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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Wall Hangings










And that just barely scratches the surface of all that I have bought to hang on the wall. I love me some art.

I have been all over the place lately. The wedding planning is obviously in full swing (we booked a photographer!), are still on a mission for a videographer, and have been shopping for dresses... as in shower, party, engagement picture, dresses. It's amazing how many you need to have. The Knot recommended something like "budget ~8% of your total wedding budget to miscellaneous". At the time, I thought that was absolutely ridiculous. If you are having a $100k wedding - clarify: we aren't - but if you were, that's $8000. You are telling me that you need to essentially have an $8000 cushion for things that you can't allocate into their other pretty categories? Maybe it's my math mind talking, but I would prefer knowing where that money is going to.

I say that as I'm looking at ties for groomsmen to wear that we are going to give them and I realize that 8% probably isn't too far off. It's not like we knew when we set the budget that I was basically going to have to have these because DIY slitting corks is near to impossible. So yes, my new clothing purchases also fall into that "miscellaneous" category but I couldn't resist! They were just too darn me.

I also go back and forth on whether we need a bench cushion for our dining room table. Admittedly, Huynh has always been on board and, in fact, pushes for it whenever we go into West Elm (using our West Elm dollars of course). The original offering was lackluster so I never pulled the trigger but their latest is pretty amazing... so I'm leaning towards yes.

Like I said, I'm all over the place.

As for work? Oh that. I'm currently trying to develop a calculation for PSVs in supercritical service. Yup, you see why I never talk about it here. Happy Leap Day!

{Found: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Branded


Our brands are here! Yes, we got legitimate, get hot and sear wood, brands. We are planning on incorporating wooden logs into our centerpieces and are thinking that we will brand those logs to personalize them a bit. We have yet to try them out - the little wood pieces came with them. Hopefully we don't end up branding ourselves ha.

It's Tuesday. This week is creeping.


Psst.... very proud of our gift for our friend's newborn. So cute! Found here and here.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Short Week









This weekend went by way too fast. I played around with Instagram; we are going to be lifelong friends. Huynh had the great idea of making a genius playlist with a Journey song so, among others, I worked out to KISS. Pretty solid.

Saturday, we babysat A and L - which involved Jason's Deli, Academy to swing, and sweet talking Huynh into toys at Toys 'R Us. They got to ride in Huynh's car and they thought that was fantastic. We ended the night with a much needed cocktail and tapas at 1252. Yum.

Sunday, Huynh cooked lunch while I boiled/poached (what's the difference?) a chicken to feed us for the week. It's been shredded and is sitting in a container in our fridge ready for quesadillas. I bought a new font to play around with for wedding goodness and made spaghetti to eat while watching the Oscars (my vote for best dressed: Jessica Chastain, Natalie Portman, Tina Fey, and Ellie Kemper). A little part of me wanted Christopher Plummer to sing Edelweiss during his acceptance speech.

We also decided that we need to see Hugo, The Artist, Beginners, The Descendants, and Overboard - don't tell me that when Reese Witherspoon said that was her guilty pleasure movie that you didn't think you needed to see it too!

Short week at work. Becky and Aaron are coming this weekend and I am so excited! Yay for life friends.

Friday, February 24, 2012

225 days


I don't think I will ever become addicted to Pinterest. Work blocks the site and since I spend 9 hours a day on the computer up here, the last thing I really want to do is get home and spend even more time staring at the screen. Work blocks "time wasters" so by good measure, Pinterest was blocked almost immediately and it's just not the same on the phone. However, what work hasn't blocked yet is etsy.

Oh lovely, time waster, black hole of creativity, etsy.

I find myself losing hours to etsy... and this print made me laugh out loud. I was actually perusing the store looking at this print because, you see, we need something here:


It's barren and empty and I figure it needs something simple, substantial, and neutral - as to not compete with the rug. The lovely, so comfy under the feet, rug.

Yup, still love it.

This weekend is more house work. 225 days until we become Mr. and Mrs. Yay :).

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Underfoot




Our living room. Just keeping it real. Yes, you spot:
  • New clothes
  • Unfolded clean clothes
  • Ironing Board and Iron
  • Picture ledge, taken down from the master bedroom wall
  • Rouge pillows
  • Single socks, pairs unknown and
  • An iPhone - one of two lurking around this house
But what you also see... the rug. Huynh bought this rug from BB&B when he moved in and while we liked it fine, we didn't like that Gatsby's hair showed, Gatsby's bone residue stained, it was a tad too small, and it was, well, old. We get tired of things around here. It was time for a change.


So it was out with the old, in with the new! I love our floors but, we know that we spend so much time here on the couch and floor that a rug was a necessity.




Isn't she a beauty? We always thought that we were going to do shag; we actually had it in our basket. But when we walked by this rug, we both stopped and quickly changed our minds. This rug is the perfect size, has all the colors of our house, is comfy underfoot, and, most importantly, is a light neutral. It has already won Gatsby's seal of approval.

So, would you believe it if we told you it came from IKEA? Us either. It's not even online yet (and, truth be told, it was a rather un-IKEA price). We are rather excited about our snag; though as of late, it has been buried under wood and remodel. More pictures to come when the room looks like a living room again and not a tool shop. I'm off to make rug angels.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Pop locking

I guess I should title this post "door knob love that turned to woe that has turned back to love" but I figured that was too long of a post title, dontcha think?

When we first painted the door red, I took the opportunity to also paint the hardware. At the time, all we knew was that we didn't like the brass hardware and that we had oil-rubbed bronze paint on hand so why not try a spray job? We figured that if it ended horribly, we could always toss it out and get a new knob.


Five months later, it ended horribly. 

Not only did the paint chip where the key entered, it also just plain fell off every where else. Not quite the "welcome to our home" look we desired.


So we bit the bullet this weekend and got brand new locks. They are rather hefty to lock and unlock and just look so much more spanking pretty.

I love when quick fixes spruce up your home two fold. Happy hump day.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

"&" it's about time

As I said yesterday, we were rather busy this weekend with some house goodies... one being that I finally painted my Canton find!


It started out a little worse for the wear - along with a $7 price tag (though I think I paid about $1 for it) - all it took was a couple of light coats of primer plus a couple of light coats of oil-rubbed bronze to bring this, rather heavy, baby back to life!


We are working on built-ins for the master bedroom where I believe this will reside. I love how it turned out and it only took me 3 months to get it done. Better late than never is what I always say?

Monday, February 20, 2012

Happy President's Day!










We shopped Friday.

And I don't mean like a little here and there, I mean our feet hurt, we were gone all day, and could barely fit everything in our car, shopped. Huynh even ended up with a new suit (among a vast array of other clothing options). I picked up the Ping-Pong tank at Anthropologie and think I will also be hitting up Ann Taylor Loft later. We nourished ourselves with Freebirds before heading to Nordstorm's Rack for a new pair of tennis shoes - thinking they will be perfect for Disney World! I just tried to find them online and there are too many options to look through but I think they are the trail rated ones? Perhaps?

Huynh made fried rice for dinner and Gatsby begged. The usual.

Our stationery arrived and I love it! We got it when Wedding Paper Divas was having a sale. I was very specific on what I wanted: monogram, navy, flat card, doesn't force you to use last name - I wanted to be able to use them after we got married too - and high quality paper stock. Fits the bill. We hit up Home Depot for some goods, more on that later. Let's just say we are exhausted from all the painting and working on the house! Gatsby even helped and yes, that's a 30-lb weight keeping him in the front yard. Whatever works, right?

We treated ourselves to the Rockets game in the suite last night. We won! Happy Monday.

Fun presidental facts: Weather permitting, John Quincy Adams swam nude in the Potomac River every day. Rutherford B. Hayes was the first US president to use a phone at the White House. Alexander Graham Bell personally showed him how to use it and his phone number was 1. Eight presidents never went to college; another eight were born British. Obama is our 44th president but actually there have only been 43 presidents; Cleveland was elected for two nonconsecutive terms and is counted twice (as our 22nd and 24th). Don't say I never taught you anything :).

Friday, February 17, 2012

Maybe


I got a "maybe..." when I commented to Huynh that one of these would look awesome above the bed.

What am I doing this weekend?

Turning a "maybe..." into a "yes, definitely!".

Happy weekend. I've already been celebrating :).

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Freakin' weekend


Since I obviously can't tell you what I want to get Huynh for our one year anniversary - yes, I already know, and yes, you will have to wait until October 6, 2013 to find out - what I can show you is a piece of art that may work in above the bed. I like it, the colors are perfect... the size may be a tad small. But tis beautiful. Happy Thursday.

Bedroom thoughts

I'm a weird sleeper. It takes me forever to actually get to sleep - I've been known to play games on my phone until way late, but that's only when I have completely exhausted all of my google reader posts and news articles - but then, once I'm actually asleep, I am knocked out until the alarm.

Huynh on the other hand is snoring before his head hits the pillow. I envy him. He has the ability to still his mind at such speeds that I haven't even started to think about closing my eyes before he has done it and reaped the benefits of blissful slumber leaving me to to daydream about having the ability to do such a thing.

Orrr I just daydream about redecorating our bedroom.

{tasha; throw pillow}

{brunschwig & fils; upholstered chair}

{west elm; duvet}

{west elm; euro shams}

{grey line linen; headboard}
 
Drapery? Still haven't decided. Other pillows? Figure I need to get the room assembled first. Of course, we also have alternate bedding. I'm thinking for that, we will need a throw pillow in this fabric while maintaining the rest of the color story. I'm excited. Let's get this started.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Yum-o



For my birthday, we hit up Max's Wine Dive - my favorite date spot. We got a couple (okay or four) appetizers so for dinner, we split a salad... the Fried Chicken and Champagne Cobb Salad. We inhaled it. We came home and set out to duplicate such delicious-ness and have done so for the past two nights.

And no, lobster and steak is not a regular occurrence. It was a v-day special :). The chicken leg is more how we normally roll.

Champagne Cobb Salad
adapted from Max's Wine Dive

1 bunch of Romaine lettuce
1/2 avocado, sliced
sprinkle of bleu cheese
a couple cherry tomatoes
bacon crumbs (we use Oscar Mayer Real Bacon Bits)
2-3 hard boiled eggs

Combine and eat. Recommend repeating.

We also made Ina Garten's cauliflower gratin (subsituted swiss for guyere and left out the nutmeg - we just plain didn't have any - and sprinkled the top with Tony's). Y'all, it was so good that I debated eating it for breakfast. Then reality hit and I was already late to work so saved it for tonight. Cannot wait.