Lowe's Sweet Lowe's

As we take the first steps toward making home improvements, we have found ourselves a new home away from home: Lowe's. Located 1.7 miles from our new house, Lowe's has easily become our official new "toy store" and we are not wasting any time in getting well acquainted. On Saturday we found ourselves at a stand still and in need of various estimates, designs and tools before we were able to move on with our new and improved never-ending to-do list (Thanks, Greg!) So with measurements in hand (or so we thought) we headed down the road around 3:00pm. Upon arrival we realized we- ok, I- forgot one of the measurements we needed. So, after browsing around for some other necessities, back to the house we go. And then back to Lowe's we go. On take two we sat down with a kitchen specialist and designed an updated kitchen that moved us away from our yellowing cabinets and included more than one drawer in the entire kitchen. By the time we finished, it was past 6:00 and we had plans to meet Mike's dad there at Lowe's around 7. After a quick call to confirm plans, we made a mad dash to a fancy dinner of Wendy's. We literally ate in the parking lot of Lowe's and when Mike's dad arrived, we proceeded to walk in to our new favorite place for the third time in one day. This is where the real fun started. The game plan was to get lawn tools and equipment along with some other essentials. Now I knew in the back of my mind that this shopping trip may take a while, but I had no idea what I was in store for. It might have taken us three more hours to get through the store and Mike's mental shopping list, but we made it out by closing time with two carts full of new stuff for the house.



So after our 3 trips and 7 hours in this mega-store, what did we learn? Well, first- it takes Mike over 10 minutes to pick out a hose and 2- we are going to need more of those 10% off coupons! I know for a fact that we have many, many more trips to our new favorite hangout in our future. Thank goodness we are less than 2 miles away! And hey, if we ever get crazy and get in the mood to change it up, we have two Home Depot stores located exactly 6.6 miles in each direction.

Wow'ed by Walls

WOW! The woman who lived in this house before must have had pictures and knickknacks hanging all over the house. And I mean EVERYWHERE! This weekend we needed to prep the walls to be primed and that meant removing everything from the walls and scrubbing them down to remove the grit and grime. We easily removed over a dozen picture hangers, screws and anchors from each room. The small office alone had maybe 10 hangers- per wall. Hey, everyone has their own taste and I'm not knocking that. What makes me laugh is the thought of Mike spackling and spackling all those tiny holes (and the not so tiny holes that I managed to make when an anchor or two got stuck...oops). Once we had the walls looking like someone used the room for target practice, we scrubbed every inch of them, the closets and the ceilings.

I can not wait to paint! Taking these rooms from their current chaotic state and making a more cohesive color palette is going to make such a difference!

Maserati

Not much is going on right now so I thought I would dedicate a post to one of our furbabies- Maserati. Maserati was a rescue cat Leslie adopted from the shelter in 2008. The shelter has theme weeks where all of their incoming animals are randomly assigned names revolving around a certain theme. Maserati arrived on "car week" and had neighbors named Kia, Camry, Hummer, etc. Having been born with more expensive taste than I will ever be able to manage, I had always loved Maseratis (the car, not the cat) since I was little. I had arrived at the shelter with the mindset that I wanted a big orange male cat to adopt and had one all picked out. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an adorable tabby cat staring back at me from a bottom cage. I pulled him out, he snuggled in my lap and fell asleep among all the chaos and I was smitten. Seeing the name "Maserati" on the tag was the icing on the cake and I proceeded to fill out the paperwork to bring this not-so-little guy home. Two weeks later, I arrived at the shelter with cat carrier in hand to pick him up. That is when I finally realized how ummm, large, this cat actually was. He didn't fit in the carrier, not even close. The shelter was kind enough to sell me a carrier that was basically a cardboard box and we somehow made it home in one piece. Since that day, Maserati has been at my feet every chance he gets and hardly ever leaves my side. He watches the birds from my bedroom window as I get ready every morning, he greets me everyday at the door when I get home and at night, he curls up in my lap to watch TV. He is exactly what I was looking for in a new buddy and we couldn't be happier together. Well, maybe he'd be happier if I didn't insist he be on a diet and I'd be happier if he didn't insist on reminding me every second how hungry he truly is, but hey, life isn't perfect.

House Pictures

Here they are- pictures of the house in all its glory as it is now! As you can tell, we have lots of cosmetic work to do (especially painting- really, lime green stripes in the kitchen?!?!) We finally have a plan of attack for the next few months and hopefully we stay pretty much on schedule. It is going to be a long process, but one that we are definitely looking forward to.

ps- Happy Friday the 13th :)

Wedding When and Where

We officially have a date and venue for the wedding! On November 5, 2011, Mike and I will be getting married at the Vandiver Inn in Havre de Grace, MD. We really felt this place was perfect for us. The location in between DC and Delaware can't be beat and we fell in love with the quaint, waterfront town on our first visit. The inn itself dates back to 1886 and is really charming and unique. We are hoping to have the ceremony outside in front of the gazebo in the garden area. The cocktail hour will be on the front porch and inside the house and then the reception will be in the pavilion behind the mansion. We are both very happy that we found Vandiver Inn and can not wait to share our special day with our friends and family. Most of all, we are relieved to have made our first big wedding decision! Stay tuned for more details!

First Weekend in the New House!

We celebrated our first night in the house Friday night by popping open a bottle of champagne and setting up camping chairs in the living room and an air mattress in the master bedroom. (Please forgive our appearance in the picture, it was after midnight and we were pretty exhausted!) I have to admit, despite all the work it is going to be, this house thing is so much fun. Mike had to be in NJ this past weekend to help out on a friend's house, so I spent all day Saturday cleaning the heck out of the place. I'm not exactly one for scrubbing, dusting and vacuuming, but knowing that this is going to be "our home" made it pretty enjoyable.

We are trying to come up with a realistic schedule of home improvements and have a pretty extensive to-do list. We hope to de-weed and spruce up the landscaping, add more storage and redo the counter-top in the kitchen, add flooring and walk-up steps to the attic, spackle, prime and paint everywhere and lay new flooring in the entire first and second levels- all before we move in in October. And then of course we also have another list of everything we want to do after we move in! I see lots and lots of long and tiring weekends in our future, but we couldn't be more excited!

We officially have a house!

Today is the day Mike closed on the house! We are both so very excited. Searching for the right place and then closing on this particular house was a long process and we are so thankful that it is over. We finally have the place and and can not wait to get in there to fix it up so that we can move in and make it a home :)