i'm Almost Back.

I have definitely been on a 2 week hiatus from blogging. Sorry.. it's unintentional, but life has got in the way. Cannot wait to blog very, very soon!

Office Reveal

Hey :) Sooo, our office is about 95% finished. We still need to put on the new door for the room and the closet doors, along with finding curtains for the window, but other than that, it is FINISHED! We are so proud of this room because it is the first room that is completely finished, new floors and all! I am so grateful for wonderful friends who helped us with this room! {Thank you, Aaron & Jo!}

Get ready for pictures.

The wall color is called, 'Coastal Villa' by Valspar. The primer we used was also by Valspar and was just a shade lighter than the color on the walls. It worked perfectly. The laminate wood floor is called 'Soft Plum' and can be found at Lowe's. 

High view.

DIY Chevron Art.

{tutorial found here.}

My side. 

Desk: DIY project {tutorial found here. }

Chair: Wal-Mart

 Yellow Desk Lamp: Kohl's

White Picture Frame: IKEA

Neon Vase: Thrifted

Yellow Box & Colorful Picture Frame: Target

Stick-On Chalk Board: Kohl's

Corner.

Bookshelf: Big Lots

Wicker Basket: Wal-Mart

Throw: IKEA

Closet Area

Filing Cabinet: Free!

Michael's Side.

LOVE Poster: Amazon

Organizer: Wal-Mart

Painting: DIY 

Desk: Free!

Hubs representin' my blog! 

My Mr. Fix-It! 

BIG Shout Out to my husband! Without this knowledge and handiwork this would have never been completed! I am so thankful for a hard-working husband :) 

Thanks, babe ;)

Well, that's it for now! We are very pleased with the result and cannot wait to begin our next room, the guest bedroom :)

Thanks for reading! I appreciate it more than you know!

Weekend Projects.

Michael & I spent the majority of the weekend working on our house; more specifically, our office project. The office is about 90% finished, so I won't share pics of it until it is finished & stuff is moved in; however, I will show a few just because I'm soo excited! 

Not only did we work on the room, but we worked on some things that will go in the room. Our focus was staining an old office desk Michael found for me & creating some DIY artwork for when the office is finished. 

Ok, time for some pictures & tutorials :) 

Woo. Progress!

Alright, I will start with the Staining Tutorial. Not sure how many of you have ever stained before, but this was my first time staining furniture. Found out, it wasn't hard at all!

First, I went to Wal-Mart & picked out the stain I wanted to use on the desk. Preferably, I like darker wood, so I went with a stain called Ebony by Minwax. I also bought a polyurethane semi-gloss clear coat to put on afterwards, which was by Minwax as well. Since my desk had a clear-coating already on it, it was necessary to sand that off and expose the real wood. The instructions on the Minwax canister said to use 220-grit sandpaper, so we had to buy that as well. The cost for those three supplies were $12-$15.

 The original desk before any work.

Here it is after we sanded it completely. As you can see above, we taped off the surface that is on top of the desk so the stain would not touch it.

Working hard or hardly working? ;) 

p.s. WEAR GLOVES! The stain can make your hands look pretty nasty if you're not careful. && do this project in a well ventilated area. 

Finished product.

Loved the result! It was exactly what I had in mind. It is very important to keep an old t-shirt or cloth handy in order to wipe off any excess stain that does not get soaked up by the wood. If you don't wipe it up, it can look very blotchy. We used a sleeve off an old t-shirt to spread on the stain, but you could use a rag or paintbrush specifically for staining.

After letting it fully dry and letting it sit overnight, Mike put a coat of the polyurethane on it today & it looks great! Cannot wait to get it in the office :) 

Any other questions you may have, just ask! I loved the outcome so much, that I will be staining some end tables I have laying around. 

The second project we complete yesterday was a DIY painting. I am loving the ever-so-trendy Chevron pattern! I was thinking about decor for the office the other day & thought to myself, "I have to have something Chevron in that office!" While buying my office chair yesterday, I picked up 2 14''x18'' canvases & a 57 cent bottle of black acrylic paint. I already had foam brushes and masking tape at home, along with an assortment of other acrylic paint colors to choose from, so I was set!

Just a warning. Making a Chevron print anything takes more thought than what one would think. I had to utilize Mike in this project. We measured it out in order for the lines to be perfect. We came up with 6 rows of 3'' sections & then made little guidelines of where to place the masking tape. Oh, a pencil, masking tape, scissors, & a ruler of some kind is essential for this project! 

After what had seemed to be forever, I finally had all the tape placed where it needed to be. It was time for my favorite part....painting :) 

I had originally planned on just keeping the colors black & white, but after much discussion with Mike, we figured that some color would do it well. 

Finished product :))) We absolutely LOVE it! Some of the paint leaked through the tape at points, so today I touched up the white parts with some white paint and fixed it. This is just one of the canvases. I plan on doing the other using the exact same color scheme just to give it some uniformity. Very anxious to get these up on the office wall! 

Well, this is what my weekend looked like :) Hope yours was just as great! 

Tonight's Dinner

Cheesy BBQ Sloppy Joe's

For dinner tonight, I wanted to try a new recipe. I had 1 lb. of ground beef I wasn't sure what to do with, so I browsed myrecipes.com and found this one. I varied the measurements of some of the ingredients; such as only using 1 lb. of ground beef instead of 1.5 lbs. and only using 1/2 cup of ketchup instead of a full cup. 

This was super easy to make & it tasted awesome!

  

Definitely something I will be making again :) 

 Well, our office is coming along nicely! We are devoting this weekend to completing the room. Part of Saturday will consist of us working on a desk project. I will make sure I post the project on here sometime this weekend :)

have a happy Friday & enjoy your weekend! 

 

Weekend of Labor & Love

Hello everyone :) I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend! Mine was the best one yet! My sister, Larissa, & her husband, Clayton, were married again in their formal wedding ceremony. It was such a wonderful time! I left immediately after work on Thursday to head back to my hometown, where the wedding festivities took place all weekend. 

On Thursday night, I hosted her bachelorette party. We went to House of Japan for dinner, then came home to eat dessert & open gifts. It was fun :) 

Isn't she soo beautiful?!

Friday consisted of the rehearsal for the wedding & a cookout at our dad's house for the bridal party & family. It was a nice night before the big day :) 

Saturday was Wedding Day! We were all praying for the rain to hold off due to L & C's ceremony being held outside. It did end up raining lightly during the ceremony, but nothing too damaging :) 

My sister looked amazing :) Oh, and I BAWLED my eyes out during L & C's vows. They wrote their own vows to one another and it was more than beautiful! I felt like I was in a movie :) 

Here are some pics of the Big Day:

SISTERS :) 

Daddy walking Riss down the aisle :)

Michael & Me

Me, Larissa, & our brother, Josh

Mikey, Me, Riss, Clayton, & Josh

Sisters for Life! Larissa's life-long friend, Libby. The 3 of us ALWAYS have a fun time together!

Reception.

 

Michael & I spent the night on Saturday with my dad & brother to spend some extra time with them. We went to church, played some basketball, ate lunch, and laid around the rest of the day. It was a nice, relaxing time. SO thankful for my family! 

<3

When we arrived back to our house on Sunday night after a long, but fun weekend, Mike asked me to come inside because he had something to show me. I kept explaining to him that I wanted to unpack our cars and get everything settled before we did that; however, he kept insisting that I come inside and see what was different to the house. He started recording a video on his phone & opened the office door. Inside, I found that the flooring was installed!! I was one HAPPY girl! Our sweet, sweet friends helped Mike with the floor in order to surprise me! It was wonderful :) 

eek :)

Yesterday, was Labor Day. It was a busy, but wonderful day! We met some of our close friends & had a triple date :) We had Chik-Fil-A & then us girls went shopping & the boys went to see a movie. It was a great time & cannot wait until we can do it again :) Michael & I went to Menard's afterwards and bought all the baseboard needed for the office then made a trip to Big Lots & picked up a bookshelf & other miscellaneous things. We came home and painted the baseboard, did some organizing, and did some laundry. One of my favorite parts of yesterday was rocking out to some Yellowcard, Brand New, Taking Back Sunday, Angels & Airwaves, and etc. with Michael. We love that genre of music and it took us back to our high school days. I also told Mike about the surprise I had planned for him. {I am awful at holding surprises in} I was browsing on TicketMaster two weeks ago, and found that Yellowcard is on tour & will be in Cleveland in November, playing at the House of Blues. YAY! We will be there :) 

This was my jammin' face from last night. It was soo much fun just singing with my hubby & saying, "OH, remember this song??!!" 

Oh, and see where that yellow arrow is pointing? It's pointing to an indent on my tongue from my expander. Pretty sure it will be a permanent indent. Just kidding, but I have had it for the past 6 months. HOWEVER, that little expander comes off in 15 DAYS! Woooooo :)

Sorry it has been such a LONG post, but it was needed to fit all this in :) & I haven't posted in a week or so. I hope your 4 day work week flies by!