Moving Right Along.

Things are starting to get super exciting at the house! When you walk in, you actually feel like you’re entering a house as opposed to an empty dry-walled box. We have new doors! We have new floors! We have paint! It’s really wonderful to see it all starting to come together.

The door front door/entry light/door hardware make such a huge difference and make the front of the house appear much more welcoming. Now, we just need to pressure wash the vinyl (hoping to eventually replace it), paint the front door and replace the old, broken shutters.

You can kind of see our front-porch view in the glass there. So pretty

I love the new doors throughout the house! They’re cute as can be.

The new window sills and casing make me want to weep with joy. No more will we have to look at those disgusting faux-marble laminate atrocities!

What do you think of the paint color? That’s the master bedroom. I *love* it. It’s not quite as dark as this picture makes it look.

So, about the flooring. Laying hardwood is hard stinking work. If you are thinking about DIYing it, sleep for about a week straight, buy some knee pads and Ben Gay and pray for a lot of patience It hasn’t really been that bad and we’ve had a lot of help, but still, it’s very, very, very hard work.

This is what we started with.

We are now finished with 5 out of 7 of the rooms in which we are laying the flooring. The hallway is finished as well! Hooray! We ordered “utility oak” flooring from Lumber Liquidators and it isn’t for the faint of heart. If you want a super smooth, knot-free, perfectly-grained wood floor, this is not the flooring for you. We love the look and are so very excited to sand, stain and seal it.

There are only sections of the the office and guest bedroom left to finish. Hooray! It’s just so exciting.

All of our rooms, aside from the bathrooms, have their first coat of paint. We still need to do some repair work and touch-ups but at least that first coat is up. I love all our colors! I can’t wait to live in them

I’ve grown so excited about our rapidly-approaching move that I’ve begun picking up decor items here and there I bought this old mirror at an antique shop down in Madison. I’m so deeply in love.

That old nail box will hold pillar candles. I’m going to cut the ugly, too-new-looking rope off because it just doesn’t “go”. Obviously, the mirror won’t be reflecting too much that will be identifiable but it will reflect light and that’s all I’m asking of it I smile every time I look at it.

And just because it’s beautiful, I want to share the following picture. There are a couple pluses to rising early enough to be at our house before daybreak. One of the pluses is this gorgeousness.

We’ll be able to see sunrise out one of our master bedroom windows. ::sigh:: I cannot wait to wake up to that sight over the next several years!

House Updates :)

I am a huge fan of progress. I love it. Right now, I’d venture to say it’s my favorite thing in the entire world

The house is taking shape! Woohoo! The drywall is finished, the walls are primed, the ceilings have a very subtle texture on them (which looks fabulous), the new doors are ordered and our project this weekend will be preparing the floors for the new rustic oak hardwoods we’ll be laying. Shooey!

In this post, I want to focus on one room in particular. The kitchen. The kitchen is the space in this house that I’m most excited about. I think it’s due to the fact that I love, love, love to cook and in the past few months I haven’t had a kitchen of my own to cook in. The kitchen is the heart of the home and I have so many plans to make this space truly personal. I touched on the kitchen a little in this post. For the most part, our plans for the room remain the same, though the green is a touch deeper and will be more rustic. You’ll just have to see

Anyhow, let’s take a quick walk down memory lane, shall we?

Here are some images of the kitchen the first time we walked through the house:

Walking into the kitchen from the front room/dining area you were greeted by a small, closed-off doorway. Upon entering the kitchen, the ceiling was dropped down to seven-foot. SEVEN! I could touch in on my tip-toes and I’m just a smidge over five-foot tall. Pure insanity, I tell ya.

The tiny kitchen felt dark and dreary, what with the low ceiling and super dark cabinetry. Notice the half wall that opened up to the family room ’round back. Why? Why would it open up to a family room and not the dining room? It defies logic.

The view from inside the kitchen to the dining room. Notice all that light getting blocked by the wall? So sad.

From the prior kitchen post (link posted above) you can see a little of what it looked like while we were still knocking down and moving walls That was FUN!

And now, the kitchen looks like this:

Here is the view into the kitchen from the dining room. We cut down the full wall that was between the dining room and kitchen, blew out the doorway all together and left it wide open and raised the ceiling to the proper eight-foot height. We also installed a full wall between the kitchen and back family room because, well, that makes actual sense The fridge will reside on that wall. We also borrowed about two-foot of space from the family room. You can tell in the kitchen (it feels giant!!!) but cannot tell in the family room. LOVE.

Can you handle all that yummy light?! Woohoo! The stove will reside on this wall. There will be a small bar-top on this wall for additional seating when we have guests. I looooove this. Look how BRIGHT it is!

I’m sorry I can’t provide a view of the sink wall in the kitchen. I had the incorrect lens on my camera Sorry! I cannot WAIT to post pictures of the finished kitchen. It’s going to look amazing if it turns out like the image in my head

Another addition to the kitchen will be a little island This island has a very special story and a very special look and you’re just going to have to wait to find out what that’s all about This special island needs lots of special love to be use-able and I’m still working on that. I’ll have a lighted pot rack over the island and I’m stoked about that. If you have any copper pots or come across any that you don’t mind snatching up, I’ll buy ‘em from ya. The more well-used, the better. I like character. My only stipulation is that they must be able to be used on the cook-top. We’re trying to minimize “stuff” in our house so we want to try and make sure everything has a purpose other than collecting dust.

Here’s a peek at the ceilings, too! I’ll have an updated pic soon. They’ve been painted since this photo and they look AWESOME! I’m so excited to have ceilings that aren’t marred with nail-pops, visible seams and joist-lines. Hooray!

I know I can’t get away with so many blog posts without posting some recent ones of the Tedster, so here you go.

Here he is at the new house, hanging out on the front porch.

And here is, bugging mommy while she tried to get work done! The greatest thing about working at home is the fact that I can wear pj’s all.day.long and no one can enforce a dress code Except me. And I won’t.

Is he not the most forlorn creature you’ve ever seen? Hehe. I love him to pieces.

I stink at blogging.

I know I do. I’m currently hanging my head in shame over the neglected state of this blog.

We have been very, very busy. We work on the house nearly every night, work everyday, etc, etc, etc. I don’t even have any new pictures of the house because it looks about the same though we are making tons of progress! I can’t wait until I’m able to post some photos with obvious changes.

I also realize I haven’t posted any recent sessions. Believe me, there have been recent sessions! Lots of them, thankfully! So many that I sometimes feel slightly overwhelmed I count this as a blessing, truly. I love that people allow me to capture memories of their families. I love that this is my job. Love, love, love!

Anyhow, I guess this is meant as a post to appease those of you who’ve been asking me if I’m ever going to update the blog. Yes! I plan to. Once I get time to put my logo on some recent sessions, take pictures of the house and, perhaps, take a nap Abe and I are setting out on the trail again in a couple weeks to take in Red River Gorge so I’ll be sure to post pictures from that trip. We cannot wait!

I hope you are all doing well! God bless.

The House.

I’m sure all of you are chompin’ at the bit, wondering how our home renovation project is going

It’s going, though you wouldn’t be able to tell from the following pictures! We’re hoping to have the floor project done in the coming weeks. Two at the max, we’re hoping.

Here’s the current state of the flooring project:

“Welcome to our giant, gaping hole. Stay on those rotted joists and you might be fine.”

The above photo is what a room and a half and a closet look like right now. Only in the other room, the joists are half sawed-off. The big daddies shown above are going to be fully replaced.

This shows the sturdy, doubled-up, new floor joists This makes me feel happy and safe. I’m not scared that this floor will fall out beneath me. I haven’t worked up the courage to jump up and down on it yet. I’ll save such joyous behavior for after we’ve finished the floors.

Now, where are going to be fixing our finger-lickin’ dinners in this new place?

Right in here!

Sorry for the pic quality. That is two pictures spliced together in Photoshop. I don’t have the skills to make it look good. Hehe. We’re thinking we may leave the insulation on the floor permanently. Gives a little cushion to the step.

Not really, though. It’s all cleaned up now!

If you’ll notice, the ceiling (or the beams the ceiling will eventually be attached to) is roughly one foot higher than it was initially. We’re also missing one full wall There is now framing for that wall in place. It was pushed back about two feet to make room for a dishwasher! Hooray! The wall you see will have a little breakfast bar top on it. Hoorah!

Some ideas for the kitchen we’re toying with:

Willow green (fairly neutral/cool tone) cabinets, warm (think medium/dark walnut) countertops and flooring, white subway tile backsplash. I LOVE this look. We may do a farmhouse sink. I hope, I hope, I hope! Our appliances are all stainless steel look. So, stainless on the front with black sides and accents. I think it’ll look pretty sharp once it’s all put together! This is, by far, the project I am most excited about!

Other things of note…

We torched the old trim, some paneling and old kitchen cabinets. I mean… lit it up. It was probably one of the bigger fires I’ve witnessed. I now understand why house fires spread so quickly. The wood is so void of any moisture the fire just consumes it in a second. Insanity.

I was a little worried about Abe, so close to the fire, but he held his own

Oh, the cuteness. :::sigh:::

Thanks to this contraption we’ll be cozy or cool, depending on the season, for quite some time.

Also, we’re hoping to stay dry thanks to this guy…

That may just look like a pile of dirt chunks and random tubing to you but to us, it looks like a nice, dry crawlspace. Needless to say, we’ve had our share of water-related difficulties. We’d like to take whatever preventative measures we can now to avoid problems in the future!

One last thing of note. We have a PROFUSION of blackberries. It’s totally out of hand. So, bring your work gloves and berry baskets. Put in a couple hours and you’re welcome to all the berries your tummy can take!

Well, hello there!

My sincerest apologies for not having posted anything on this neglected blog for, oh, well over a month!

Alaska was phenomenal. Perfect. Beautiful. Just what we needed.

Since our return home, we’ve been super busy with work, the house and life. So it goes, right?

I figured I would go ahead and post some of my favorite pictures from our trip! If you would like to see more pictures, as the selection posted here is rather meager, you’re welcome to click on over to our Picasa Album to view all the photos from our trip!

The scenery was definitely better to look at than us, but what can I say, we’re pretty cute, too! Haha

One of our on-shore excursions was a kayaking trip. We were in two-man kayaks and we traveled probably five miles or so. It was a great workout and a lot of fun! We saw tons of bald eagles and even saw one snatch a fish out of the ocean. It sure beat watching National Geographic or the Discovery Channel!

One of our favorite excursions was a ziplining, eco-tour through the Alaskan Rainforest. It was gorgeous, no two ways about it. We zipped across five lines and braved a suspension bridge. It was amazing.

This was the night of our anniversary. Since we so rarely “dress up” I couldn’t resist posting this one. It’s quite obvious we weren’t prepared for the sun earlier in the day, as we’re both sun-burnt from our kayaking trip! Who’d have thought we’d get a tan in Alaska?

Of course, we made time for Geocaching. Woohoo! We had a few hours between excursions and stuffing our faces to hoof it around our ports of call. It was a great way to explore!

Of course, we had to spread the travel love and drop a Travel Bug off in Alaska. The token you see there is from our trip to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. It only made sense to drop it at a new favorite vacation destination!

I hope you enjoyed the brief synopsis of our most-recent trip. It was truly an amazing time.

Oh, vacation. I miss it already!

I’ll be posting more updates including recent sessions, business news and house updates. Stay tuned!