FUN, FUN, FUN!

With all of this stuff going on with our house, the most fun weekend of my year has quickly approached! If you haven't heard me say it before, I have the GREATEST friends in the world! We have all been friends since varying stages of grade school and I love them all like family. Some I talk/communicate with nearly everyday and some only a few times a year, but when we all get together…WATCH OUT! 

Missing a few here but this some some of the crew at Kate's wedding

The rest of us in Asheville a few years ago

This weekend our "Mom" of the group, Abbey is getting married in Chicago. Abbey and I moved to Chicago together after college and were roommates for 3 years before I moved in with Stefano. I think of her like I imagine a sister would be if I had one. She is marrying an awesome guy whom we all absolutely love and this weekend is going to be crazy fun! 

Abbey and I on her 30th birthday in Chi

Another awesome part about it is that we are still super great friends with all of the guys we went to high school with, hung out with…and even dated. They have all found some great ladies who we have been lucky enough to add to our group. So every time someone gets married it's one big weekend of laughing over the dumbest, but yet most hilarious jokes ever! We've added a few kids to the mix, we've got a few pregnant in the group currently, but I can assure you of two things:

1)this mama ain't pregnant!

2)this kiddo ain't gonna slow me down this weekend!

Luckily my hubby will step in and my parents are coming down for the wedding as well. If anyone wants to volunteer to take Lucca when he wakes up at 630 am that would be highly appreciated!

Abbey and DJ have so many fun festivities planned I can hardly contain myself!

We have a bridal luncheon at Spiaggia on Friday. Abbey's family owned Pizzeria Uno in Wisconsin growing up and the rehearsal dinner will be there followed by a welcome party…FUN!

OH WAIT HAVE I MENTIONED OUR BESTIE FROM AUSTRALIA IS HERE FOR THE WEDDING?!?!?!?!

Saturday we are all getting our hair and makeup done and pretty much hanging out drinking mimosas like it's our job (don't worry Abs I won't have that many). They are getting married at one of the most beautiful churches in Chicago, Old St. Pat's  and the celebration will continue at The Drake. It will certainly be a weekend to remember as are all of the times we get together. 

With all of this being said I am feeling particularly emotional as of lately when I think of how blessed we all are. For the most part we have all been fortunate enough to have good health along with our spouses and families. I have had 3 Facebook friends as of recent whom are younger than me and recently been battling cancer. It is when things like this happen that you really realize how much these weekends mean that you get to spend celebrating together. So with that, I plan on enjoying myself to the fullest and taking lots of pictures to remember the wonderful weekend that lies ahead celebrating the start of Abbey and DJ's amazing life together.

Little bit of this, little bit of that...

The end of last week was a big one for the bathroom! The vanity, countertops, plumbing and lights were all installed. It's a fully functioning bathroom! It's looking great and I can't wait to share pictures once we get a few more things done in there :) I wanted to share a few of the selections I made with you. 

I had seen ads for wayfair.com and one came up on my Facebook page for 20% off and free shipping…SOLD! I really, really, really dislike to pay for shipping. Call me cheap, but it drives me cuckoo! I saw these made by Vaxcel and liked them. I had seen some similar in more expensive brand names but thought the frost of the light cover would help draw together the countertop on the vanity. 

http://www.wayfair.com/Vaxcel-Carlisle-3-Light-Vanity-Light-VXL2205.html

I had been eyeing up these mirrors at Ikea for some time and wanted to find a good place for them. I wasn't sure if the bathroom was going to work, but once we went with the bold wall color I thought these walnut mirrors from Ikea would help soften the colors in there. I love how big they are and the little ledge at the bottom too. Not to mention they were only $99 each! Ikea is an awesome place to stop and take a break for Lucca on our way to/from Madison when it's just the two of us. He can run around a bunch, we eat some lunch, get some good Ikea finds and take off!

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60249960/

I decided to try something different for our bath towels. We currently have some from Pottery Barn which are very nice, but I hate how much room they take up. Abby M had pinned some to my Pinterest board that were on Etsy. They were Turkish bath towels. They hang much better and look really light weight. I'm interested to see how they absorb. Everything I read about them was great! Anthropologie has some as well, but theres were sold out when I went to make the purchase. 

The ones I went with are sent from an Etsy store out of Turkey, I'm sure they cost about $1 to make, but oh well they look beautiful! I decided on soft gray…

https://www.etsy.com/listing/156083915/bathstyle-turkish-bath-towel-peshtemal?ref=related-1

I hope you like some of my choices! I can't wait for our friends and family to come visit and see them in person! We had a weekend full of painting and basketball. I'm currently first in a friends bracket and I watched a total of about 3 basketball games this year, so that's exciting. It's amazing what help the Vegas odds can give you! We picked a color for our kitchen and are trying to get it painted before the countertops go in on WEDNESDAY!!!! Here's a sneak peak, it's screaming Spring to me, which is what I've been dreaming of…

http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/lidogreen

Countertops

Early last week I was on a mission to pick out a countertop for our kitchen. We decided late in the game to do work in the kitchen so in order to get things ready for our install date I needed to make some decisions. We are working with Great Lakes Granite Works to find something. The two women that work there are super helpful. I originally fell in love with this piece of granite called "Fantasy Brown," I have to show you a picture of it because it's gorgeous!

http://hgstones.com/shop/fantasy-brown/

Well as luck would have it, that was completely out of my budget! Marcy at Great Lakes showed me a piece of granite that was really cool and the finish was "suede" instead of the typical shiny finish that granite has. It almost looked like a matte finish. It reminded me of my dream concrete countertops (Someday!) and so I considered that. The piece that they had available in our time frame just wasn't what I was looking for, a little too busy for my style. 

White Persia in suede finish

After looking through Great Lakes options, they suggested I go to the suppliers and take a look. There are 3 in Grand Rapids: Mont, American and Pascucci. It turned out to be a really fun experience! I went to each place and looked at their selections. I could see the entire stone and hand pick the one I wanted. If you get new countertops I totally recommend this! It's so much better than a picture on a computer or a small 1'x1' sample. 

I walked up and down many aisles in a warehouse full of lots of different stones. In GR, Pascucci definitely has the best selection. It was cool to learn about the stones. For instance, "Fantasy Brown" at one location may look very different from "Fantasy Brown" at another because it came from a different lot and/or quarry.  If you are looking to do a small area I would recommend going here and trying to buy a remnant. You can get them for really good prices and then just pay for the fabrication. I needed an entire slab, so unfortunately that wasn't going to work for me.

I ended up going with a "River White" stone from Pascucci. Our appliances are going to be stainless and our cabinets are a dark wood so I wanted to make it light to brighten up the room some and also incorporate both colors. Tomorrow I am meeting with Abby to pick out a paint color for the kitchen!

I've spent two full days at the house this week painting. Things are looking awesome! We got our bathroom vanity, countertops and plumbing today so it is almost a fully functioning bathroom! Tomorrow the electrician comes and we'll have light! Our contractor is slowly moving out of each room in the upstairs and we are hoping to start getting things cleaned up next week. So.much.dust.ugh. 

Weekend Warriors

I spent the weekend painting with my Dad. My parents were gracious enough to come back for the weekend and help. I think Lucca plays a little factor into the equation too ;) Stefano was on call and our bathroom had to be painted by Tuesday to get ready for the vanity install. Parents to the rescue!

As I had previously posted we chose Benjamin Moore's Calypso Blue. I wanted a bold fun color for the bathroom. For everything else in the room I tried to stay pretty neutral. Since we don't plan on this being a forever home, we have to keep resale in mind. I had seen this picture and loved the look!

 Here are a few pics of our progress this weekend. I love how the color turned out. It looks really rich and totally gives character to the bathroom. 

The only thing left to paint in the bathroom is this built in. I envisioned it with the back being painted in Calypso Blue and the rest in white trim paint. Both my Dad and Stefano told me I was crazy and they wanted no part in doing that…So I then turned to Abby M to ask her opinion, guess what she said the same thing! So after my Dad had relaxed and had a few glasses of his favorite red wine last night, I sprung this on him again. NO LUCK! Jimbo's response to me was "You might as well hire Michelangelo for that one." I was crying I was laughing so hard! We'll see if I can find a taker to paint the built in :)

Is it normal to love your shower niche as much as I do? 

Stefano was at work all night and trying to sleep this morning so Lucca and I ventured out to go shopping. I was looking for towel hooks for the bathroom and drawer pulls for Lucca's built in bench in his bedroom. I decided to for go towel bars. Do people really use towel bars to dry towels? I never have. I always have towels on there for show. It's a waste of space I think and therefor, no towel bars for me….ahhhh crazy! haha. I hit Anthroplogie, and for anyone that knows me even a little knows this is my FAVORITE store. It has got to be the absolutely least kid-friendly store I have ever been in! Imagine a 15 month old running from table to table of waist level stacked bowls, glasses, candles, etc. It was a nightmare. He thought the trays of all different knobs were hilarious. It was a disaster waiting to happen, so I'll have to head back another time. I found these gems and plan to use them for the towel hooks. 

We had a great weekend with my parents. Lucca and my Mom are two peas in a pod. He calls her "Ga" and I think is working his way towards his version of Grandma. We didn't see much of Stefano this weekend which was a bummer. We went to a couple restaurants nearby and had some great dinners, and got a lot of painting done. My Mom brought Lucca's blackout Roman shades and two bags full of pillows that she and I have made. These pillows are going to have to be their own post! I think I worked my Dad too hard though, one night he was asleep on the couch before it was even dark out! In all reality they helped us out a ton, and I am so grateful. I am one lucky lady! Happy St Patrick's Day!!

Mama Bear

I wanted to take a few minutes to give a BIG shout out to my Mama Bear. She is uber talented (although she doesn't want anyone to know because she has more work that she can handle with me!) 

When we moved to GR this summer I may have been a little overzealous in my Craigslist projects. I currently have a garage full of furniture that I want to redo. One of my purchases was a wingback chair. I had remembered my Mom recovering chairs before and I thought "cool, I'll buy this for $30 and pick out some amaze balls material and she'll help me." When I told her of my plan (after the chair had already been purchased) she told me she'd help me as long as I got all of the staples out. OUCH!!!

Hours and hours and multiple bloody knuckles later and I had removed all of the staples. I heard numerous times from Stefano as he sat there and watched "Why don't you just buy a chair?" Nope, this was going to be so easy once all of the staples were out. My parents came for the weekend and I was so excited to show her my progress. She saw the chair and was less than enthused when she saw it was a wingback. "Oh it's a wingback, I've never done one of those" was her response. 

I got some fabric from Jo-Ann's that I loved. Looking back on it I should have gotten something thicker so it was easier to work with. My Mom took the chair back to Madison to work on it and I helped her when I was there, but let's be honest, she did most of it. I LOVE it! How great of a job did she do people!?!?  Plan to put this gem in our living room in a little reading area…

She is also working on floor length drapes for my living room and bedroom and blackout Roman shades for Lucca's room. And a TON of pillows! I am a lucky lady to have her. 

Here's a preview of the Master Bedroom curtains

Mama hard at work teaching me how to make pillows :)

I got my fabric for the living and bedroom from Tonic Living. They have an excellent selection of really cool fabric and give great suggestions of others that would compliment one that you may choose. 

Here is a link to the fabric we're using for the living room. I'm obsessed!!

So a BIG thanks to my Mom for all her hard work, I get to see the almost finished product this weekend when they come vista me…errr, Lucca!

LOVE LOVE LOVE her and probably don't say it enough!

Living Room

When we originally saw this house this is the room I fell in love with first. The previous owners had a great sense of design and decorated it in a cool vintage style. 

Coincidentally this was the first room to get painted. The living room doesn't get much light until later in the day and then color on the wall was making it feel dark and depressing in there to me. 

This picture is looking through from the kitchen

This picture is at the top of the passover staircase from the previous picture. The front door/foyer is to the right and the living room extends to the right. 

This is the far end of the living room. I love the built ins and original brick fireplace. The fireplace isn't functional now, but we're hoping to make it gas by next winter. This is where Stefano plans to put his second request…the TV. 

My parents, brother and his girlfriend came for a weekend and we painted the ceiling, trim and the entire room. We painted the the walls Benjamin Moore's Smokey Embers

OH MY GOD do I love this color! Painting the ceiling made a huge difference in the room. It was dirty and yellowing. My neck was stiff and cramped for days but it was worth the work :) My Dad is seriously a painter stud and he got a ton done the weekend he was here. Ninah was rolling like a pro! Kasey helped with the trim, primed an area I didn't plan on painting (!!!) and made sure we got some beers in. 

So much brighter, I love it. Immediately it felt like a happier room to me!

The floors are being sanded today and I just got back from checking them out. Good news is we can keep the original color and just seal them with a clear coat which will save us a lot of money not having to stain them.

A friend of mine introduced me to Abby M who has helped me a TON with paint colors and decorating the living room, our bedroom and Lucca's room. She is awesome to work with and it feels more like hanging out with a friend (who has REALLY good taste!) than picking out a bunch of stuff that overwhelms me. I would totally suggest hiring an interior decorator if you're able to. Especially if you are like me and starting from scratch when it comes to furniture. I'm the type of person that buys things on impulse, gets it all together and is sick of it less than a year later. Since we were going to eventually be buying quite a bit of furniture I wanted to make sure they were pieces that I could use for a long time. Abby has been great at pushing me a bit out of my usual comfort zone, but keeping my style overall. She is great with working with a budget and finding a good deal! Here is a preview of what the room will hopefully someday look like…

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/273382639854302445/

Check out her blog while you're at it…she does e-design too!!

Hope you all had a great weekend! The weather is gorgeous here today, 40 and sunny and it honestly feels like 80. I've gotten 2 invites to bring Lucca to the park and play, a bit aggressive for 40 but I think we may head there soon :)

Master Bath

When we bought this house we knew we were going to need to do something with the bathroom. It is on the 2nd floor and the one that the whole family will use. Stefano and I were at dinner last night talking about all the memories we envision happening in this home. Since we started dating every place that we've lived in we always knew would be temporary…our Chicago studio, the 2 years we spent in our Greenville apartment and now the Leaning Tower of Lovett house. So I feel like we've never really made any place exactly how we've wanted it. There have definitely been many memories made in each place, but I never really looked at any of them as home. With that being said I have had LOTS of ideas for this bathroom to try and make it as close to perfect for us as possible. I envision a tub Lucca will take a bath in with his sibling for the first time, Lucca brushing his teeth at the sink, using the big boy potty for the first time, etc. I just want to LOVE it!

So hopefully we're on our way to that :)

When they did the demo for the bathroom we learned that none of our house has insulation…NO GOOD!! and they also found a newspaper in the wall from 1936. My hopes are to try and preserve it and put it in a frame of sorts that can stay with the house down the line. We also now have insulation in just our bathroom :(

Here are a few photos of the progress with the rest of the bathroom. 

From the door, shower to the far left and tub below that

Blocking off the door to a non functional walkout patio that was attached to the closet…very random! This is where the vanity will go.

Ahhhh my tile, love it! Planning to paint the wall Benjamin Moore's Calypso Blue

This was the original tile that was in the bathroom and also in the bathroom downstairs and entry area. We love it and wanted to keep things similar so it doesn't look like an old house with a brand new bathroom that looks super out of place. 

The shower before tile. Stefano had two requests in the remodeling/new house purchases 1) A stand alone shower with a rain head 2) A new TV 

He's got the rain shower but still hasn't locked down that TV!

Toilet will go on the left and there is going to be a built in shelving unit on the right. Because of the spare bedroom right behind that wall the built in can't be that deep, but it will be something I can put pictures and lotions, etc on. 

We had spaghetti and meatballs tonight for dinner and I thought I'd share a recipe for a really easy marinara sauce. It's really quick and uses very common ingredients, not to mention it tastes delish. I use dry parsley flakes instead of fresh and of course Kim Crawford wine!

Finally some action!

Lots of progress happening at the house today! We are using Insignia Homes as our remodeling company. Our project manager is Steve and he is wonderful! I'm sure he'll never read this, but I felt the need to give him a shout out. We have changed and added on about 80 things and I'm sure it's quite annoying at times. He always seems calm and things just roll off this back like it's no big deal. 

I went over there this morning and Steve was working on Lucca's reading bench. The tile was being installed in the bathroom (those pics to come tomorrow), and they started working on the trim in the kitchen. I cleared all of my packages out of the living room that have slowly been arriving ;) so they could start refinishing the floors on Monday. After that was finished I decided to start painting the small bathroom.

I wish I would have taken some pictures of the color (Benjamin Moore's Glass Slipper). I did one coat and it looked like white, but when I came back later it was so beautiful! I can't wait to get another coat on there and see how it will look. I was slightly panicked when it was going on and kept rechecking the can to make sure it wasn't just primer in there! 

A word to those of you out there that are possibly as dumb as I was when it came to paint. You can get PRIMER in the PAINT! Who knew?! I bought all this paint without primer and we wasted serious time priming and painting. If paint weren't so expensive I would have bought new, lesson learned and I'm passing that info on! 

The sink is out in the small bathroom. We just need the drywall to be patched and the new one can be installed. 

Kitchen from the back door, stairs pass through to the living room.

I am really hoping for a wine refrigerator stocked full of Kim C. to be placed under this counter in the area that's green. 

So what was once going to be a kitchen that was left alone now looks like one that has been destroyed. I can't decide if I should keep this paint color…any thoughts? I love green, but is it going to be too much since there isn't a backsplash anymore? 

Tomorrow we will tackle the main bathroom…I am LOVING it! Here is a preview of the BEFORE…

This closet is directly behind the bathroom and we combined the two rooms to make it larger. Can't wait to show you the progress!

Kitchen and small bath before

We'll start here in the kitchen. We originally did not plan to do anything in here except replace the appliances. The refrigerator was white and SO old, the stove was white and black and the dishwasher was all black. The kitchen is small and not my ideal, but I love the rest of the house so I figured I could deal.

 The previous owners had redone the backsplash and countertops themselves and there were certainly some issues. We decided to replace the countertops, and then once those came out we decided the backsplash had to go too. It's a bummer really because I love the backsplash, but there were stones missing all over and strings hanging out from their work, the outlets were all messed up where they tried to cut the stone, etc. So we are going to just put drywall there and paint it and then have granite countertops with a 4" backsplash placed. 

The frame work in the kitchen is so odd, some is white and almost looks like random pieces put together. Then there is a set of windows with all wood trim. Ahhh it drives an OCD person such as myself crazy! haha Hopefully this will all be similar. We're still trying to figure that stuff out :)

 These are steps out the back of the kitchen to the back deck/yard and then down to the basement. Tile is going to be replaced and then the green door HAS TO GO :)

This is a little, and when I say little I mean 1 person can barely fit in there, bathroom off the kitchen. Our plan was to fix this up once we moved in, but Mama Kinns did not like that sink and bought us a new one. It's a pedestal with a similar sized sink. Gotta love Moms! It makes sense though to do it now since we already have the plumbers there. Also, Stefano and  I will NEVER try to do anything renovation wise ourselves again after redoing our bathroom and kitchen in our studio. People, we were without a bathroom for 2 weeks! It was terrible. You know your relationship must be a good one when you make it through something like that. NEVER AGAIN! 

I plan to keep the trim white in here and paint the bathroom Benjamin Moore's Glass Slipper

Tomorrow I will try and post some pics of what things look like now in these two areas.