It's Saturday night and I'm blogging...ugh

Hey friends...well its Saturday night and I'm so bored that I decided to catch up on the blog. House updates have stalled for the past few months, but we've been busy with calving, yard work, spring planting (and all it entails), business travel, anniversary parties, birthdays, etc. Whoa! I can't believe its almost May! I have several work events in May and then I'll be done for the fiscal year (with the exception of NYC and OH in June), thank goodness! Here's just a few photos from the month of April...

Fying into Louisville for business...night flights are my absolute favorite; they are always so beautiful. <3 

 Precious baby :)

Mom and Dad at their 35th Wedding Anniversary party :)

 Saw an adorable idea on Pinterest... Asked friends and family to jot down their favorite memories of Mom and Dad together. I then put them in 35 different envelopes, hence "35 Years of Memories"

 I believe everyone in this photo is an Aunt, Uncle, or cousin... big family <3 

My cousins Stephanie and Vanessa :)

 Drew and Nate...disregard the photo frames on the floor HA!

Andrlynn, Brooke, and I at the Miranda Lambert concert...sooo much fun! <3 these girls!

Humor for the week :)

Good Morning Everyone and Happy Thursday! Hope everyone is doing well! Mom and Dad's 35th Wedding Anniversary party went off last weekend without a hitch. Friends and family came from all over, and I just think it goes to show what a difference 35 years can make! I'll post some pictures soon, but in the meantime.... Here's some humor to finish out your work week! 


Why Married Women Should NOT Party...
(If this doesn't make you laugh out loud, you have lost your sense of humor. Even if you've heard this one before, it never fails to make you laugh!)

The other night I was invited out for a night with the 'girls.' I told my husband that I would be home by midnight, 'I promise!' Well, the hours passed and the margaritas went down way too easily. Around 3 a.m., a bit loaded, I headed for home.

Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hallway started up and cuckooed 3 times. Quickly, realizing my husband would probably wake up, I cuckooed another 9 times.

I was really proud of myself for coming up with such a quick-witted solution, in order to escape a possible conflict with him. (Even when totally smashed... 3 cuckoos plus 9 cuckoos totals 12 cuckoos = MIDNIGHT!)

The next morning my husband asked me what time I got in, I told him 'MIDNIGHT'... He didn't seem pissed off in the least... Whew, I got away with that one!

Then he said 'We need a new cuckoo clock.' When I asked him why, he said, 'Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said 'oh shit.' Cuckooed 4 more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another three times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then tripped over the coffee table and farted.


Happy Thursday Friends!
XOXO
Holls

Good Morning Friends!! It's been nearly a month since I've posted, and I apologize! March was one crazy month, between the birthdays of my Mom, Dad, and brother (all the first week), in Orlando the second weekend for a work event, and Louisville the following weekend for another work event, and finally this past weekend I had the Alumni Board members back on campus. Sooo...today, I took the day off, and am enjoying it immensely! I've already cleaned up the kitchen, and have just sat down to blog with a nice cup of coffee, the sunshine streaming through my living room window, and Ice Loves Coco on in the background (I hate to admit it, but I secretly really love the show LOL). Aaaahh... LIFE.IS.GOOD.  If only every day could start like this.

Oh well, I'm going to make the most of my day off. Starting with.....drum roll please........... pictures from my kitchen makeover!

This is what the kitchen/dining area looked like on the day we toured the house.

All I could think, was OH.MY.GOSH.... seriously?!? After we took possession of the farm, we started ripping everything out, starting with that horrid paneling. 

Thank goodness there was drywall behind the paneling. Next step? Remove light fixtures, countertops, cabinet doors and drawers, and those swirly "decorative" pieces of wood above the windows framed by cabinets. 

Thanks Adam for all the help!!! (For those who don't know, Drew's older brother, Adam, helped with nearly every step of our remodel, and we are sooo very thankful!) Around this same time, the walls got their new texture added, and also got a coat of primer. Next comes wall color. The photo immediately below is of a cute little wall hanging I had found, that became the inspiration for my kitchen. I chose my colors and other decor for the kitchen based around this little rooster sign.

Here you can see the wall colors. The living room is a nice green, the hallway is a soft buttercream, and the kitchen is a mustard/Tuscany yellow.

Next came the tile floors... Drew and Adam laid the tile, and then Drew, my Mom, and I worked on the grout. BTW, grouting tile is brutal on the knees!

Here you can see the tile in the kitchen as it meets the hardwood floors in the living room and the hallway. <3 

Adam hooking up my new sink!! WOO!!!

Here you can see the color of the cabinets, which I totally copied from my favorite blog "The Lettered Cottage."  We "distressed" the cabinets, and added crown molding, then applied a coat of poly (poly not yet applied in this photo).

 Here is the desk area. I decided to take the doors off the top cabinets and leave them off for open shelving. We also had extra countertop left over, and decided it looked really great on the desk. So we sanded it all down, and primed it for painting.

This is the desk area almost complete... The only things missing are the new electrical outlets, drawer pulls, the under cabinet light fixture, and trim around the floor.

Here is a picture of the door I refinished (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE)! Again, we moved in before all the little things were finished, so disregard, the missing door knob, electrical outlets, trim, etc, HA! :)

View of the finished cabinets, minus the door knobs and backsplash.

Some of the backsplash, but still missing a few doors and the countertop end in this photo.

Finished cabinets... I'm in <3 

Left this section open, for a nice display for some of my dishes :)

And that's it! I can't get the entire kitchen into one photograph, but I hope you enjoyed our transformation!! I love that we had the opportunity to really make the house "our home," and it feels so great to walk into every time I come home. As they say, home is where the heart is, and our hearts are most certainly in the quiet countryside, in a house filled with love, sweat, hard work, a few tears, and a beautiful view.

We have Internet!!!

WOO!!! We finally have internet as of earlier this afternoon! That being said... it's time to play catch up on the house updates, but first...a few pictures from our honeymoon <3

This picture says it all.... Oh Mexico... I do love you so...

Aaahh, just kicking it on the beach :)

Hanging at the pool

This is definitely a fake "ruins" structure, but its still fun to take pictures with :) 

"Got my toes in the water.."

walking down the beach

A little sun-burnt, but still happy!

Loving us some Honeymoon in Mexico!!

Photo A Day Challenge

Hello Friends!

I am going to try this fabulous Photo-A-Day Challenge for the month of February. I'll create an album on Facebook for these photos, so be sure to check in from time to time. :)

Hugs!
Holly

Hallway Makeover

Good Morning!!! It's just one of those days, the sun is shining bright, and optimism is in the air! So my new computer came over the weekend, but we still don't have internet at our house. As you know, we live in a rural area. Mark Twain seems to be the best local provider for internet, but the only option we have (since we are way out in the boonies) is wireless (aka satellite) internet. Even that may not be possible; they have us scheduled to run a test for signal, so cross your fingers! :)

Anyways, enough about internet; this post is suppose to be about the hallway. It's long narrow design was something I wasn't initially attracted to... and after you see the photo below, I think you'll agree..

This photo is what the hallway looked like when we took possession of the house. Hot 'eh? I thought it was too long, too narrow, and way too dark. Solution: tear out that dated paneling and brighten the space up.

As you can see, in this photo, we have removed the paneling, as well as the interior doors (door frames were taken out later). We also had that old "popcorn" texture on the ceilings throughout the house. To remove the texture, we sprayed extremely hot water on the ceiling, let it soak for a few minutes, and then scraped it off. It worked pretty well, except for the areas where the previous owners had painted over the old texture; thus sealing it in. Awesome.

 You'll notice some items were taped off in this photo. This is after Drew and his uncle Jon re-textured the entire house with the newer style of knock down. As stated before, we left all the old carpets in during this process, and waited to remove them until we had finished painting. At this point, I am really starting to like the hallway (minus the giant attic fan in the ceiling).

 And here is the hallway as of lately! I now LOVE the long hallway, because I discovered I can use it as a gallery for pictures! :)  The only things missing in this photo are: A) The door knobs need installed on the doors, B) we still need to figure out how to cover those old heat dials on the wall (not my idea of nice wall decor), and C) the rest of the photos need hung up. (Please note, I have other photos that will fill in the awkward spaces, but they are not framed yet, so this is just "puzzle pieces" of my gallery layout.)

So what all did we do to transform the hallway? 

• removed all wood paneling
• removed all old trim and doors
• removed old ceiling texture
• applied knock down to the ceiling and walls
• painted (Butter Cream by Glidden)
• removed old carpet
• refinished original hardwood floors
• installed new lights, trim, and doors

Hope you enjoyed this post! Have a wonderful Tuesday! 

XOXO

Holly

P.S. don't forget to check out the sky tonight, I read on MSN yesterday that we may see northern lights! Great Britain saw them last night :)

Living Room Update!

Hello Friends! Here's a quick update on the status of the living room. You can see my original post about the renovation here. We have since moved in and I am slowly but surely collecting the decorating pieces I have visioned for the room.


In this photo (taken back in September), we have our main furniture arranged for our small space. Want a comparison to what this space looked like previously? Click here.

Starting to add a few decorative pieces to the room. (Please disregard my mini shop vac charging in the photo, and the fact that our new light switches haven't yet been installed.)

Our farm has an old homestead on the very north end, which is where I found this fabulous door! You might notice that I decided to take the wreath from the photo above and use it on the door instead. (P.S. That buck is not my husbands, I proudly claim that one!)

And just because I loved my tree this year...here's what the view looked like during the Holidays. :)

Slowly but surely, our little farmhouse is coming together! Stay tuned for updates on the rest of the house!

XOXO

Holly

Grandma's Christmas Tree

Hey there! I know we are a bit past the holidays now, but I wanted to share my Grandma's Christmas tree. As a child, my memories of Christmas with Dad's side of the family consisted of Grandma's house (always had large parties in the basement for space purposes), her tree, the antique lights, Alvin and the Chipmunks Chrismas record streaming from the record player, and playing with my cousins. Our family Christmas's are a little different now that most of the cousins are grown, however, this year we decided to host Christmas at Grandma's house once more. With a nostalgic spirit, I took over decorating Grandma's tree. I used her tree, her lights, and her vintage tinsel, but left off most of her ornaments. In place of ornaments, I used family photos to decorate the tree, both old and new... take a gander :)


When I first went looking for Grandma's decor, I found this box with all the lights. Makes me smile! Anyone else remember these bad boys?

Here's a quick shot of the tree with the lights, vintage tinsel, and just a few ornaments...

AND here is the tree all decked out in family photos. In order to get a uniform look, I copied all the photos onto the same color of paper, and printed all in black and white. Though I am obviously biased on this one, I think it's quite the gem. What do you think?

Well Friends...I certainly did NOT meet my goal (posting photo updates of the rest of the house prior to 2012), BUT in regards to that, we finally ordered a computer. Why is this relevant in the least? Once our new Lenovo Ideapad comes in the mail, I will finally be able to blog at home!! I am OH SO excited for it's arrival.


In the mean time, we did cross another "to-do" off our never-ending list; our honeymoon. We spent January 5-11th in sunny Akumal, Mexico at an all-inclusive resort. All the food and drinks you can manage! Though we thoroughly enjoyed our week in paradise, it was nice to return home, see the pups, and finally enjoy some winter snow! I'll be back soon! 


XOXO!
Holly