats just always what I thought I'd do) and it was a total hit- not to mention so cheap! We had about 300 guests (yikes!), and we wanted the ceremony to be short and sweet, I didn't want a lot of traditional things- no bouquet or garter toss, no cake cutting, etc. I really just wanted to have this great celebration and it totally was, so here ya go! 


Wedding music video: By Tyler Faires Productions
He was absolutely amazing to work with, very professional and creative, I could not love my video and experience with him more! 
http://vimeo.com/22581513

Wedding Photography: Betsey Walton Photography
She is so freaking amazing words can't even say! I love her and I love her photos, she is so sweet and easy to work with but also so talented! 

First here are some photos from my DIY fauxto booth- 

 My silly mom, aunt and grandma

 A few of my ladies

 Myself and all of my bridesmaids

 The Newlyweds!!!!

 

 My brother and his girlfriend

My new family (the in laws)!

Now on to some pro photos: I'm going to be very self absorbed and highlight only a few of just the two of us, I'll show you some details and other pics on a later post.

 This sunset really happened, isn't it gorgeous! *swoon*

 Our first kiss as husband and wife, woohoo!

Alright, this recap is done, I'm tired all over again just looking through the photos and remembering how much work it all was. Also on that note I should say how very very much I appreciate all of my wonderful friends and family for helping me plan, organize, set up, clean up, and celebrate my wedding! 

I promise to give more pictures and details soon!!! And check back in for pictures of our house paint job!

Projects, Projects, Projects!

It seems like being a new homeowner means there is ALWAYS something to do. I am always cleaning or organizing, or decorating, but my favorite part is planning all the ways I'm going to redo things in my house! 

Here is what you should know about me and my house before I continue: First you should know I am cheap, like real real cheap, I don't pay full price or normal price for anything, I am a bargain shopper! So when I bought a house I went cheap, we bought a house we really liked that we could afford on one income (should anything ever happen to one of our jobs), its in a neighborhood we like, it has many of the things we thought were important- 2 bathrooms, a decent neighborhood, central heat and air, a great backyard, and lots of potential!  But it is a work in progress, and boy did it need some work! It was move in ready (thank God!) but since moving in we have undertaken many projects, and I love to dream about all of my future projects! 

Here is an picture from the realtors listing of my sad, little, needs a lot of work, but very dearly loved, house! (I swear it looks cuter on the inside!)

Yup this baby needs a paint job, and some TLC, I know! 
Since we bought the house we painted everything on the inside (except the bathrooms and the ceilings)- so that project is done, and we will be painting the bathrooms when we redo the bathrooms which will be soon! 
The first project on the agenda is our hall bath, here is what that looked like before we moved in. 

Yes its true, that is a green vanity (which shockingly enough is worth some money because it is so very vintage- and I did contemplate keeping and revamping it- but it needs a new faucet, sink and counter top and it just is not very functional, no real storage space, so I decided not to), a green toilet and a green tub! It is pretty terrible, and before we moved in a we put in a pretty new WHITE toilet, and covered the tub with a shower curtain, and this month we will be repainting, putting in new flooring and putting in a new vanity, counter top and sink! I am sooooo excited! I already purchased my vanity and sink counter top combo, and the best part is it was totally free to us because we had many Home Depot and Lowes gift cards from our wedding! I will update with more pics and details of the redo when we get it done, I will also tell you all about how we did it on a budget- a major budget, the whole thing will mostly be free, however for people who can't get it free it was still very budget friendly, but more about that when we do an update!


My next project will be painting the outside of the house, woo hoo, our neighbors wont hate us anymore for dragging down their property values (and I mean dragging WAY down)! This should hopefully be done by the end of June (fingers crossed) and maybe even sooner! And the constant work in progress will be the yard, and boy is that overwhelming! And lately I've been dreaming about my kitchen, I know exactly how I'm going to do a low cost redo of that, it wont be a forever dream kitchen redo but it will be a for now and so much better kitchen redo!


So I am going to leave you with this picture of a beautiful dream kitchen *swoon* maybe someday I will have a big beautiful island like this! Until then I will be perfectly happy with simply owning my own kitchen even if it is a long way off from this!