Signed and Sealed! Our New House!

We signed all the papers on Wednesday! It's ours! 

The first thing we did was a load of laundry - Dave and I watched the washer for about 10 minutes - we were so happy to finally have our own washer and dryer, I even picked up Coop so he could check out the washer in action!

We spent Wendesday unpacking boxes and deciding what little things needed to be fixed. The list isn't too long for the time being. We went to Lowe's and picked up some hardware we thought might work. Got it back to the house to find out none of it would. So we moved the bar in and decided we were done. 

 

BIG thanks to Rex and Opal for everything they did for us on Wednesday!

I can't wait to be all moved in so we can have you all over for dinner!

Yesterday I worked from home in the afternoon so I could get some packing done. I'm proud to say I packed the entire china hutch and then some! Here's Cooper helping me by rolling around in the packing foam:

 

Today we're meeting the alarm guy, unpacking all the boxes I packed yesterday, picking out paint colors, painting the master bedroom and guest bedroom and hopefully having enough time/energy to come back to Norman and pack some more!

I promise I'll post more pictures after the move! Oh yeah and I got AT&T to move our Uverse and internet installation up to Monday! Yay!!!!

More Laundry Room Ideas

I've been thinking about the laundry room wall a lot lately. I've definitely decided I want the hubbs to complete this project I saw on one of my fave blogs The Centsational Girl. She DIY'd her own laundry room rack! How perfect is this for our wall??

I already told the hubbs that I'd like to make a few alterations to her already fabulous project. He doesn't know if it's possible BUT I'm going to be optimistic, I'd love for the front part to be an old window with the glass taken out. I know, it's so chic. I also want my knobs to be antique glass door knobs. Like these?

I really like the color she painted the back part of her laundry room drying rack. I guess it will depend on whether my salvaged window idea works, but if it doesn't I think it could be cute to add a little wallpaper to the back. Maybe one of the unused samples that I ordered. What do you think?

I'm also thinking that the laundry room would be a good place for a bullitin board or calendar with magnets. Since our new fridge will be stainless steel and magnets don't stick on them very well, we'll need a place to keep all the wedding invites and other fun things that would typically go on the fridge.

I'd love any of these if anyone wants to suprise me with a gift!

 

 

I really want the calendar, bulletin board and letter bin.

From Pottery Barn found here.

 I'm also loving these from Ballard Designs:

 

Does anyone know where I can find some of these for about a tenth of the price Pottery Barn is trying to sell them for?

What I'm Thinking About...

I think I'll blog today. Yesterday, my friend Marissa and I decided we'd be each other's motivators to try the Couch to 5k program. I need to do something to get my butt off the couch and ready for spring weddings (hello fat arms in a sleeveless dress) and for the weeklong bathing suit trip to Belize at the beginning of June.

So last night I decided to test my running skills, the program starts you off with running in very little spurts then walking then running. I'm not a big fan of having to change the speed that often so I did my own 1st day training. I was feeling a little ambitious, I thought I'll walk for 5 minutes, then run for 5 minutes, then walk for 5 minutes, then run for 5 minutes. I managed to run the first 5 minutes thank you Lady Gaga and Bad Romance. I walked the next 5 which turned into 7 minutes, then got up the speed to run for another 5, at 3 I was ready to give up, I managed to keep it going for another minute but it was awful. I've decided I need to put together a new running playlist. The old one is boring and has no lady gaga, and trying to find a song I like to run to is too difficult while running.

The good news is after I was done cooling down on the treadmill, I did a few arm excercises and thought it would be time to go. Dave and I had planned to meet back at the exit at 6:30 and it was only 6:24. He's never early so I didn't want to stand there for 6 minutes. I decided to walk the track and no less than 1/4 of the way around I got the urge to run again! Ran 2 laps (that's only a quarter of a mile) but was still pretty proud! Running the track was a lot more fun than the boring treadmill! Plus you get a nice breeze. I think this will be my new way to run. Only time will tell, my plan is to go again on Friday after work. Let's hope I can stick to this plan.

Another thing I'm thinking about is going to visit my sister in Kansas. I need to go see her again, and I just found out that Chelsea Handler is coming to Kansas City in May! Maybe I can convince my Mom that this would be a great girls trip/birthday present!?! My birthday is April 11 and Julia's is April 28th. And my Mom and I both LOVE Chelsea Handler, we've read her books and watch her show all the time! It would be such a good time!

I'm thinking we should probably start packing this weekend, since we close on Wednesday. We should probably at least start to think about packing. What do you think? Is procrastination going to be a factor here? We don't really have anywhere to put stuff after we've packed it. The house will end up looking like this again. Yikes.

Disclaimer: this is our actual house, after the wedding we had so much stuff and we didn't have anywhere to put it! After many hours and some new furniture purchases, most of it has a home. I can't wait to go back through the rest of it that couldn't fit!

I need to switch our utilities over to the new house today. We also have to decide between Cox digital cable or switching to AT&T Uverse. We're leaning toward U-Verse b/c Cox has sucked so bad and you can record 4 shows at once on U-Verse. Anyone had any problems with either of these companies?

Love Is In The Air!!

This is too cute not to share!

Cabin Fever

The weather sucks. It's been so cold and snowy for too long! Us people are doing ok, the dogs on the other hand are over it. Cooper woke us up 4 times last night! 4 separate times! While we're very glad we trained him to ring a bell when he needs to go out, he needs to learn when it's time to sleep and when it's time  to play. After the third time I thought, "Ok, maybe he doesn't feel good". Then he brought a toy into bed. Nope he feels just fine. The little guy has just been inside for too long.

Maybe we should get a doggy hamster wheel? Do they make those?

I'm at work in a men's pullover sweatshirt today, I got no sleep last night, get over it.

Turns out Cooper's not the only one with cabin fever. Lindy said Mona has got the fever too. Mona's got it bad, she ate a portion of their coffee table yesterday out of sheer boredom. Needless to say, we will be getting our pups together to rid them of their fever! Play Hard, Sleep Hard.

Wallpaper: In or Out?

I think it's IN! I hope you all do too. Wallpaper has come a long way from overwhelming a room like this:

There are SO many options for wallpaper now, it's a great way to jazz up a wall. Our new old house has lots of windows in every room, which I love. But it limits the wall space for decorating. I think that the dining room is a great place for wallpaper. It can make a room more formal:

photo source here

photo source here

Or more fun:

photo source here

I just want to add a pop of fun on one wall, here are some inspirations:

photo source here

photo source here

photo source here

 

photo source here

The wallpaper for our dining room has to go well with our China Hutch, that is a teal green color.

Can't wait to not have boxes of wedding presents stacked on top of the thing! Ok so now you've seen the color of the hutch, I need the wallpaper to compliment this since it will be on the wall we're wallpapering.

So for whatever reason I was watching The Real World DC the other night and noticed that their house had some awesome wallpaper that would be perfect for our wall! After Dave searched for it and couldn't find it, I gave it a go and found it no problem! (I'm totally better at google than he is!)

It's Graham and Brown's Heritage wallpaper in yellow. They have a ton of cute wallpapers on their website. After looking at every single one they had, I decided to order a few samples. They should be arriving any day now! Here's a preview of the one's I decided to check out.

The Heritage

Suzanne: White and Gold

Grace: Taupe and Gold

Sophia: Tan

Alice: White and Gold

Kentmere: Green

Heritage: Beige

Then I found they had ceiling wallpaper! It would be impossible to put up on your own, I mean really impossible! But how gorgeous is this?

Victorian Effect

I will let you all know what we think of the samples as soon as they arrive! What do you all think of wallpaper? Have you put it up before? Any tips?

Wordless Wednesday

OMG YUM!!!

Seriously, Better Homes and Gardens is one of my favorite magazines and their website is a weekly read for me. I was perusing for Valentine's Day recipes today and found this amazing desert! It's called Chocolate Pillows and it appears to be chocolate stuffed sopapillas! OMG my favorite mexican food desert combined with chocolate?! Can it be true? Well it's gotta be impossible to make then... wait, no the recipe looks easy... I must try!

Don't worry bloggy friends, I'll document the trial and error for you!

The Big Move

Our closing date is 2 1/2 weeks away! I can't believe it. I really hope the weather is nice on February 27 for moving day. It would be nice to not freeze our butts off while we carry in box after box.

I keep going back and forth about the whole move. One day I'm excited to have more room and a beautiful house that is all ours, and the next day I'm sad to leave our cute little one bedroom on campus. I know it will take some adjusting, with the commute from Oklahoma City to Norman for work and not being able to go home for lunch my day will change drastically. Hopefully the pros of homeownership will outweigh the cons. I'm looking forward to spring time for entertaining on our new deck. I'm also looking forward to decorating the new house, which is pretty much all I think about right now. These have become my obsession:

So here's the run-down of what's left to do:
I've got to book the U-Haul and pick up some more boxes.
Find a good place for the doggy door, buy and hopefully talk Rex into installing said doggy door. (Opal if you're reading, please pass along the hint)
Find rugs that are nice to look at, soft on the feet, and cheap.
Figure out how much wallpaper we'll need for the dining room wall. (post to come later!)
Go through closet and get rid of as much as I can! The new house is old - built in 1924 aka NO closet space!
Find kitchen table for next to the stove.
Change utilities to new address.
Find an alarm company and get that set up.
Decide between U-Verse and Cox. (Pretty sure U-Verse will win.)
And of course, plan where furniture and decor will go! (This will be the first thing completed on this list. Guaranteed.)

Grown Up Bedroom

Since we're first time homebuyers, we will get the $8000 tax credit with our tax return this year! We've decided we definitely want to use some of it to purchase a king sized bed and make our bedroom a grown up master bedroom!

I've been looking at beds online a lot but don't know many places that are affordable and cute. So far I've checked out Mathis Brothers, JCPenney, Home Decorators Collection and then for whatever reason I searched Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrell and Restoration Hardware. (I think I was trying to torture myself with the last 3)

Then a co-worker of mine introduced me to this website FurnitureBuzz. Have you all heard of this? Ok, here's the lowdown, it's nice furniture at decent prices, delivered to your home for FREE! And if you spend a certain amount they take off a percentage of the total price! Does it get better than that?

So my thinking is that when you buy a king sized bed, you pretty much buy it for life. I really don't want to mess up this decision! So far my criteria has to have a comfy headboard so we can sit up in bed and read and I'm not a big fan of footboards (how will the doggies jump up there?). Also, we both really like dark brown wood for the bedroom.
Here's my #1 fave right now:

I love how it has storage underneath the bed! It's like an added bonus! But it's a platform bed - have any of you had a platform bed before? I know we'd save some money because we wouldn't have to buy box springs, but are they as comfortable? Ps. this bed is only $1213 with free shipping! booya!

There aren't any matching dressers for the above bed. I've been in love with this dresser from Restoration Hardware for who knows how long? Too bad it's $2175... sad face.

I've been in love with this mirror at Ballard Designs for quite some time now. I just got the new catalog and they came out with a miniature version which I think would be adorable for either sides of the bed.

The hunt for afordable and perfect bedroom furinture continues. I still love the bed, I think we're both sold on it, we just need the tax credit $! I'll leave you with some gorgeous bedroom pictures I found while browsing House Beautiful.

After reviewing my favorites that I picked out here, I'm seeing a trend in neutral bedding and a bench or sitting area at the foot of the bed... interesting.