Basement Overhaul

And so it began!  We took one weekend and tackled it!  We decided to paint the entire basement "Fashion Gray" by Behr.  The accent wall was what gave us some stress....and cost us a couple back to back trips to HomeDepot.... :)

Oooh!  Check out that guy's nice butt!! :)  Dan's so good at taping!

PS-That's my new table from Pier 1!  Stay tuned for updates on the chairs I found for it!

So, we thought we wanted an orange accent wall.  You would think after the wedding, we would realize how very hard orange is to get right.  Many swatches and weeks of debate still got us nowhere!  I hate to say we "gave up" on orange, but, let's face it, we did.  Plus, it's always hard to get the right color for a basement with no natural light.  So, here's our orange test...it was scary!

Not what we were looking for!  It looked like a highlighter!  We eventually decided on a tealish blue to match one square in the Crate and Barrel pillows I had my eyes on.  

Let me give you a reminder of what the basement looked like when we toured the house with our realtor:

And now the finished product!

What a process!  But SO much fun!  Here is a source list for anyone that might be interested:

1. Orange Bench - Homegoods (St. Louis Park)

2. Sparkly Gray Pillow on Bench - Homegoods (Burnsville)

3. White Mirror - Homegoods (Burnsville)

4. Gray Sectional Couch - Ikea

5. Colorful Pillows on Couch - Crate and Barrel (Zenith Throw Pillow)

6. Orange Throw Blanket - Ikea

7. Black End Table - Homegoods (St. Louis Park)

8. Orange Cylinder Lamp (can't see very well) - Ikea

9. "m" Decor on Table - Anthropologie

10. 12x12 Picture Frames - Ikea

11. State Love Prints - Modern Ink Stationary on Etsy

Canvas Prints!

After much research on canvas photo prints, it boiled down to price but also quality.  Surprisingly, CVS had the best price and excellent quality too!  I originally ordered the two canvases to put in our bedroom...but when they arrived, we couldn't help but put them up in the living room instead!  We're very happy with them and I enjoy so much walking by them every day to remember the best day of my life!

We hung them with 3M squares, which can be a bit tricky!

We had company over about 20 minutes after we hung these to watch Sunday football!  

Here's a view from the mudroom:

Gotta love pictures and gotta love 'em even more on a big canvas!!

Linen Closet Heaven

Linen Closet Makeover!

For those that don't know, my new husband was out of town for work for a total of 5 weeks in the past 2 months!  I've had many emotions about this: anger, frustration, happy for free time!, loneliness, empowered!, and so on!  A rollercoaster of different feelings!  It's hard because it's not his fault and I'm glad he has a great job.  But it's also hard to be home alone for that long.  So each time Dan would start packing to fly out for the week, I would start preparing my "projects" for the week so I could stay busy!  The last week in October and the first week or two of November, I tackled the linen closet in our upstairs hallway.  Sad that this was the highlight of my week but I think we're all getting accustomed now to our adult lives where things like this make the top 10! :)  Sorry there are no pictures of the painting process but, in a nutshell, I spackled holes and repainted the entire inside of the closet white.  It was a bit beat up, dusty and, yes, had holes!  Then I took out all of the shelves and sanded each one and painted them all white.  This took about 3 coats each!  Good thing the World Series was on!  Now for the fun part, organizing!  Here is a before photo, I just didn't have time to make this any neater until now:

Then I picked out color coordinated baskets and labeled them all!  I tossed many things and categorized everything you could imagine!

Ta da!  Everything is in it's place!  Hopefully now I won't hear, "Honey!  Where's the _____?" from Dan anymore!  I don't blame him...did you see the closet in it's previous state!?  To summarize, there are baskets for the following if anyone is looking for ideas:  make up bags (unfortunately an entire bin is devoted to this seeing as I always buy my makeup during the "free gift" times!), "Nails", "Headbands", "Face", "Teeth", "Bath", "Medicine", "Toilet Paper", then there's the towel and washcloth shelf and on the bottom there is a bin for all sheet sets.  I also keep a little tote on the side (can't see it) of handy tools we use on a regular basis so: hammer, measuring tape, 3M stickies, nails, masking tape, etc. YAY!

Lambeau!

Oh ya...check out those tutus!  They only took Caroline and me 3 hours to make!  But it was well worth it for the Monday Night Football Game-Packers vs. Vikings in Green Bay!!  Caroline's family had tickets and we got the idea to give Dan the tickets for his wedding gift!  Thank you Caroline!  Matt came with us and sported his horns.  I tried to not leave him out so I wore my Vikings sweatshirt :)  We literally started tailgating at 12:30 and the game started at 7pm!  But we had such a blast!  I was telling my co-workers today at lunch everything I ate this weekend: foot long sub sandwich, beer cheese dip, cinnamon bread, taco dip and chips, hot dog, french fries, nachos, pizza and then chicken fingers on the way home.  Oh my!!  Not to mention beer that I NEVER drink!  But I was in Wisconsin!  Packers won 45 - 7!



Our New Sectional!

So we had a fabulous time buying a sectional sofa for our basement!  After much research and thinking, we decided that the Karlstad sofa at IKEA would be our best bet!  It was the PERFECT size for our basement and the perfect price...not to mention the chaise lounge and gray color that is exactly what we had in mind!  The only thing was, we did NOT anticipate how many boxes it would come in!  We brought 2 SUVs to get it and Dan still had to tie parts of it to the top of the car!  Such a hilarious sight!

  

So, after IKEA, I had to go nanny for the night!  And when I got home, it was all done! 

WAY TO GO DAN!  THANK YOU! 



Stay tuned for basement updates...you didn't think I'd leave these walls white did you?! :)

The First Annual Tom McShane Memorial Brother Sons Getaway Retreat

Dan-did I get the name right???  Haha!  Last weekend Dan went up to his Uncle Tim's cabin for the "First...well, I won't retype it!  They had a guys weekend full of golf, cabin fun, campfires and, most of all, time to remember Tom!

Dan carried on their new tradition of reading letters from Tom!  Dan and I didn't really realize that this could be a tradition but now it officially is one!  It all started with Uncle Kevin reading a letter that Tom wrote from heaven at the prayer service.  Then Uncle Tim read a letter from Tom at our wedding rehearsal dinner.  Then Dan wrote a letter from his dad and read it at this weekend retreat!  It will be so fun and meaningful to collect all the letters from Tom that people write from now on!

Blog Shout Out!

My friend Caroline gave a wedding shout out on her blog a few weeks ago!  Head on over to Pistachio Ice Cream!

http://pistachioicecream.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/orange-you-gonna-get-married/

Fall Decorations!

It's that time of year!  Harvest decor time!  I did not plan to decorate for anything but Christmas but how fun was this?!  While Dan was out of town for his "1st Annual Tom McShane Memorial Brothers Sons Weekend Getaway Retreat" (official name), I went to my parents' house and, well, just hung out!  We watched Bridesmaids (had to buy that on DVD on the way there), ran some errands, ate at IHOP for breakfast and then stopped at the nursery and found some fun fall decorations!  On a budget of $20, a cute little display was born on the fly!  You should've seen Dan's face when I drove in the driveway with these cornhusks practically sticking out the back! :)

Fall Season Preview

Like many of our favorite shows this fall, we are also starting a season of house projects!  Just to get you all excited (and hold ourselves accountable), here is a snapshot of our dream to do list for the next several months:

1.   Paint insides of both linen closets and hall bath shelving, reorganize, line drawers and shelves

2.   Paint entire basement including bathroom (stay tuned for the color!)

3.   Hang wedding pictures on canvas frames (1 or 2)

4.   Clean out storage room and wedding room (sell, donate, toss)

5.   Order curtains for front picture window

6.   Hem curtains on sliding door or get new ones

7.   Add curtain for small kitchen window

8.  Back splash tiling in kitchen

9.  Replace hall bath towel rod

10.  Re-paint upstairs hallway and hang pictures on wall

11.   Hang frames and bulletin boards in office-figure out desk situation

12.  Hang curtains in master bedroom

13.  Replace bedroom doors downstairs

14. Hang curtains in guest room

15.  Clean out garage and organize shelves (label paint cans)

16.  Add screen to hall bath window

Sound good?!  Everybody on board?!  Has anyone ever custom built anything or know someone who does?  Has anyone ever done a tile backsplash on their own?

Honeymoon Preview!

Dan and I had an amazing time in Rivera Maya, Mexico at the Barcelo Resort!  (all-inclusive I might add).  It was just so relaxing....and also weird to relax!  It had been so long since we had done absolutely nothing!  The past 16+ months have been insane, not to mention the past recent month alone!  So there were many moments of just realizing what all had happened and that we were on the beach just enjoying each other's company.  We both definitely needed it! Here are some highlights and some of my favorite photos from the trip (PS-do you know how hard it is to get a picture together when you don't know anyone around you and no one speaks English?! :)



Some of our favorite memories are:

1. When the concierge called our hotel room and I answered.  He asked me if my parents were there!  I need to practice my adult voice I guess!

2. Going to the Hibachi grill 2 nights because we loved it so much!

3. Dan climbing a palm tree to get a coconut.

4. Snorkeling and kayaking!

5. Almost every night we went to the hotel outdoor theater to see the different shows that were playing.  Each day, the hotel hung a poster to let everyone know what the show was that night.  We saw the poster that read "Perros y Gatos" (meaning "Dogs and Cats") and it had little pictures of dogs and cats!  I said, "Dan!  I really want to see that!!"  He was not surprised since it involved what we assumed to be little dogs doing tricks.  That whole day I even kept talking about the show and how I hope the Mexican people are really nice to the doggies.  When we got to the theater, we got some drinks and instead of sitting at the bar like we had been every night before, we decided to sit really close to the stage so that, you guessed it, Natalie could see the little doggies doing their tricks.  Not shortly after we sat down, a person with the show approached us and asked us if we could participate in a game.  We said, sure, thinking it was a little pre-show thing, what the heck, why not.  So we are called onto stage with 3 other couples (one from Seattle, one from Canada, one from Argentina).  We start to play a game on stage where Dan has to sing into the microphone until he runs out of breath and I had to jump rope as fast as I could until he was done and whichever couple got the most jumps won!  Well, I did get first place in jump roping annually in our elementrary school "play day" so I knew it was in the bag.  And we did win!  But, little did we know, there were more games and this WAS the show!  We were on the "Gattos" team (us and one other couple) and the other two couples were on the "Perros" team!  We thought, no way!  So, we were on stage for about an hour and a half in the heat and under hot lights and never saw any cats or dogs doing tricks!!  The only people doing tricks were us!  After the jump rope game, we had to play a celebrity guessing game that involved running as fast as you could to yell which celebrity was on the big screen.  Following this was a dancing contest where Dan and I did everything from the lawn mower to the fisherman catching the fish move.  After this, Dan had to sit on a chair while I had to run at full speed toward him with a balloon and pop it on him any way I could three times!  What a circus!  Definitely a great memory though!  Wow, sorry for the length of this one!

6. Eating, drinking and re-living the wedding day!

We Did It!

We got married!!!!!!

September 10, 2011 actually came!!!

I just can't believe that it happened and that it was even more than I had imagined in my head!  I still am not sure who reads this blog...maybe some girlfriends (Tiffany, Molly, Caroline), Aunt Becky, Jean Erath, my mom and Dan's mom...and that might be it! :)  But here's a huge shout out to you guys and thank you to anyone else for coming to our wedding and making it special!

This is one of my favorites:

Invitations!

Our wedding photographer took this amazing picture of our invitations!!  Thanks AJ!



Mudroom Wall

I wouldn't say this boring beige wall necessarily needed a "facelift"...maybe just some spunk!  After many swatches hanging on the wall and walking past them everyday, we both decided on Behr's "Grand Rapids".  It looked a bit dark on the swatch but I really didn't want a "teeny-bopper" turquoise vibe goin' on...

"Honey...I'm home...blah, blah, blah, here's my boring mudroom wall...blah."

And so it began...the process to go from: "Honey, I'm home...(head down, scuffling feet, frown)" to "WHOA!  Honey!  I am SO home now!  Woo hoo!"

After painting the wall, we ordered the wall quote we had been eyeing for quite some time.  After finding a couple coupons and a week later, it arrived!!  Then the hesitation of putting the quote on the wall began.  Neither one of us wanted to start it because we were so nervous!  The entire quote was separated into 3 different pieces so each piece had to be perfectly placed on the wall each time-centered, leveled, lined up with the previous sentence, and the drama goes on and on!  In the midst of spontaneous arguments, sweat and frustration, we finally got it all up!  It took 3 days and a lot of muscle! 

We're smiling for the camera but were not very happy.  This project was kind of a nightmare!  It's hard to explain but first you have to place the word section on the table and rub the letters to make sure they stick to the transfer paper and not the backing paper.  Then when we started to peel off the backing paper, a lot of letters were just not sticking to the transfer paper still.  So, eventually, we found a system where I rub all the letters, then Dan rubs all the letters.  Then we pull the backing off while still on the table to catch any letters that didn't make it.  Then center it on the wall and level it.  THEN!  We started to rub the letters onto the wall, one time for me, one time for Dan.  Then we peeled off the transfer paper and had to make sure each letter stuck to the wall as the paper was pulled back.  PHEW!  So dramatic!!

Finally done and we love it!  BARELY worth it but now it is our favorite part of the whole house!

All That Glitters!!

Thank you to all the girls for such a special bachelorette party!  I had the time of my life!!



TEXAS Trip!

We had such a great time seeing everyone in Texas!  From having a "mini wedding" with my Grandparents, to seeing the JFK Museum, to dinner with my Dad, to sailing on Lake Ray Hubbard, to enduring the HEAT...we had a busy 5 days!

My mom's friend Cindy picked us up at the airport and greeted Dan with some Texas shaped tortilla chips and salsa...YUM!

That night, my mom got us a sailing trip on Lake Ray Hubbard!  We were staying in Rockwall for the week so this was a nice relaxing treat!!

We walked around by the harbor and listened to a live band the first night.  Such a fun little area!

The next day, we stopped by my Grandparents house so Dan could meet them!  Then we went to the JFK museum.  I hadn't been there since maybe the middle school days so it was really cool!  Dan really enjoyed it!

Above: Me and Dan with Grandaddy

This is me standing on the X where JFK was shot:

Then we had a mini wedding with my Grandparents and some of the neighbors!  We hand delivered their wedding invitation, ate wedding cookies and took pictures! 

Dan and my mom had to get a pic in my Grandparent's front yard.  Dan actually doesn't look that hot!

Then we went to dinner with my Daddy and Linda and my cousin Brett and his new wife Julie!  We went to Gloria's for some authentic Tex Mex!

And then the next day, we got to meet my stepsister, Taryn's, new twin boys!

Busy but fun trip to Texas!! :)