Today

The content of this post is not exaggerated. It is real and true as I am literally experiencing it at this present moment.

We have 5 industrial fans and two industrial de-humidifiers in our house right now.

(In the kitchen)

Take a second and imagine what one of those industrial fans at Sam's and Costco sound like. Now multiply it by 10. Now put it in a contained area.

NOW, add 3 stir-crazy dogs to that contained area.

Are you still with me?

Ok, because I'm not done yet.

Make sure you have accounted for the fact that the fans are messing up the way your thermostat reads the internal temperature, so now you only have 2 temperature settings to choose from: North Pole or Hell.

And you don't really get a choice, it's just going to be one of those. Yesterday it was Hell.

Now, imagine that you are stuck in this contained area, bound to the whimsical schedule of contractors and delivery men. In case you are unfamiliar with their schedules, it's simple because they're all the same. It's whenever the hell they feel like it.

Normally, I'd just deal with it, but I am literally trapped in this wind tunnel with 3 barking dogs and a defenseless baby.

Plus, we are out of milk so I couldn't have cereal this morning.

Also, update! We have 1 million boxes left to unpack (minus 3 we unpacked last night).

Picture me internally screaming because I don't want to wake the baby.

Who am I?

I cannot and WILL NOT ever say/type/read the words "who am I?" in anything other than the Zoolander voice. Sorry!

My blog is suffering from an identity crisis at the moment. So I am trying new things using blogger's tools to change it up a bit. If you pay close attention to this blog, you will notice that I have decided on a new title.

I think if I get the right combination of time and energy, I might want to go all custom with my blog. But. I don't know if that will happen. So for now, it will just look different than it used to. Not better. Just different.

Saturday night and we still have 1 million boxes to unpack. They are strewn throughout the house but we have strategically left them in rooms with doors on them. We're sneaky like that, and like to trick ourselves into thinking there's nothing to do.

Oh yeah, and the water line to our fridge busted and flooded our basement. So there's that.

A day in the life

1 week in to my official housewife gig, I'm loving it. Campbell is really a joy to be around all day. I miss him when he is taking his nap(s). Since I have no pictures to share of house progress, (all we've done so far is paint one room, which is actually a dramatic difference, but there's only so much you can say about a painted room. It used to be that color and now it's this color,) I will tell you about my new schedule.

Here's a list of today's events in a somewhat chronological order.

-Wake up from 8 straight hours of sleep!!!!!!!!!! (This is huge, please don't let me jinx it.)
- Feed baby
-"Shut up Cece!"
- Shut ups for Harry and Elvis as well...
- More sleep
- Feed baby
- Morning coffee
- Avocado (followed by gagging)
- "Shut up Cece!"
- Nap for Campbell
- Lunch for me!
- Shower for me!
- Feed baby
- Weekly picture (32 weeks, when did that get here? 20 weeks away from a year, holy cow!)
- Large McDonald's Dr Pepper
- Nap time for baby (but he's crying)
- Rock and read instead
- "SHUT UP CECE!"
- More crying
- Teething
- "SHUT THE *&^@#$*&^#@$ UP CECE!" That dog needs to relax.
- More crying
- Infant Tylenol
- Back in crib and still crying, poor thing, coupled with throwing things out of the crib and what I can only assume are baby words for "How could you, Mommy?"
-When will this tylenol kick in?

The crying is out of the ordinary, the barking is not. Happy Friday!

Moving, O.M.G.

All I can say about moving is, I'm glad it's finally over.

At the beginning, I didn't want to move because I was sad and I was going to miss everything that was my current life.

By the end, I was like, "Are we there yet?" Moving, and especially being displaced for almost a month, is particularly draining.

So, we have been in the house for 6 days. I'm a little frazzled with all of the settling in that has taken place (or hasn't, actually). We have about 1 million boxes left to unpack, and I'm convinced that this is the philosophy of the packing/moving company: Take apart every single thing and then wrap each part in a separate box, then put unlike items together.

It makes for a really cruel game of "find the light bulbs" or "Where did they pack my underwear?"

The other thing is that we could not WAIT to start painting. So we put the unpacking aside and started painting the main living area.

The bad part of that is we now have a half painted room plus a bunch of random unpacked items and boxes. Boxes everywhere.

I have set a goal for myself just now, that I WILL have this room painted and all boxes inside the house unpacked by the weekend. Ok, by the end of the weekend.

Then, and only then, will I deal with the garage.

I think I'm drowning in cardboard.

New House: Guest Bedrooms and a Nursery Dilemma

Ok, here's where it's going to get crazy. Let's take a look at the guest rooms.

Pros: 

• HUGE guest rooms! These rooms are way bigger than our old guest rooms. It's nice to have a little more room for different furniture.
• Lots of natural light. We were there during the day, and it got lots of real light. One weird thing about buying a house is how you don't really get to see it after dark (if someone's living in it, it's weird to ask them to be out of the house during their evening routine, in my opinion.)

Cons:

• Wall color
• Wall decals - easy to remove, but just adds a step to the whole decorating process.

So, guest rooms aren't a priority for decorating. I haven't thought much about what I want to do in each, other than neutral colors. I do have several old end tables that I want to paint for one of the guest rooms, and I'm leaning toward something fun like coral for those. 

However, the nursery IS a priority. Especially since we are most likely going to put the nursery in the orange room, and I just have a feeling that waking up to that color every morning might shock the poor baby.

Here is my dilemma: Should I do the same thing in this nursery as his old nursery, or should I go in a completely different direction?

It would be almost the same amount of work for either - the only difference being if I went with a new "theme" there would be a few details that I'd have to get together first (i.e. new crib skirt, curtains, etc.)

If I go with the old nursery theme, seen below, I could still change it up a bit to make it somewhat newer - maybe change the accent color from bright green to bright blue?

That way, I could still use the crib skirt, curtains and throw pillows that I already made. I could also do more of the stenciled trees on the wall (it only took me about an hour to do in the first place) - maybe carry the trees to an adjacent corner and then a few gathered across the room in another corner.

The main reason I would do the same nursery theme the same way again is that I was pretty sad to leave his nursery behind when we sold the house.

Now, the other idea I had was to go in a completely different direction and do a nautical theme!

I saw this cruise-ship themed nursery a while back and thought it was suuuuuper adorable:

I wouldn't do exactly the same thing, but I would use the navy blue on the walls - possibly do a chair rail with white below or some sort of white wainscoting...And I think I'd want it to have an old world feel. So we would use old maps, dark stained wood in some places...Possibly frame some fun pictures of boats or something?

I actually have a lot of things to do a nautical theme already, including a small stained glass lighthouse lamp (it makes a great night-light!) We also have several (6-8 to be exact) round wooden frames like the one pictured below:

I would add mirrors to them and line them up along one wall to make it look like port holes on a ship.

Also, I have a round rug that looks like a globe that's from ikea about 9-10 years ago. Couldn't find a picture but it might just end up in his room either way.

Maybe I could DIY some kind of bunting using flags from around the world like this:

So, I'm sure you can sympathize with my dilemma (first world problems, I know.) But I just cannot make a decision. And I feel a sense of urgency due to the orange nature of the room. I would LOVE for you to vote. It might help me make a decision. Or I might ignore everyone's thoughts and continue to waffle. But I guess we won't know until you leave me feedback.

It's my blog, so do what I say.

New House: Master Bedroom & Bathroom

Kennedy might get mad, because I have some ideas for the master suite that will require him to do a smidgen more than he might have originally thought. Look, it's not like these plans are set in stone. The thing is, when I'm sitting around for 2 months in "moving limbo," I have a lot of time to think. And plan. So this is what I've come up with for the master bedroom.

There's really nothing wrong with the room, and I imagine if we left it as is, we would be fine for a long time. BUT, we did that before. Left it as is -- and I want to do something different. (By the way, what the heck is one supposed to do with those random cut-outs near the ceiling? )

So, the walls are in the same color family of what we're thinking, but it's got that faux suede finish, and it's just not doing it for me. We already decided that we were going to use the same color in this bedroom that we used in our old master bedroom, since the old master was still new to us.

(This picture is not very good, lighting wise. But the color of the walls is a dark dark dark grey-brown mud color.)

Ok, but here's the deal. One tiny detail can throw off a whole plan for the room, so now I have choices. Lots and lots of choices. 

Option one is to paint the room the same way as the old master and decorate it the same way and be done with it. Not a bad option, but the room has those huge pitched ceilings.

So it got me thinking that 1) I hate it because it makes the room asymmetrical and that bugs me to no end, and 2) If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. And by that, I mean, draw attention to the very thing that I don't care for in order to make it look like it was on purpose.

AND, it can be done for (almost) nothing.

My idea is to add faux beams OR a planked ceiling - I think the faux beams would come in a little cheaper since we wouldn't be covering the entire ceiling - and I think Kennedy would probably like the rustic look a little more.

Here are pictures to help you visualize:

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IF we did the faux wood beams, then I wonder if a lighter color wall/overall aesthetic in the room would be a better choice. That way the beams could stand out more...In which case, we would not be painting the room the same as our old one.

White wood planks have a whole different feel as well, so I don't know how dark mud brown grey what have you color would go with that either.

So that's where I'm at with the master bedroom.

Now, for the bathroom...

Those ceilings are sloped as well...so does that mean it would look better to carry the beams into the master bathroom as well?

I am FOR SURE painting the honey oak cabinets white, and doing one of those frames around the builder-grade mirror that you see all over Pinterest all the time (using crown molding.) Also, I don't mind the color on the walls for now.

Downside to the bathroom: The tiles in the shower and on the tub are a beige color. I think they make epoxy that you can paint over tile...Or it might look ok to me once I paint the vanity. It's not super noticeable in the picture, but in person I noticed right away.

Oh yeah, the lighting fixture above the mirror would more than likely eventually be replaced.

Today, I am thankful to have a handy husband that can do all the things I have planned. And also, a husband that likes to do DIY projects (Pretty please, Kennedy?)

New House: The Kitchen

When we first started the moving process (putting our house on the market, looking for a new one, etc) I thought I was going to have to shut down the blog and start a new one. We spent the last 3 years doing major projects on our house and I thought my blog title would no longer be relevant. Thankfully, that's not the case.

For it is not where you live, but how you live that determines how many projects you can do.

I only say that so that someone will read my blog and make an internet meme out of my quote, and then it will be all over Pinterest. Feel free to fill in the blank with whatever applies to you (i.e. "how happy you are" or "how much money you will make").

We did NOT buy a fixer upper this time around. The house was built in 1996 (I think), so it's fairly new, and has been well maintained. The house itself is very nicely decorated, but it is definitely not our taste. So let the City of Projects be revived!

I'm going to try to stay committed to do a series of posts now, where I share current photos of the house as it was listed for sale. Then I will share what I plan to do with each space. I'm a little nervous to post photos of the house before we have actually closed on the house, only for fear that I may jinx it. But I can be a daredevil, and so I share!

Today I will share the kitchen/living room. I am starting here because I cannot stop thinking about making this into my dream(ish) kitchen. It would be my real dream kitchen if it wasn't completely opened up to the living room, but you work with what you have. I don't think we looked at one house that didn't have that feature. Not my favorite, but seems to be a trend for newer homes in that area.

I do appreciate the counter space and upgrades in this kitchen - It has nice appliances and granite countertops.

There's also a nice built-in desk on the left there. We had a similar space in our old kitchen. It was more  of a built-in hutch since we couldn't sit at it, but it caught a lot of clutter. I'm hoping I can figure out how to use this space so it's not super cluttered all the time. But if you ask Kennedy, that's impossible when you live with me.

Here's a look standing at the island looking into the breakfast nook and living room.

And here's the living room area...It's actually much bigger looking in person.

Now, I feel like I've typed a lot of words, and in an effort to keep things short, I'm going to shift to a list of plans I have for this space.

• Paint all walls in a neutral grey tone, kind of like this:

(via)

• Paint all cabinets WHITE! I'm dreaming of a white kitchen....

(via)

• Change the backsplash from the tumbled travertine tile to white subway tile/dark brown grout. (The granite is a dark brown color, so I want to tie it in.)

(via)

• Something untraditional with the island. Not sure on details yet but I definitely want to add posts to the two corners on the bar side...possibly paint it a different color than the other kitchen cabinets. I haven't decided if I will be safe and go with a dark grey, or if I want to bring in a pop of color like a light blue.

(via)

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• Paint all doors (throughout the entire house!) black like this. Keep the door frames white.

I haven't thought too much about the living room side. We already have most of the furniture for that room. We will mount our TV above the fireplace instead of off to the side...same grey color throughout kitchen and living room.

Ok, what room should I do next??

'Hello!' from St. John!

In St. John, (US Virgin Islands), people speak English. So there was no need to use a foreign word in my title. Not that I'm against speaking other languages in the US, like some people. That's neither here nor there.

Just popped in to give a quick update from our quick vacation! It's magical here. The Westin resort sits on a perfectly secluded cove in Cruz Bay. The water is calm. No waves here. I'm taking lots of pictures, and will try to share them soon!

Today we spent some time at the pool. I was eating my lunch on the lounge chair when this thing

Seagull

literally HOVERED a foot over me, trying to steal a french fry or half of my buffalo chicken wrap. I shrieked loudly, and it flew away. Then a swarm of them came circling around our area because some genius left their pizza out while they went swimming. I wielded Kennedy's shirt like a sword and they didn't come near me.

THEN, I was lounging in the pool, looked to my left, and THIS GUY:

Iguana

was swimming straight for me! I loudly exclaimed that there was an Iguana swimming in the pool (which, by the way, a ton of people already knew and had their cameras out...but no warning for me...THANKS) and took a few strokes back.

It swam over to the edge right in front of where Kennedy and Campbell were sitting/laying. Kennedy jumped up on his chair and curled into the fetal position and I knew in that moment that if the Iguana tried to eat my baby, I would be the only one to stop him. 

It's my blog, and this is how I remember it happening.

Ciao!