Welcome to: The office (well, half of it)

We've worked really hard to make the office a place of nostalgia. Most of our loved ones know how near and dear our hearts are to Boston-the city, the history, the RedSox...So we wanted to make the office a "classy" omage to one of our favorite places.

Boston is a city full of history, and we wanted to display our OWN history in our office space. With the help of some pinterest inspiration, ikea, and our some personal touches, we think we've got that accomplished. For now, one half of the office is finished. Our "office organization center" is still underway, but so close to being finished that we can taste it!

For now, here is the majority of this space. :) Enjoy!

Here is an overview of the space. The picture, we're sad to say, makes the walls and colors look much more vibrant than they are. They are much more muted than this in real life; especially the navy blue wall, but camera would not cooperate. However, Chelle would like to paint the dark wall a flatter color; right now, its more of an eggshell.  Lesson learned; darker colors need a flatter finish, at least in our opinion. Also, the papasan covers will hopefully someday be replaced by white or cream ones; for now, Kevin's little sister was gracious enough to swap papasan covers with us so we could use these orange ones.(Ours were white and green floral before!)

This is our favorite part of the office; a creative and sentimental way to tell the story of "us"

The large picture in the middle looks like a collection of random numbers at first glance; however, they give an important timeline of our history together: 02-18-02-the day we "officially" started dating, 03-20-09-the anniversary of the 2nd time we started dating, after being separated for 3 years, 10-30-10-the day Kevin proposed, and finally, in red, 05-12-12-our wedding day.

A heart shaped cutout of a map of Boston; the city where we fell in love again.

A heart-shaped cutout of Iowa-our hometowns, the place we first met, the place we call home.

Additionally, we really love the red floating bookshelf from Ikea, although it was more than a little scary hanging this thing level and then trusting it to not rip half the wall off.

please notice the collection of Jack Handy books, perfect when you need a good dose of dry humor. ;)

Mom-in-law got us this ceramic "Herky". He is so CUTE. In sticking with the nostalgic theme of this room, we put Herky's very first puppy collar on him.

 

Welcome to: The Entryway

After leaning up against the wall for over a month while Chelle procrastinated hanging the entryway mirror, it's finally up. We got this mirror for $10 whole dollars, as it had a large crack through the frame. After some putty filler and a new coat of black paint, she looks good as new, and is the perfect size for the entry wall. Chelle added a flower arrangement to the other side in an oversized blue vase, and we're calling it done for now.

Eventually we plan to put something small up on the opposite wall where the flowers are now, and replace the blue vase with something that goes a little more with the theme of our decor.

Mid-week updates

We've been ultra busy re-habbing items to put up for sale in our new Etsy shop, getting ready for save the date pictures, goofing around with the pup, having fun with our nephew's six months pictures, and preparing for our long labor day weekend! Chelle's parents will be in town and we have a trip to the Science Center planned to see the Body Worlds Exhibit!

Hopefully, several little projects will be wrapping themselves up soon (barring a trip to our nearest bix box store for more primer) so we can share all of the things we've been up to!

Etsy

Our first Etsy listing! We are so excited that this is finally up and running and cant wait to see the type of interest/feedback we get!

Check out the link to our first item up for grabs here!

Buy local and save on shipping! Just contact us.

Weekend update

Very little DIY'ing this weekend. We spent most of our time off relaxing with family and friends. Here are our two photos of the weekend:

Chelle finished spray painting the wooden letters to make our "Save the Dates". Chelle layed them out on the bar after they dried, and at some point during the day, Kevin came along and re-arranged things a bit...




We felt Kev's sense of humor was noteworthy. :)

Lastly, a photo from some quality time Chelle was able to spend with her two best friends on Saturday night. Where the adult beverages flow freely and the pictures always turn out blurry.

I.S.F

The Iowa State fair...we nearly made it all two weeks of the annual celebration without stepping foot inside the fairgrounds, but what kind of Iowans would we be if we werent to partake at least once. So, camera in hand, we were joined by Chelle's parents, Chelsey, and Jax (for his first State Fair ever, might we add) for a day of sampling ridiculous foods on a stick.



Chelle's Parents



This is a State fair staple. Chelle got this fan right after we walked through the gates, and it seemed like EVERYONE was handing these out.





Red Velvet funnel cake and butter on a stick..



*Belated* Weekend Update

Our favorite photos of the weekend come in the form of food and fur!

Food:

Sunday morning, Chelle made french toast.The top piece of french toast had a surprise: an egg over easy! Just cut the circle out of your bread before putting it in the skillet, and crack the egg in the hollowed out middle. VOILA!

Fur:

Herky spent the weekend being lazy. In fact, he was so relaxed while watching a movie with us on Saturday night, he sort've just disappeared into Chelle's arms! 

He also found his way to the rug on the bathroom floor:

And his way onto Kevin's chest!

Addicted to chalkboard paint

As addicted as Chelle has gotten to spray painting, you wouldnt think there'd be room for much else, but oh how wrong you are. Chalkboard paint. Let me repeat: Chalkboard.paint. LOVE the stuff! After using it on the inside of our pantry cupboards (Remember this post?) , nothing in the house has been safe. After a few garage sales and craigslist finds, there was quite a bit of repurposing that occured this past weekend. So much in fact, that we didnt have time to post our weekend update pictures! (we'll get to that in a bit)

It has felt SO relieving to get more and more of these little projects finished or close to finished that we feel like we've gained some momentum! Good thing, with the housewarming party fast approaching!!

Check out our "before and afters" of this weekend's projects!

Garage sale mirror-$2.00

Insert: bright purple spray paint, and chalkboard paint (see, we told you, it's a problem).....



... now we have a cute addition to the guest bedroom. The guest bedroom is the final resting place of all of Chelle's "girly" decor and bedroom items. It just sort've happened that everything fell into this room, and once we saw how colorful it was, we decided just to run with it. :) Its bright, cheerful, and, the guests; well, they love it!


While we're on the subject of the guest bedroom, Chelle picked up a cute pair of bookshelf endtables this weekend, and we're going to get to work sanding and refinishing the headboard soon! We also have a pair of hideous lamps that will have the bases spray painted (of course!), and the lamp shades re-done with a clever DIY project Chelle's been dying to try! Stay tuned for that, and in the meantime, Here is a sneak peek of the guest bedroom:

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Check out this $3.00 garage sale shelf Kevin found us quite some time ago that we havent quite found a home for in the new house! It's missing a hook, and one of the remaining ones is bent! :)

Since we couldnt find a home for this shelf, Chelle really scratched her head figuring out what to do with this. We were really excited about the idea we ended up having:

Upcycled into a chalkboard shelf for our Nephew, Jax's room! The shelf will be filled with rolled-up onsies that no longer fit, and we're in search of three new knobs for the front, where burp-cloths will hang! Stay tuned for the finished look!!

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Next, we've been trying to figure out what to put above the couch in the downstairs living room. Since it's a big space, we really wanted to find something to do it justice. We have it all planned out, now we're just in the execution phase!

1. We found these metal wall art signs at a garage sale for $10.00 for the set. We love them because they remind us of Kevin's Mom's house. She has a bunch of this pattern of metal wall art in her front living room, and we like that we'll be able to think of her every time we look at these! Mushy, but true.. :)

They just need a little dusting and TLC, and they'll be ready!

2. We really like the floating shelf idea and had originally wanted to look for a couch-length, wide floating shelf to house pictures and art (to avoid from hanging them on the wall). This was our inspiration, from one of Chelle's favorite bloggers: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_20mHpGMPkgkz-CPpYif_Mn6Fi3bJNhWfO1ICejUXUukBUmlrNIOkRaqRZGp5-L3wOjHHKo_VnrafBIJLVQTnfXiB3t3aZOYZw3Aj7fdR12DWD0Q2NiJdxMKFpvOqALoOOzKqUa0uy6KT/s1600/DSC02117.JPG

But, since we have several miscellanious wall shelves "floating" around (ha ha, pun intended), we decided that we should just utilize those.  That will also give us a more broken up, geometrically arranged pattern while still looking clean and uncluttered. The color combo that we created we are SOOOOOO pleased with!

...so, the walls are a muted blue and the floors are slate; there is a lot of dark wood, and our metal signs are bold, earthy tones. So coming up with the perfect look was a big topic of discussion. We finally opted on a simple and clean white, with an accent color of a "hammered metallic bronze".  Here are the two shelves before:

Silver "speckled?" wall shelf: $8 off craigslist. We knew that the ornate detailing on the ledge had a lot of potential, and are glad we found this!



This HIDEOUS shelf was falling apart when we found it at a garage sale for $1. Do you love the brass fixtures!? (Neither did we)

Here we've taken apart the shelf and found a new use for our Rustoleum Hammered spray paint that's just been sitting in the garage since long before we even moved out of our old apartment.


We think these shelves, now completed, make a perfect pair. Chelle literally hugged these shelves to her chest when she was finished and channeled a little Mariah Carey "We Belong Together"...We're not lying...

We cant wait to add these to the metal art, along with two 10-in white wall shelves we've been trying to find a home for!

**If you havent noticed, We sort've have a think for shelves. Take a sneak peek at our favorite "shelf" in the house, a bright red ikea bookcase in our office. The rest of the office is coming soon!

Next up: Chelle will be attempting to chalkboard paint square labels onto these garage sale tins ($8) for the kitchen. We'd eventually like to get glass canisters, but need to find something that has a suction-sealed lid to preserve the ingredients!