Tearing it Up

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No we don’t know how to play instruments, and we’re not tearing it up musically, but we did tear it up this past weekend. We tore up our ceramic tile floor to prepare for our new wood floors that we will be installing.

I’ve expressed before how the existing tile in our house was not my style. at all. I’ve always had wood floors in our home growing up as a kid and I’ve learned to love them. Yes you have to be a bit more careful with them, but the look is so classic and we knew it would be great for resale.

We originally picked out a dark bamboo wood floor from Home Depot and we purchased it in November. However, a lot of time had passed and as we got closer to installing it, it just wasn’t sitting well with me. I checked Home Depot’s site to read new reviews on the wood, and I was right, this wood was not holding up well to normal daily use. What also didn’t help was my sister sending me videos of my niece playing with toys on their wood floor and all I could think about was our future kids ruining our wood floor. Luckily Home Depot allowed me to return it for merchandise credit and we purchased a new wood floor from Menards. The new flooring we purchased was the same stuff that my sister and another friend put in, and it was holding up extremely well. It’s one of those hand-scarped floors and is also dark in color.

If you know me I tend to worry a lot, so having one less thing to worry about feels great. And we’ll probably just use the HD credit on our countertops anyways.

So back to the tile… it had to go. So Drew borrowed a tool from work that would tear up the tile piece of cake. For the most part, it was a piece of cake. What really helped was that the tile was laid on top of vinyl. That helped for a nice clean removal of the cement board. It took us 3 hours to remove 95% off the kitchen tile. However there was a section in our hallway (connected to the kitchen) that we assume had carpet installed, instead of the vinyl. That 5% literally took us 2 hours to remove – the cement board was stuck like glue to the wood sub floor.

So after cleaning up (well there is still much more dusting to do), here is how our kitchen floor looks. The vinyl is ok enough to live with until my dad has a chance to help us with the wood floors (hopefully soon?!). We removed all the nails we could, and hammered in the ones we couldn’t.

The area that had carpet in previously we laid towels over since it was very bumpy and not nice to walk on. It’s not the best scenario, but we are flexible and can live with it.

Oh wood floor my feet can’t wait to walk all over you! And I wasn’t kidding when I said I still had to dust… oh the joys or home renovations (and no that is not normal dust, that is concrete dust… I’m not that bad at cleaning)!

H&M Home Line Opening

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Doing my usual morning inbox cleaning of marketing emails before work, I was quickly surprised by one marketing email. This one was from H&M announcing that you can FINALLY shop online in the U.S.  which got me saying hip hip hooray! I’ve been a fan of the European line since high school when my friends Morgan and Raisa would talk at lunch about their most recent trip to Chicago and their finds. Call me jealous.

Finally a year or two later, an H&M store came to my home town mall and I was thrilled. Two thumbs up for cheap, fashionable clothes. At first it when it opened, it was just women’s clothes, but now a few years later boasts men’s clothes, which Drew has also taken a liking too.

But last year while shopping for decor for our home, I came across H&M’s home line and fell in love until I realized those items were not “purchase-able” in the US. Boo for all the Europeans keeping their lovely cheap home decor to themselves. Well FINALLY, today I saw that they opened it up to the US. And I have just about looked at everything I could have. Here is my wishlist so far (keeping it realistic for what our house actually needs)…

I LOVE me some cheap pillows – you could probably call me a pillow hoarder, though I’d say most women could say the same. PS what is it about guys not liking pillows, seriously the first thing my husband and his friends do when they come over is throw the pillow son the floor. I’m also loving the typography on some of the accessories, towels and linens. And BONUS for having some special $4 items for their grand opening. Love!

And while I was drooling over the home items, I took a look at some of the other great deals they have going on for clothing. I think I’m going to have to get me some more skinny jeans to complete my collection of 100 pairs + I’m loving these kids sweatshirts and think I may have found an early Christmas gift for my niece, Reese!

Seriously… you’ll want to get over there and get these deals, and no H&M totally didn’t pay me or anything to say this, but I truly LOVE all this stuff.

Winner Winner, Tile Winner

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Let me start off with I’ve NEVER won anything really. Like most people you enter occasional giveaways and contests and pray you win, but you usually don’t. Yup that’s me. Soo because that’s my usual experience, I was completely surprised to find out I won The Tile Shop’s Pin it Contest.

While looking for pin it contest examples for work, I came across the Tile Shop’s contest and figured I’d enter because hey I could use some tile! I’m also familiar with the shop because I bought our kitchen penny tile from them + I’ve seen them on some of my favorite bloggers, YHL, BowerPower and House*Tweaking. So that day, I spent my lunch hour pinning images that were giving me some inspiration for our bathroom, kitchen and entryway. Yesterday, I got an email from Pinterest saying I’d been tagged – only to realize it was The Tile Shop announcing the winner of the $500 gift card. Then I saw my face plastered on all their social media outlets AND the front page of their website. So Crazy – I had to take a screenshot to document it!

To say I’m ecstatic is an understatement. I’m pretty pumped to decide how I’m going to spend my $500 worth of tile. Since we already have our backsplash tile for our kitchen, I’m thinking we will purchase some tile for our bathroom floor and our entry way. Our bathroom needs a lot of TLC, right now it’s got linoleum flooring and the current shower tiles are so 80s. I also have a feeling there is some moisture behind the shower wall since the grout was cracked in a lot of areas when we purchased our home. So, an entire re-do would be awesome! Plus, we have this weird step-up to the tub. I’d love to get rid of it, and to do that we’d also have to redo the floor. Here’s what I mean…

I’d love to do a penny tile floor (I hear it feels like walking on scales!) and add some classic subway tile in the shower. I don’t think this will be our forever home since it’s our first home, so I’m always thinking about how the things we do will help resale value.

Next, our entryway currently has some ceramic tile – but it’s soo not our style. It’s a square rustic-y tile. While it’s great for hiding dirt, I feel like the tile is always dirty and pretty much grosses me out. And since we’re laying wood flooring in our kitchen, we were thinking we’d find similar vintage hickory faux wood tile and put that in the entry way to match. It’s separated by a few stairs, so I think it may work well! Here’s how our current tile looks…

Here are some photos to help you better understand my vision and some photos that show it in action…(via House*Tweaking and Houzz)

 Can’t wait until we can visit The Tile Shop to see more possibilities!

Kitchen Reno: Update

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Things are starting to pick-up with our kitchen reno and I finally feel like we are making progress! I’ve been snapping photos here and there of the process and wanted to share a little update on what we’ve all been doing and dreaming about! Sorry this post is all over the place…

Cabinet progress: The cabinet frames and 8 doors are 100% done being painted. Another 15 doors are 65% done, and a few others are like 25% done. So we’ve just got to finish up painting, and then attaching hardware (new knobs/handles, but we spray painted the hinges to match the same satin nickel finish on the knobs/handles) and rehanging them up. I am SO excited for that part!

Stool Progress: Our stools arrived! I spent one morning assembling them and then testing them out in our kitchen, then an afternoon sanding and deglossing, and another afternoon priming them. Next up is spraying them yellow!

Floor Progress: While we haven’t ripped out anything yet, my goal would be next weekend is when we tackle that. I’d really like to get it torn out before Drew leaves for China for two weeks (sad face). In other news, I changed my mind on the flooring, no surprise there. We originally purchased bamboo flooring from Home Depot back in November, when it was $1.99/sq foot. It was brand new at the time and thought we’d scoop it up while it was a great deal. Come to find later that it’s not real great of quality (hence the price) and now that it is not so new, the reviews aren’t that great. Soo we’re attempting to return it tonight since it’s un-opened and they still stock it + pick up this engineered flooring that my sister and brother-in-law installed back in February which is holding up great despite my crazy niece.
All else: It’s still a complete disaster in our house, no surprise there! I just keep telling myself that it has got to look worse before it can get better.
Through all this craziness, I keep reminding myself of this photo which shows our goal for how the kitchen will all come together. I LOVE all these bits and pieces so much and it will be worth it in the end!

Shopping for the Kitchen

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During the five minutes I’m not painting cabinet doors and drawers, I’m setting down my roller and brush and I’m thinking about the other pieces to our kitchen reno puzzle (ps I finally forced myself to start a puzzle this weekend as a way to unwind).

We have quite a lot decided on for our kitchen that my heart has been set on since before we officially bought our house….

But there are still a lot of final pieces left into question, like…

  • A new faucet
  • A new sink
  • New countertops
  • Island legs
  • How big to make our island
  • To paint the ceiling or to not paint it
  • Add a floor rug
  • and I’m sure many more to pop up as we continue on this adventure.

To refresh your memory, here is what our kitchen started looking like when we bought our place.

Here is what it looks like after we moved in…

Here is what it looks like currently…omg mess!

And…here is what our goal is…

Ok, now that we are all on the same page, This past week or so, I’ve been doing some shopping and research regarding a new faucet, new counter tops and new sinks. I literally was at Home Depot 5 times within 4 days, I’m obsessed. And Menards twice this past weekend.

I’m currently undecided on between two kitchen faucets, this Kohler one and the Moen one below. The both look pretty similar, and both have a great warranty – and both have great reviews. So now I just have to decide. Anyone want to help me decide?

Now onto counter tops! Looking at our neighborhood values, it really doesn’t make sense to install granite or a solid surface. We just won’t get that money back when we go to sell sometime down the line. So because of that, we are considering laminate + it works with our budget greatly (bonus!). The only concern we had with laminate was we really wanted an under mounted sink. I can’t stand how the top-mounted ones look. We assumed the only way to do this was to go the granite/solid surface route, but after doing some research, we think we may have found a way to go with laminate and an under mounted sink.

I found a blog, where the author showcases an undermount quartz sink from Karran sinks paired with laminate. We found a laminate we like that resembles concrete and are hoping to go with the same quartz sink. They also under mount acrylic and stainless steel – but we were just concerned with the longevity of those items and really loved the dark quartz color available. Doesn’t it look amazing?! So fingers crossed this can happen for us too and the price in the end is less than the solid surface + under mount sink.
Karran Seamless

Hopefully the next update on our kitchen will include the finished, painted cabinets – but those babies are taking FOREVER!

Fourth of July 2013

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This past four day weekend has been perfect! We celebrated by having everyone (parents, sisters, brothers-in-laws, niece and grandparents) over on the fourth for a cookout! We also hit up the Pewaukee Parade and fireworks since they were literally an 8-minute walk down the road – can’t beat that! Unfortunatly, since I was the host this time, I didn’t get the chance to take any photos. Thankfully, instagram exists and my sisters are not shy!

Re-live our weekend via these photos…


PS, yes we were in the parade for our church. We handed out free water bottles! 

Pretty Peonies

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When we first toured our home during an open house last year, I had spotted the peony bushes and was in love from that moment on. Since purchasing the house and moving in, I’ve been waiting all year for these babies to bloom. Like literally looking out the window each day in hopes for buds to magically be there.

Well it has been worth the wait! Four bushes of peonies in white, light pink, pink and dark pink graced our backyard along our fence for a week or so before the unfortunate rain destroyed them (lesson learned, I need to use tomato planting cages next year to support them better). Either way, you bet I was outside each day taking photos of the new buds opening each day.

I also took the opportunity to enjoy them inside at home and work (see instagram). Totally worth the wait, and I already can’t wait for next year!

3 Years…and Counting!

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Seriously can’t believe it was over three years ago that we got married – yet each year gets better and better. This last year was a great year, we bought a house and got to test our marriage when it comes to DIY, haha. I’m happy to say, we are still in love!

Long ago, we decided that each year we want to celebrate our anniversary in a way that is more than just an average day (aka day at work). Our first anniversary, we went downtown to spend the weekend, our second anniversary we went on a cruise, and this year, we did a staycation.

For our third anniversary, since we had both just taken trips for work (Drew to China, me to Portland) we didn’t want to travel and do the whole hotel thing. We just really wanted to spend some good quality time relaxing together. On our anniversary we spent most of the day netflixing, but went out for dinner to one of our faves, Mama Mias and hit up Sendik’s for some good fruit. Because of the rain on our wedding day, we ended up in the grocery store taking photos amongst the fruit (yes, sounds weird, but was awesome). We thought it would be fun to reminisce and try out a shot. 

Since we took three whole days off for our anniversary, we also went to six flags one day, to ride roller coasters – which is something we both love to do! Last but not least, I tried on my wedding dress again and happy to report that is still fits perfectly!

Backyard Transformation

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I’ve been sharing sneak peeks on instagram of how our backyard has been shaping up over the past few weeks! I literally feel like each weekend that is all we do. It has been a lot of fun, but also a great deal of hard work including lots of sweat, wearing my garden boots, and getting my hands dirty.

Over the past few weeks we’ve…

-Re-edged our garden beds
-Mulched all the garden beds and around trees, etc
-Pulled Weeds and Sprayed Weeds that are filling garden beds and our lawn
-Planted lots of annuals and bulbs in pots, also a few hanging baskets and bushes
-Got more outdoor furniture from Ikea
-Added outdoor accessories
-Added outdoor curtains
-Cut the grass and trimmed edges multiple times
-Sprayed the lawn for bugs

So what’s left to do…?

-Finish owning the weeds in our lawn
-Re-seeding bare spots
-Get a fire pit
-Invite people over (lots!)

Here is a view into our backyard and where we can’t wait to spend all summer long in the evenings and weekends. PS if you want to come over, just let us know – we love to grill out and I love me some s’mores!

And a few things that are blooming around our yard…

Next up… Kitchen progress! I literally am itching to start this right this second!

Trip to Oregon

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At the end of May, I had a chance to visit Portland and Salem, OR for work. My job was sending me to a Bearded Iris Farm to take photos of every variety of Bearded Iris I could find! One of my jobs as the graphic designer is to maintain the look and feel of the site and that includes updating product images. Our images of Bearded Iris were what I’d call “old and crusty”. So it was my hope to get better photos that looked more realistic, group photos and lifestyle garden shots.

So here is the rundown…

6:20am on Tuesday, we fly out of Milwaukee. We make a stop in Denver and Reno before we get to Portland at 12:00pm (pacific time). Flying into Portland was basically a scene out of twilight. No vampires to be seen, but definitely had the setting of a moody, foggy northwestern indie film, and of course we arrived and it was raining (story of the entire trip). We got our rental car and hit the freeway to Salem which in theory was only an hour away.

Due to the rain, there was a few accidents on the freeway and kept stalling us in traffic. We finally got off and ate lunch at a small cafe. We finally get to Schreiners and it’s raining (of course), but we decide to check out the gardens and we spend an hour or two taking some images before the rain gets worse. Then we head to the hotel and order pizza. I was passed out at like 8:45pm… it was a long travel day.

Basically most of these photos are of flowers (hence why I was there), sorry + enjoy! I however was pretty proud of myself that I shot on manual mode the entire time…. that is why it doesn’t really look rainy (except for the awesome raindrops) because I’d adjust the light settings to still let in a bunch of it. Taking photos with great light is key! Overall I’m pretty proud of myself!

6:00am Wednesday… we both wake up early – probably because we are still stuck on central time and the fact that we went to bed so early didn’t help. We figured we’d get a head start on the day since it’s raining (of course) and it was only supposed to get worse as the day went on. We stop at Walmart (to get a golf umbrella) and grab Starbucks.

We head to the farm again, but on the way we see the fields of Iris that we didn’t yesterday. The sign says no visitors, but we still pull over on the side of the road to take a few photos. Jenny, our operations manager, traveled with me mainly so I didn’t have to go alone, but also she could scope out new iris varieties we could carry. She also did a fabulous job of holding the umbrella over me at times the rain was heavy – we had to protect the really expensive work camera!

I also asked her to take this photo below…. however she claimed to be no photographer and she was right, at least she got the flowers in focus! Thanks Jenny 🙂

We spent the rest of the morning at the gardens photographing everything we found, even some perennials such as allium, hostas and columbine.

12:30pm Wednesday… the rain was getting worse so we decided to call it a day. We had gotten to every area of the farm with gardens, so we felt it was ok to leave. We grabbed lunch at Applebees and headed back to Portland where we spent the night to flight out in the early AM.

5:00pm Wednesday… we adventured out into Portland and tried Frank’s Noodle House for some Chinese dishes and then had dessert at Voodoo Donut. Voodoo Donut is a very popular food attraction within Portland. It’s been featured on various food network shows. After dinner, we head back to the hotel because we have an early flight back home.

3:45am Thursday… we are up and ready to head to the airport. As we fly out of Portland and past the clouds, it was the first time we saw the sun in a few days! We head to Las Vegas for a transfer then back to Milwaukee… it was amazing to fly over the rockies and other mountains in that part of the country!

Overall, Portland was a great city to add to the “places I’ve been” and would love to head back some day to really check out what makes Portland so weird. One of the things I couldn’t get over is how much Portland-ers love to garden and how crazy big things grow there. Literally, the hostas were up to my waist! Crazy.