So finally....a note from the man of the house!!

So as we were eating our Papa John's (shameless plug-even though I am sure it will not lead to any free pizza) and I told Stacy that we should go room by room to write down future plans. I wanted us to group these plans into two categories, pipe dream (later on down the road) and immediate. I have self-diagnosed myself with a mild OCD for organization, therefore I should get a card at The Container Store. She agreed that we should proceed on Saturday, which means that she will take over and dominate my list and nothing that I wanted to do to help us get more organized will find itself on the immediate plan. As you can clearly see by her many postings, we have put a lot of work and love into this house and will continue to do so. We are very fortunate to be able to work on this house and look forward to continuing the improvements. I would be remissed to not give a shout out to the real men of the house, Beau and Brother. Look forward to seeing everyone soon!! Shane

Fridgidaire Drama…Yes, again

I’m having washing machine drama…again. While this sucks, it does give me something to write about so that I don’t have to post updated pictures. Is it bad that I still don’t have anything else done in the bedroom? I was out of town all weekend, so I have an excuse. And while we are on that topic – here are a few things to note about my trip to New Orleans:

• First, Bourbon Street is CRAZY! Crazier than Panama City Beach during high school spring break in 2000 kind of crazy. And conveniently enough, our hotel was on Bourbon Street. The second that you stepped outside, you were either harassed or molested by some crazy drunk man…ugh. It got really old by the fourth day! Actually by the second…
• Second, while we’re on the topic of Bourbon Street, it is amazing that at 1 a.m. the street is packed with people and completely trashed out, but when you come back out at 8 a.m. (yes, that’s right – in bed at 1:30 a.m. and leaving the hotel to go to work at 8 a.m.) the street is spotless. No smell of vomit, no trash, no nothing…I wish that I had that kind of service for the morning after parties at my house.
• The French Quarter is great. There is so much history and such a unique feel…I definitely want to go back with Shane (who will beat me to death with the history stuff) so that we can have a little bit more of a chill experience.
• Which leads me to my next, and last, highlight - I drank extremely too much…and was pretty much hungover every day except for Friday. Have you ever flown hungover? Not a good decision on my part.

Here is a pic of Jackson Square – very cool little area. It was off Bourbon Street and near more of the hole in the wall type bars and unique little shops…

And here is me and my co-worker, Sue, on Bourbon Street. I thought that the guy taking the picture was going to steal the camera…he was wearing a kilt. Enough said.And back to the washer drama: A few weeks ago, I was doing laundry and had the washer door open. I was shoving clothes in and I look over and Beau is gnawing on this little piece of plastic on the door. Well, that piece of plastic, when you shut the door, goes into a slit that signals to the washer that the door is shut and can be locked once you turn on a cycle. I know that he wasn’t chewing it hard, so when it broke – I just chalked another one up to Fridgidaire for making my life hell. But fortunately, I grabbed some super glue, glued it back on and it was in tip top shape until last Friday. Shane texted me and told me that it had broken again, but he called someone to come out and fix it. Well, something was lost in translation (right, Shane? ;) ) and no one came out. So we called again on Tuesday morning and they couldn’t come out until today. They came out today and told us that the entire latching piece on the door and on the machine have to be replaced. The service guy said that he ‘usually’ has this spare part in his truck, but true to Stacy/Shane luck – he just couldn’t find it. He now has to order the part and will have his office call us to set up another time for him to come out and install it. Seriously? I’m not really sure who I’m mad at – Beau (I could take him to the pound for a week…kind of like he’s grounded or something), Fridgidaire (yep, definitely mad at them for making such a primadonna machine…come on – I used to wash small children in my top loaders at the townhouse and nothing ever happened!), or the service people (well, no, because they aren’t making a dime off me…I can assure them that. And the guy did mention that this isn’t ‘typical’ warranty repair.)…Sigh. So we should be hearing from “Amber” later this afternoon to schedule a new time. I’ll keep you posted.

And P.S. there is a load of wet laundry in the machine. Yummy. We might just have to hit up the laundrymat tonight, or tomorrow, or both!

NOLA Bound!

I leave today for New Orleans, where thankfully the weather is going to be in the 70's! Yay! So excited to get away from all this cold weather...but not so excited to leave home where I clearly have a ton of work to do on my bedroom! I haven't had time to get the bedding on so the bedroom still looks the same as it does in the pictures below. :(

I hope that you all have a great weekend, and hopefully I'll get some time to say hello this weekend!

Weekend Update

No more 'blues' for Casa de la Shane and Stacy! (p.s. This has got to be the most neutral and boring color I have ever painted.)

The Before:

The After:

Do I like it? Ehhhh...it is definitely neutral. BUT - I didn't mention that I also bought new bedding and this new dresser:

Not the best photograph, but you can clearly see that the room looks bigger, that the 42" is back in the bedroom (yesssss!!!) and this will give us much more space to store clothes....okay, duh on the last one - but I was going for three benefits.

We also moved the headboard over 14 1/4" from the wall with the window so that I can fit a small pedestal table over there and on the other side by the door. I only want them to be big enough to accomodate a small alarm clock. For lighting, I plan to get wall mounted lamps to hang on either side. Any ideas for art? Should I do white frames or dark brown frames? Would it look stupid to hang them on the wall to the right of the TV (centered between the window)?

You will have to stay tuned for the new bedding! I'll give you a hint - it is a very 'clean' look.

Weekend Plans!

As we have now been in the house for a little over six months, I have come to the conclusion that I must have been under the influence when picking some of my paint colors. Specifically my bedroom color....definetely drunk.

So I've decided to break out my gear and repaint the bedroom this weekend! This not only includes the walls because when the floors were redone, they splashed stain all over my white baseboards (which had just been freshly painted). And did I mention how bad I hate painting trim???

And by taking a tip from This Young House, your house can seem bigger by picking lighter, more neutral tones, and keeping that consistent throughout the house. It may not be as fun, but it will make our space seem bigger (which we need!) and seem a little more grown up. So I'm going with a very safe color for the bedroom: Glidden's Water Chestnut. There may be some deviation of the color based on your monitor, but you get the point.

I also got Shane's buy in for us to buy a new dresser and get the HUGE living room armoire out of our bedroom. And when I say buy-in, I really mean that I wouldn't shut up about how awesome it was, and how cheap it was, and how much it made sense until he caved. Mwah ha ha! Behold the new dresser, or at least it will be sometime tomorrow...
Nothing too fancy, but i like the super clean look of it. And it is less than $300 - so we can't go wrong there.

Stay tuned for some painting before and afters! I'm off work on Monday (yay!) so I really have no excuse to not get this done this weekend...we shall see! Wish me luck!

Merry Belated Christmas...

I probably shouldn't have posted my New Year's post before my Christmas post, or better yet, I should have posted a Christmas post in December - but whatever! Before this topic gets to be REALLY old, here is a little glimpse of our first Christmas at Honeysuckle Drive!

This is Beau and Brother's first Christmas, and they obviously loved the tree! I know that this picture looks super cheesy and staged, but I swear that they just walked over and assumed position! It was too good not to snap a pic...


Our tree with lots of presents...


Our Christmas mantel...


One of Shane's gifts (the best one too) - a basketball signed by the entire 2008 Phoenix Suns team...I got the hook up. :)


We had a great Christmas holiday and hope that you did too! If you can even remember it!

How Old Do You Act?

So, per usual, I read my friend Kelly's blogs every morning.... and she had this really cute quiz up today that I thought that I would share! It's quick, only 10 multiple choice questions - How Old Do You Act?

Here is my 'age analysis' (very on target, in my opinion):

You Act Like You Are 30 Years Old

You are a thirty-something at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!You're responsible, wise, and have enough experience to understand a lot of the world. You're at the point in your life where you understand yourself pretty well.You are figuring out what you want... and how to get it!

I just love the clip art that accompanied - so pretentious looking. Ha Ha!

A New Year!

I'm only about 13 days late on this 'New Year' post...but Happy New Year! I hope that everyone had a great holiday and is getting into the 2009 swing of things! One of my resolutions this year is clearly to stay more on top of this blog and start posting regularly...we'll see how that goes.

Shane and I have gotten some 'here and there' types of things done since my last post....which was...umm...on December 5 - so I would certainly hope so! Here's the recap:

Oak trees are beautiful, such history, such a grand presence, such a pain in the butt when the leaves decide to fall...

We raked leaves (only because using a blower was SUCH a waste of time) for hours! And talk about sore...nothing like a rake to work out those back, ab, arm, and leg muscles.

And my mom also got us a fabulous new showerhead for Christmas! We have two pretty big dogs-here are Beau and Brother (yes, that is his name...):

So, as you can see, it is pretty difficult to bathe them with just a normal showerhead. This would consist of me holding a Solo cup up to the showerhead, waiting forever for it to fill with water and then dumping it on my dogs. Ridiculous process, but I am too picky (and cheap) to pay someone else to give them a bath. So we asked Santa to bring us a new showerhead that has a spray handle...and that is what we got! Check out the before and after:

Shane is so proud of himself...can't you tell? And the best part about these projects is that we find out about all these fun, new tools -- for this one we used a 'Vice Grip.' Ahhh....Vice Grip. And Plumber's tape - although we probably should have been using that on several of our other projects...hmmm.