Parade of Homes 2013 - Sneak Peek!!

My wonderful father (and sister!) and I spent Father's Day trekking through 13 beautiful houses during our city's Parade of Homes!

I have a lot of photo editing to do (mostly because during some point I accidentally  switched my camera from auto focus to manual focus without knowing it, and some of the pics are a little blurry, blah!)

But here is a sneak peak of the kitchen in my favorite house:

Stay tuned this week for more! You will LOVE these houses!

Memorial Day & Home Tour!

Happy Memorial Day!

Words cannot express my gratitude to those who serve our country and fight for our freedom <3 Our community does an amazing job of commemorating this day with a parade that happens to go right down our street! It's pretty awesome. 

In addition, Evan and I took advantage of this three day weekend by working on the house (what else!) Mostly a little spring cleaning that we've fallen behind on, but we also mulched the beds in the front yard, trimmed the hedges, and planted flowers. Since the house was looking so nice I decided to snap some pictures! It's been awhile since I've done a "whole house tour". 

We kept commenting this weekend how far our house has come in a year! Last year at the time, we had only JUST started demolition of the walls in the kitchen, the mudroom and half bathroom downstairs hadn't been demolished and re-tiled yet and we hadn't even touched the second floor bathroom! What a difference a year makes!

(I love this dining room table more and more every day!

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend! 

Central Park

I know this outdated but bear with me, its been a busy month!

 

Just a couple more posts recapping my trip to NYC! I think one of my favorite parts of the trip, and quite possibly one of my favorite parts of this YEAR, was our time in Central Park! It was so beautiful out - the sun was shining, the trees were blooming, the buildings were beautiful... it pretty much made me want to move to NYC ;)

 

 

 

Knock-off Restoration Hardware Dining Room Table - Complete!

Below is my FINALLY finished dining room table!

 

 

If you remember, here was my inspiration from Restoration Hardware (which of course I've pinned to Pinterest 10000x times) 

 

 

 

Let's start with some pictures of the project in process. First, we used cedar wood.. (This probably would not have been my first choice BUT Evan did the shopping!) We customized it to the dimensions we wanted to fit our dining room and seat 8-10 people. That being said, it is 90 inches long and 46 inches wide.. (I love wide tables!)

 

 

 

We made the top first (by we I mean HE), using the table saw to create tongue and groove paneling to make sure it was nice & tight.

He then proceeded to sand it.. and sand it some more.. and then a little more after that!

 

Since our house has small doors and narrow hallways, we disassembled it and brougth it inside prior to staining so we wouldn't ruin any of the finish by bumping into things on our way in (which always, always, always happens!)

 

 

Of course I couldn't wait to stage it until after it was stained, so here is me pretending it was done ;)

 

And finally.... Ta Da!! The finished result!

 

Funny how my husband finished it JUST in time for my surprise birthday party too ;)

 

We used Sherwin Williams "Woodscapes" Stain in the color "River Birch".  It ties in well with they gray kitchen walls while still giving it a pretty rustic feeling.

 

 

Thirty!!

Saturday was my 30th Birthday! It was a BEAUTIFUL day!

After 3 weeks of traveling, I was mostly looking forward to a day off at home to go for walks and work in the yard, and thats exactly what we did the entire day :)

We then had dinner reservations on the patio of my favorite restaurant in town. We had a great meal and a couple of delicious glasses of wine. At this point I didn't think the day could get any better! I was so relaxed and happy!

When we were about a minute away from home, Evan told me to look in the glove compartment, because my gift was in there. Cue the confusion! I opened it and inside was our garage door opener.. I pressed it as we were pulling into the driveway, revealing about 35 of my closest friends, coworkers, and family members inside! SO SURPRISED!!

And that's not all.. While we were gone, Evan's brothers and our friend Matt installed a firepit in the backyard, installed string lights that ran from the house to the garage, and tied HUGE balloons along the fence line! It was absolutely beautiful. We had a great night catching up and celebrating with so many people we love!

Beautiful day + Wonderful Friends + Amazing Husband + Huge Surprise = Perfect way to turn 30!

I still cannot stop smiling!

NYC - Ground Zero & Battery Park

We also went to ground zero and saw Freedom Tower and the amazing 9/11 Memorial.. The pools that occupy the footprint of the towers gave me chills. Given what happened in Boston earlier in the week, it gave us a even greater appreciation of this site... It is such a beautiful honor to all of those who passed away and a great demonstration of having the strength to rebuild after such a terrible tragedy.   

 

 

We also walked to Battery Park and all along the waterfront.

 



NYC - The Highline

One of my new favorite things about NYC is the Highline!

It is a park built on an old freight train line throughout the city. I knew it would be cool, but seriously the architecture and landscape design are AWESOME! Very modern and very natural at the same time. Add to it the fresh blooms and buds of spring, and I was pretty much in heaven :)

It would have been nice(r) if it were about 10 degrees warmer and a little brighter, but perhaps the silver lining to the weather being the way it was is that there weren't THAT many people there. For a Saturday morning, that is pretty fortunate if you ask me! :)