Dinning Room Upgrade

So the dinning room has needed a little spicin' up

I have hated the shelving

hated the curtains

needed a runner

etc

etc.

So i finally got my booty in gear in the home decor department and we went from this......

to this!



What we did:

added these chairs from pier 1 that i have been obsessed with since spring
and dang it they are now on sale! arrrgh

added this bar accent piece to display what else but Kev's Kentucky bourbon and our nice glassware/bar ware we received via wedding gifts. Obsessed with our ralph lauren and lenox glasses.
Oh you fancy huh?!? Not really ha..

added this vase that Kev picked out all on his own at pier1
this runner via pottery barn

and with the help of miss Jill - i DIYed these prints with some frames from pier1 and burlap and chevron prints from a local fabric store.
(no joke - jill talked me through three stores that day via text. she's got all kinds of DIY up her sleeves)
It tied the blue accents in perfectly.

(that's my cute momma on the right!)

Still waiting on the right curtains to tickle my fancy. I have an off white linen/cotton blend up currently, but not completely satisfied.

I love the nice, crisp and clean lines in the room.

It's exactly what we had envisioned.

and I be loving my cute Kate Spade dishes and serving ware overflowing the hutch that we just got out of the closet 8 months post wedding.

I have no excuse.

 Officeand Dinning room ....check!

Weekend Shenannies

Linking up with Miss Sami for....  

How does Monday get here so fast...and I am never excited to see it?!?! Kev and I live for our weekends, and boy did we have a busy and fun one that just flew by.   Kev had been in NYC since Tuesday. I picked him up straight from work at the airport friday afternoon. I was so excited to wrap my arms around him.   While he was in NYC i surprised him with this lil somthin- somethin delivered to his room  

  It's super lil boy cheezzzzzy, and that's my favorite part about it. Thursday was 5 months since our wedding day and I though KR needed to know that Baily, Uggie Sue and I were missing him big time from home. He brought the cookies back to lex to share with me.
  Friday we came home and visited with the doggies. They always get so excited when Kev comes home from a work trip. After they settled down, we decided to have dinner and drinks at GCB in Chevy Chase. We were impressed. We both had the salmon on jalapeno and cream cheese grits with fried green maters. YUMMM! We also split bread pudding with homemade KY bourbon sauce. It was like a little piece of heaven. After dinner, we hit up the movies to watch Tom Cruise's latest, Oblivion.
  Saturday we woke up to 40 degree weather in the bluegrass - WTF!!?! Our plans to spend time on the patio were crushed, but we made the most of our day by running a ton of to-do errands. We had a nice lunch at Harry's with sweet tea instead of cocktails. Afterwards, we hit up bed bath and beyond, lowe's, home goods, and the starving artist gallery. Got a new wreath for the front door, some flowers for the patio, and supplies to mulch the front and backyard.
  We opted for the Saturday evening church service this week and we left feeling so blessed to be children of our mighty God. It was so powerful.
  We picked up Jimmy Johns' subs on the way home and curled up on the couch with a movie. My kind of Saturday night.
  Sunday we were on a mission. I hit up the grocery to prepare for our semi-raw week that Steph is kicking off tomorrow,  and we also had all kinds of stuff to do around the house.
  Kevin mulched the front yard flower/shrub bed, while I whipped it up in the kitchen all afternoon. I have never cut up so many veggies in my life preparing for #rawweek2013.
 
 
 
  Kev is such a trooper and is being so supportive with going on a raw diet this week with a few suggestions per him. The only thing we are doing different is adding eggs, can't live without our hard boiled eggs, and adding some grilled veggies (made all natural) for dinner meals only. Completely raw for breakfast, lunch and snacks. I can live with that and so can Hubs. We started yesterday and are gonna go strong till friday dinner. We can't give up our friday and saturday dinners out on the town. I can say that in 24 hours my energy and sugar levels have been much more stable. Not a single sugar crash. I have even been drinking my coffee black....this girl just doesn't do that. Steph has lots of links for recipes and meal planning. Go take a look.
  We ended our weekend with dinner on our patio by the fire pit followed by our favorite, a new episode of Game of Thrones.
  A fabulous weekend indeed!
 
 
 
 

Operation Patio

The husband and I love a good patio.

Like LOVE it.

Once the weather breaks in KY, you can guarantee we are sitting outside for all meals.

Last summer all of our time and attention was going toward the wedding and getting me all moved into Kev's house. We were busy lil bees. So as soon as spring hit Kentucky, we were on a full fledged mission....

aka Operation Patio.

I love coming home and having a drink with Kev on the patio

He loves eating his lunch outside with the doggies on the patio

We both love to have dinner outside on the patio

Uggie and Bailey LOVE being out on the patio

Being in nature is something we both thoroughly enjoy and we decided to spruce up the outdoor area ASAP.

We already had a table, chairs, umbrella and two wicker rockers.

We wanted to have a sitting area as well as a dinning area.

 KR and I plan to host cookouts all Summer long....a shrimp boil is currently in the works.

We added a wicker love seat and two chairs, two colorful side tables, a wicker chest, a wicker bar area, two area rugs and a fire pit that my parent's got us last Christmas.

I had one request with our little adventure - BRIGHT COLORS. I wanted lots of bold and bright colors to liven up our back yard.

I HATED the cushions that came with the wicker furniture we picked out, but that can be changed out super easy....

And I found just what we were looking for a Pier1.

Ladies - they have TONS of bright, fun cushions that you can mix and match. Super cute stuff. They were having a 20% sale on most of them last weekend that they planned to extend.

Operation Patio was a success!

I still have to get my green thumb into gear and add some pretty flowers to our planters. We also plan to get lots of bright colored serving ware to add to the pieces we already have.

 

 

 



Uggie and Bailey totally approved and have already been loving how much time we have spending outdoors.
We have a few more decor items to add, but overall we are so pleased.
Y'all just come on over and sip some sweet tea with me in a mason jar. Mine may have bourbon it.....it's the KY girl in me :-)

Our Office Upgrade

Kev and I have so many things we want to do with the house now that the wedding hype is officially over.

We are breaking it down by rooms in order to see progress and not get overwhelmed.

Furnishing and decorating a house is hard work y'all!

Don't even get me started on building....that is a labor of love. I was very involved with the building process of this house back in 2010. I give you peeps who build a house early on in their marriage props. Cause it's hard and stressful, but so exciting at the same time too.

Our first priority was Kev's office. He actually spends 40 plus hours a week in there since he does primarily work from home.

When we built our home we knew we were going to turn our "formal living room" into a nice office area for KR. I think formal living rooms are so overrated and pointless. Why spend all that money on nice furniture for it to collect dust in the front room of your house?!? I would rather make that a functional room.
That is just what we did.

We knew we wanted the office furniture to be big, dark and nice. It is one of the first things you see from the front entrance of our home. Thank goodness Kev is super neat and tidy and his office space is more organized than any room in the house....otherwise it wouldn't work.

Kev really wanted to have his office be more of a reading room, as the man LOVES to read and write. He has some big plans in the future that I can't wait to share with you all as they unfold. Very exciting stuff!

First order of business with the office was paint. We were so tired of the off white walls, or as my girl Kate put it....builder beige.

Now I think builder beige works, but I just don't like it in every single room of this hizzzouse.

So our first priority was to paint the office. We wanted to keep a neutral color and didn't want to much of a drastic change. We opted for a very light slate color with brown undertones to add just a bit of color and richness to the walls of the office. I believe the actual color was Timber Dust by Valspar.

Kev did all the painting himself. He's actually a darn good painter.

We then wanted to add a "reading chair," side table with lamp and also a curtain rod/valance. Kev loves the natural light from the front window and we didn't want to add curtains to cover that up.

We ordered an oversize chaise lounge chair that came in this weekend. Yay!

I then spent many a trips to hobby lobby, pier one and home goods to pick up little accent pieces to add here and there.

I just need to add a wedding photo or two in our empty frames and we are good to go

Here is our final product......

I love the rich feel of the office. I love even more that this area is such a used and functional space in our home.

Our DIY Memory Wall

 So KR and I have been sprucing up the house.

A lot of you commented on my memory wall in some of my recent posts.

Well....back in the winter we decided we would start our own DIY project,

a memory wall for our kitchenette.

We spend a lot of time in this room and eat many meals here.

The kitchenette gets a ton of natural light and we both enjoy time together and alone at the table.
Kev and I both spend time at the table working, I blog, he writes, we eat, he reads, I write my therapy notes, etc.

Bottom line, we wanted to put something on this HUGE, bare and empty wall to spice up this room and make it feel more homey and comfortable.

here is the before....

the room needed lots of work.

and here are pics from this whole process

Now I have to say, Kev gets 90% of the credit for this project.

I picked out frames, but that is about all I did.

He did the rest. 

I didn't think we would ever buy enough frames.

We would think we had enough to only get home and realized we still needed a few more.

Kev turned some of the cheaper darker frames into country/rustic looking ones for the memory wall

The doggies supervised him in the garage

He nailed, hung, leveled and adjusted

We found this stencil and we were sold on it.

We firmly believe in family time around our table.

It's something we enjoy now and look forward to in the future when there are new additions to our little family :-)

And the after....

So there is still lots of work...like printing enough pictures to fill all those bad boys.

Can someone say wedding and engagement photos??/

I think so!

It's still a work in progress.

I also need to add a centerpiece to the kitchenette table, but just haven't found something that has tickled my fancy yet.

Anywho, the room is coming together and I have to give the man credit because Kev did a wonderful job.

Hope y'all likey :-)

It's almost friday! Wahhhoooo

The New Kitchen Table

So a month or so ago, Kevin Rex finally broke over and bought a kitchen table for the kitchenette/breakfast nook area.

There has literally been nothing in that area for far too long.

We both have been hating not having a place to sit and eat our meals. The dinning room feels too formal and the couch is too comfortable.

We both feel it is so important for couples and families to have dinners at the table. At church a few weeks ago, they discussed a study about families who ate dinner around the table vs. those who didn't. There were soooo many positive results surround the couples/families who spent time around the table TOGETHER.

So bottom line, sitting at the table together for meals is a priority for us.

Not only is the table about eating, but I use the table to do my notes from work. Kev likes to use the table to exercise the creative side of his brain. Which is OUT.of.This.WORLD. I swear he is gonna be the J.K. Rowling. Mark my word.

We so needed a table!

We went on a mission for a white country-esque table. Boy are those hard to find around good ole Lex.

After weeks of searching, low and behold we found what we were looking for.

I also brought over some of my favorite country white dishes to add to his baker rack.

This place is coming back together for sure :-)

My mama bought me this bowl for Christmas a couple years ago. It is one of my favorite pieces. It is a Longaberger dish. Us country gals loves us some Longaberger.

In the past several weeks we have went back to making dinner at the table a daily event.

No cell phones are allowed.

We spend the time before our meal praying

aloud for each other as individuals and as a couple

for our families

for the doggies

for new challenges ahead

for daily struggles

and for strength and patience.

We talk about the highs and lows of our days.

It's just us soaking each other up with no outside distractions.

Back when we had our first meal at the new table, I busted out the camera.

What was on the menu: sushi takeout. Woot woot!

Love him!

Kev knows just how to get the right angle huh? Ha

And I must admit, Bailey is sort of a begger at the dinner table. He usually lays his head on my lap the entire meal. I can give his Nana and Papaw credit for this habit.

One of my favorite times of the whole days.....

our prayers right before we indulge.

Sometimes it would be easy just to pile on the couch and stuff our faces, but I am so thankful we are making memories around our new table every day.

Can't wait for many many more.

Used Kitchen tables should be a staple in all households :-)