I Like to Move It, Move It

Pardon my absence from blog land.

We've been doing a little bit of this...

And unpacking a whole bunch of these...

And taking trips to IKEA to build these for our new garage!

Never in my life would I have thought I could be so excited about a friggin' garage. But I am. I guess that means I'm an adult.

House tour pictures to come soon after we have more stuff on the walls!



Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Welcome to our 2011 Christmas Decoration Tour!


When you arrive at our condo you'll see our front door wreath...


This is our entryway tree. The theme is "beach" and I just love it!


Here is a closer look at some of my favorite ornaments from our beach tree. Some of these I made and some I bought.


In our living room are our window lights and our main tree.


The main tree doesn't have a theme. It's just an assortment of Christmas ornaments -- some that are old and some that are new.


I love our mish-mash tree. This year I'm going to buy a better topper and some new red and green balls an after-Christmas sale to complete it and make it a little more bright.

Here's a close up a few of my favorite ornaments.


A bunch of these ornaments are from my childhood. Some of them were made by grandma when I was little. Some are more recent. The Starbucks cup is from when I used to work in Seattle. The green tree has a picture of us from our first wedding anniversary. And The Rockettes girls are from my trip to NYC.

Around Christmas I leave up a small festive table scape on our dining room table.


I also exchange a bunch of the items on our living room shelves for Christmas items.


Well, that's all for the tour! Hope you enjoyed it.

We wish you a ...

New Obsession: Etsy Word Art

It all started when I bought this on Etsy...

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And I loved how it looked in our living room. I soon realized that Etsy was filled with amazing letterpress and word art.

So next I picked up this for my home office...

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And my obsession was born!

I'm now contemplating buying this as wedding gift...

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Speaking of scripture word art, I love how beautiful and modern this is...

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Don't you love that verse written out that way?

I would be so happy to someday hang this in my child's nursery...

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My parents used to sing that to me and I think it's just the most adorable song. I'd love to design a a modern, whimsical, sunny nursery around this art someday.

And this is pretty awesome for a nursery too...

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I love this as a shower gift if you know the baby's name...

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OK, enough baby stuff. Here's just another fun one that I liked a lot...

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If I had an office at work (instead of being on the road), I'd hang it there.


Those are just some of my favorites that are out there. The possibilities are limitless!

So what phrase, motto, or verse would you like to have on the walls of your home?

Our Home: Home Office Slash Guest Room

Welcome to our beachin' aqua home office/guest room!



When we redid the living room and dining room, and lost some of our aqua ambiance, I knew that I wanted to keep the aqua/turquoise and beach theme going in our condo. So I brought it into the guest room/office.


Here are our "his" and "hers" desks.


Since the Mr. and I both travel around for work, we don't have real desks or offices at work, so our USC diplomas will hang in our home office until we get our corner corporate offices with a view.


But the view from our home office isn't too bad for now!


A close-up of my desk.


A close-up of his desk.


Judah loves to hang out on the top shelf above my desk while I work. I love him.


Here is the futon/guest bed. It's actually really comfortable!

The surf boards above the bed really add to the beachy flavor of the room. That cool, tall bookcase was a gift from our sweet neighbor, it's from West Elm.

And here are my file drawers, sewing machine, DIY cork board, and office closet.


You'll never guess what's inside that closet...

Our wine fridge!


Yup, 40 bottle of pure goodness in there! It didn't look good anywhere else, so for now, the wine is in the closet. I love condo living.



I'm so happy with the changes that we made to this room. To see how it looked before, go here!

Our Home: Living Room & Dining Room

Our condo mini-renovation is finally complete!

Would you like a tour?

You enter through our front door into the entry way and kitchen.

Yep, that's a metallic print of our one of our "trash the dress" photos.

If you look down you'll see the mosaic tiling that inspired much of the new color scheme.


If you look to your right you see two beautiful original photos of Seal Beach by a local photographer.


And if you look to your left you can see the dining area reflected in the mirror.

Don't you love decorating with mirrors? It really helps to expand a small space.

I really like our entry way buffet. It's a great storage area and it's a good place to neatly collect keys, mail, purses, etc without cluttering up the kitchen. The buffet is from Crate & Barrel and all of the items on it are from Crate & Barrel as well.

You pass through the kitchen. You've already seen the kitchen lately. Twice. So we'll skip by that.

Next up is our dining room.

(Well it's not really a room, it's more of a dining area. Gimme a break, it's a California condo!)

And the living room!


That's right, no more aqua walls. We decided to tone it down a bit and paint the room "Sand Fossil" beige with aqua and orange accents. I have to say, I love it.

The view from the living room back into the kitchen.

See how the rooms are much more tied together now through the use of the beige and burnt orange color scheme? So much more cohesive! I'm definitely living and learning.

Have a seat on the couch with me! Watch some TV and listen to the surround sound.


Next to the TV are two of my favorite posters.

This one is an actual vintage poster.


And this the other is new, but I loved the aqua color. I gotta get my aqua in here somehow!


Set your drink down on our end table and stay a while.

I love that bowl from Crate & Barrel.

Or if you want to look around more, take a peak at our bookshelves in the living room.

I've already got some of my favorite Europe pictures displayed! Notice my aqua accents. You know I love that aqua!

And if you look back at the living room from the balcony area, you'll get a great view of most of the room.

I still love our original art on the wall. So pretty. Oh and I {heart} the new couch pillows from Z Gallerie.

There you have it! I'm so happy with the changes. What I really love is that it feels like a brand new space and it really just took some new paint as well as a few small new decor items.

Oh by the way... you can see all of the "before" pictures of the dining room and living room are here.

Up next? I'll show you what we did to our home office!

I'm crossing "home redo" off our our "Baby Bucket List."

Light me up! New Kitchen Lighting...

Remember a couple months ago when we had our kitchen backsplash installed and I said lighting was next? (Yeah, I know, it was a while ago!) Well, the lighting is in!

We bought some very chic, modern, pendant lighting from Lamps Plus and had installed by the Mr.'s best friend in Oregon when he came to town to visit us last month.

And here's how they look!


It took me a long time to find the right pendant lights for our modern kitchen. So many pendant lights are too shabby chic, ornamented, or gothic. I paid more than I wanted to for the lights, but it was worth it. Since they are chrome they go really well with all of stainless steel appliances and chrome fixtures.

They are the perfect mood lighting for our kitchen and are so much prettier than the stock, florescent, recessed lighting.


A close-up view at night time...


I really feel like the pendant lights add a touch of class to our kitchen. And the soft lighting makes me happier to be in the kitchen at night!

What have you done to your kitchen to make it a place that you want to be?

"We're" Repainting

When I was brand new 'lil baby homeowner two years ago I made a few small mistakes with regards to paint.

My first mistake was thinking that the Mr. and I were capable of paining our own home. We are not. We just don't have the painting gene. Or patience. Or any talent at all.

Seriously, we spent an entire weekend painting and all we had to show for it were two rooms with some seriously uneven paint and jagged trim. We then hired painters to fix our awful paint job and to complete the rest of the house. Outsourcing lesson learned. We. Do. Not. Paint.

My second mistake was thinking I could figure out what an entire wall or room would look like based on paint swatch. Wow those little paint swatches can be deceiving!

I've always loved the colors we chose for our bathrooms and master bedroom -- but the paint scheme in the other rooms just never quite did it for me. I blame the tiny swatches.

So as part of kitchen upgrade project "we're" repainting our entryway, kitchen, dining room/living room, and hallway. And just for fun, the office too. (note: click the links to see how they look currently)

And this time around we're doing it right...

First, we've hired painters. That why "we're" repainting is quotes.

Second, we bought little paint pot samples in several colors from Home Depot. Then we tested the paint on several giant pieces of poster board and taped the poster board to the walls to visualize the color better. It's SO much easier to tell how the color will look when it's covering a wall when it's on poster board!

And this weekend we decided on the following colors...

For the entryway, hallway, kitchen, and living room/dining we chose, "Sand Fossil" by Behr.


And as a small accent color for the living room we chose "Mojave Sunset" by Behr.


And finally for our beachy office we chose "Surfer" by Behr.


The painter is coming this week to give us the final estimate based on what's being painted and should get started painting next week. I can't wait!

Did you make any painting mistake as a new homeowner? How often do you repaint your home?