Moving Along....

Let's check out our bedroom next.  Here it is in all its glory when we moved in:

 Lovely, don't you think?  The first thing to go was the fan.  A very close second was, of course, that happy flowery border.

Fast forward several months, and we finally broke out the paint brushes!  We used the same color as we used in our kitchen - Sherwin William's "Rain".

This is our very dear friend JP.  Contrary to what you may think, he is not just our friend because of his very useful height.  Also, although it looks like the menfolk are the only ones slaving away on this room, what you can't see is Jamie and I painstakingly giving the kitchen cabinets yet another coat of paint while all this is going on...

Here's the final(ish) product!

The furniture we already had.  The light fixture was thirty-five whopping bucks at World Market (we put it together with a simple light kit from Home Depot), and the big mirror and shelves over the bed are from Ikea.  I can't wait to get at those lamps and put up some more art, but it's improving!

Again, I don't have very complete picture of the room since I currently don't have a camera.  Sigh.  That's what happens when you leave it outside in the rain for three days.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someday soon I will no longer have that excuse...

Garage Saling. It's What We Do.

One fateful Saturday morning, my friend Faith and I intreated our husbands to go garage saling with us.  Very reluctantly, they did.  Anthony wanted a stereo system...and that very morning, he found a receiver and two speakers for under $20.  He. Was. Hooked.  I created a monster.  Every Saturday morning he is nothing if not RARING to go.  This morning he literally did an incredibly accurate imitation of a velociraptor around my side of the bed until I opened my eyes.  I wouldn't lie about something this serious.

Most of our friends and family are aware of this serious addiction we have formed, and often ask, "What in the world do you buy?".  The answer on many occasions is nothing.  We may come home with a book or a picture frame.  Wop wop.  Or we may load our car up to the max!  I think that's really why Anthony likes it...it's an adventure.  You never know what you'll find. 

Ninety percent of the time we go out looking for something in particular - and we normally find it!  This morning we set off in search of seating.  We had ten people at our house yesterday evening and realized a little too late, that we didn't have ten chairs that we could pull up to a table.  Soooo...we wanted to find something that we could fold up and throw in our storage closet to have on hand for just such an occasion.  Enter, Garage Sale #2.  We got two fold-up stools that were completely perfect.  Here's the other stuff we picked up along the way:

Thrilling, no?  Not bad for about $25 in my opinion.  That marble end table is pretty cool...I've been looking for an end table, and my house runs a little too modern for my taste sometimes, so I thought this might set things back a notch.  I may have to spruce up that brass a little, though.

I got five of those drawer pulls.  We've been needing something desperately for the guest bathroom.  They were all in the original packaging and we got them all for a dollar.  The bowl is for Hobbes.  She keeps swatting her plastic bowl off the dryer and into the waiting mouth of Darcy.  Hopefully the heavier bowl with the grippy stuff on the bottom, will make that daily ritual slightly more challenging.  The cheese plate...well that's just awesome.  And a dollar.

We have no children at the moment, however, I'm a sucker for vintage toys!  I'm sure our friend's kids will enjoy this addition to our Tinker Toys collection.

Despite the plethora of free music all over the internet, Anthony still picks up CD's at garage sales.  Sigh.  He promises to throw them away after he loads them onto the computer.  Likely story.  The clay pot is for my new house plant.  Hopefully I can get it transplanted in there before I kill it.

That's it for the day!  That's the magic of the yard sale. 

Where to Begin....

I suppose I should start taking you through the house!  We'll start with the kitchen.  Probably my favorite room...seeing as that's where the food is stored.  When we moved in, it looked like this:

What's not to love, right?  It was more like, "Well.  I mean...it could be worse!  I bet that wallpaper will just fall right off.  And we can afford all new counter tops and appliances and cabinets, right?  Sure!  This is our first house!  We'll be fine."  A year later, we're still working on some of that, but here's the "After" (we'll have to talk about the process on another day...)

I threw in that last picture of Darcy so perhaps you wouldn't notice I don't have a picture of the other side of the kitchen.  Let's not get caught up in the details, people!  Embrace the suspense.

Still some work to be done in there, but that's what we've got so far.  I feel like this is where the expert bloggers would throw in some thought-inducing questions, like "Anybody else over-hauling their kitchen these days?" or "Who else hates painting cabinets as much as I do?" something along those lines.  I guess I'll leave that to the real bloggers for now...