Our yard

For not having a lawn to mow, we sure have spent a lot of time in the yard this spring and summer.  It feels good to have gotten so much done.  We showed you a little bit of progress here.

I thought I would take a stroll down memory lane and show you what it looked like last fall :)  

By the way, we celebrated one year in the house last weekend.  What a whirlwind!

We hired a 'yard man' to help us vision the space.  The backyard looks amazing, in particular.  Very nicely cleaned up.  And don't worry, we had our hands in the mix working hard as well, not just the yard man.

Compare the above pics to the below and you'll see what I mean!

Here is what it looked like mid-summer, if you remember when my friend Natalia was in town.  Pretty, yes, but out of control.

A few more out of control pics:

And the finished result: did you know that we had a fountain under all that mess?  

By next year, the deck will be cleaned and the pergola will be stained.  So many projects, so little time. :)

practicando

My friend Natalia from my days in the Albers business school came to town over the fourth of July, all the way from Mexico City.  Her family was also in town from Colombia and I invited them to visit our home and share a pacific northwest meal: salmon, potato salad, fruit, etc.  It was a really fun evening, with great food and good company...as well as practicando mi espanol.  Tyler even impressed me with his high school spanish recollection.  I tried my best but I can certainly use more practice.  Amy, get ready for my desire to practice!  It is hard to believe that it was 12 years ago when I studied in Mexico.  Ah, those were the days.

Here are some photos of our lovely and relaxing evening, most of which spent in our backyard.  I am loving this summer!

And of course, no visit to Seattle is complete without Cupcake Royale :)  So many choices, so little time!

Xoxo, to a beautiful, hard-working woman with many great things in her future.

Home improvements

Where does time go?  Is it already June?!  Wow.  Well, I haven't posted pics of our home since March so I guess it is time to update you.  We are so very happy at home which is a lovely feeling.  As I type this, I am enjoying the peace and quiet of the backyard, listening to birds chirp and stretched out in one of Tyler's birthday presents: adirondack chairs.  

I'm pretty sure we will get a lot of use out of these chairs.

We are adding some furniture and decor to the home as well.  Our dining room now benefits from a buffet cabinet.

No home improvement project is complete without our construction forewoman, Ms. Pogo.

Forgive the inconsistent area of comparison in the next two photos.  You perhaps can't tell from the photos but our kitchen was in need of lighting adjustments.  The overhead lights were really bright and the counters/prep area were dark.  So my geeky handy man Tyler installed undercabinet lighting.

Before:

After:

What a lovely thing.

With decent weather, we have spent a lot of time cleaning up the "low maintenance" yard.  It has turned out to be fairly high maintenance but maybe only because I am having some OCD issues with weeds and the dreaded English Ivy which had taken over our backyard.  Here I am on one fine weekend day...just stuffin the yard waste bin :)

The yard has gone from a sea of ivy and dead leaves...

To a semi-presentable weeded landscape.  Some day we may add some beauty bark and figure out how to control bamboo but for now we'll take what we have time for.

In the front driveway, we had a hideous shrub that was way overgrown.  Tyler and his new best friend, the alligator lopper (also known as Cindy Lopper), took care of that.

Before:

After: You can now see our neighbors' beautiful landscape.

And last but not least, the room I am very excited about these days: the laundry room!

Before: dingy dirty light yellow paint.  Inefficient cabinetry and awkward space for the litter box.

BEFORE

AFTER:  beautiful pool blue paint, including freshly painted ceiling which by the way is a good workout :)  Under sink storage space that is much more efficient...

Custom litter box area and shelving...  (I love Elfa from Container Store)!

And broom, mop, iron and ironing board storage.

The last piece of this project will be new duct work to allow us to push the washer and dryer back closer to the wall, but that will have to wait for another day.

That's all for now.  We are looking forward to welcoming any and all visitors so let me know when you'd like to come by.

The master and home improvements

As a promise to Amy, I am posting some house updates.  Projects here and there have kept us busy.  Tyler likes to crawl up in the attic and down into the crawl space while I cook and decorate, haha.  That pretty much sums up the projects around here.  I appreciate the time and patience that he has with things like wiring and fixing things that work fine but are done poorly.  I know our home will appreciate it as well in the long run.  

We cleaned the condensation out of our skylight (gross)!  

Some of the more "pretty" projects include our master bedroom, bathroom, and closet.  

Before picture of the master bedroom, courtesy of Windermere.  I love red, but this is a little excessive in my opinion.

Master bedroom after (sorry it is not in the daylight to compare):

As you can see, we are going for the more peaceful look.  :)  And that stool by the bed is for spoiled Pogo.  Also notice her teacup for drinking to the right of the nightstand.  Oh my, what a life.

I love our new Ikea lamps and for the most part, I've done a decent job of buying everything on sale which I am proud of.  The only thing that slightly bothers me is that the bed is off-center from the window but it opens up the space better and our bed is a king sized whereas they had a queen.

And now for the master bathroom, or the sink/vanity portion of it (no changes were made to the toilet/shower area other than installing one additional light which Tyler is very proud of).

Before:
Too modern for our taste, too red, and not functional.  The lights were too bright and the frosty part in the mirror was directly over the sink so you had to stand off center to look in the mirror.

After:

Simple, warm, classic lighting.  Soft colors and functional mirrors.  Less modern towel bars and the addition of towel rings and a shelf.  Technically we may still do a few things.  Well, first, I would like to find new hand towels  :)  And we may install a medicine cabinet some day.

Next up: the master closet.  I can't believe I haven't blogged about this!  I don't actually have a total before picture of it.  When we moved in, the closet walls were filled with scuff marks from shoes, they were very dirty and the shelves and bars were falling apart.  Here is the before pic after we took the bars out and repainted.

And the after (apologies for the imperfect panorama):

Pretty much a dream closet.  Thank God for the container store and Tyler's family for installing it.  

Really loving this space, as you can see.

Last but not least is the family room.  Currently we really don't use it.  Hopefully as things calm down it will be our hanging out room.  

Before:

After:
I am loving my framed prints from Hatch, Show, Print in Nashville TN and the hanging guitars.

This chair is one of Pogo's favorite places to sleep :)

And that's a bit of what has been taking up our time.  More to come!

Oh Christmas Tree

Tyler has never had a REAL Christmas tree so we set out to find a great tree to deck our halls.  Thankfully there is a landscaping company with a tree lot just down the road.  They did all the hard work including chopping it down and getting it on top of my car.  I never thought my car would be transporting a Christmas tree but it did just fine.

 

The funny part of the story is that when at the tree lot we didn't fully comprehend how large the tree would be.  Well, it certainly is large :) 

 

And the finished product (thanks to Instagram):

 

Tyler and I exchange ornaments every year that have meaning for our year together.  He gave me this new home ornament (from Leavenworth):

It will be sad to see the tree go but hopefully we can put it to good use as firewood :)

 

 

Home sweet home for the holidays

We've been busy making our house into a home.  So many projects, where to start?!  Of course the most drastic difference in the house is the paint colors.  Check out the link above for the initial shots of the living room.  Here are a few updated living room shots some of which are complete with holiday decor.

Our larger-than-life Christmas tree (more on that later):

We couldn't part with our small tree from the condo so that went in the dining room.

 

Speaking of the dining room, we have had many opportunities to entertain.  Since I am behind on blogging you haven't seen this photo yet.  This was pretty much the weekend after moving in.  We hosted the Brewers for a lovely pizza dinner. 

 

 

Here we are the day before Thanksgiving with 2 of Tyler's brothers and their ladies.  Notice the mirror...I love where we chose to hang it.

And a home just isn't a home without scentsy.  Thanks to Fisch for supplying me with so many good scents.  Check them out here!

 

And the living room has pictures!  Here is Isaac, happily meeting Miss Pogo for the first time.
  Meow!

And then we have the office.  Before pictures, courtesy of Windermere:

Somehow the bright orange just wasn't doing it for us.  It is now a soothing blue-grey and white color.  These aren't the best photos but here is the left side of the room (left of the window):

 

 

And the right:

The last update of the evening will be the front entry light fixture.  We went from this funky thing:

To a more classic look:

Next, I'll definitely need to show you our progress on the master bedroom and family room.  Good night for now :)