There’s no making this pretty….

The master closet is by far the biggest eye sore left in our house. After the A/C issue which flooded the closet, the ceiling has looked like this.

 

We’re finally having it re-drywalled this week, so stay tuned!

It’s been a while…

It’s been a while…. About 9 months it seems.

We took a break from the house. Admittedly, we were dragging our feet. After about 2.5 years in a state of constant construction, we decided we needed a break, and we chose to just live with what we had for a while… i.e. concrete floors, no baseboards, no doors etc. It was crazy to say the least, but we just wanted some semblance of of a normal life and routine for a while.

After the busiest part of this session passed, we came to our senses and decided to just buck up. lol… Now, things are moving at a rapid pace with the goal of having a finished house in July! Just in time for Matt’s birthday!

While we’re very excited about the prospect of new floors, doors, and everything in between, we do plan to put the house on the market as soon as it’s finished, and that’s bitter sweet to say the least.

Anyway, now you’re up to date and you can expect to see lot’s of pictures of the progress.

After several visits from contractors, we were told that my idea for a front door with side lights and a transom could not be done without serious structural modifications, so we opted to replace the existing door with something that was the same size. It has not been painted yet, and the hardware isn’t on, but here’s a sneak peak!

We’ve also been working on the flooring, which meant that I had to empty out the hallway closet. If you need any holiday/entertaining items, I appear to have a one-stop-shop! lol

More to come! The only downside is that the mess seems like it will continue to get worse before it gets better.

Our 4th of July

The 4th of July has always been my favorite holiday! I like it more than Christmas, Thanksgiving and my birthday combined. The problem however, is that the weather is usually miserable this time of year.

So, when we realized that there was a pretty good chance of rain on the 4th, Matt and I decided to buy a new patio set and have a “picnic” at home.

We aren’t ready to commit to a patio collection yet, because we haven’t finished the back yard, but we thought a small set would make our outdoor space  much more useable for now,  so we headed to Target.

They are currently having a sale on patio furniture, and from what I can tell, the prices are even better in the store than they are online.

Here is the set that we chose:

We were very impressed with the quality, and it matches the Pottery Barn Hampstead Teak Collection nicely, so we plan to add more pieces when we finish the landscaping in the back yard. (More on that later.)

We also stopped by home depot and picked up this fun friend.

What is that you ask?… A bug zapper? A light? A bird feeder?

No. It’s an outdoor wireless speaker… and boy does it have good sound!

If you’re interested – the company that makes it is called Acoustic Research and the main selling point for us was that we can hook it up to our Sonos system and control everything from our ipads… Lol we could even have a war between the ipads if we disagreed on a song.

To complete our evening, we selected the 2008 Federalist Dry Creek Zinfandel and Matt made a motion using Roberts Rules of Order (of course!) to adopt it as the official 4th of July wine of the Wharton household. Umm… yes… We are MAJOR nerds. Don’t judge.

A New Chair for the Master

If you’ve been reading for a while, you will probably  remember this chair which was purchased for the master bedroom a few months ago.

Well, it did go in the master bedroom for a while, but it never felt quite right there, so we’ve moved it downstairs next to the fireplace. 

… and we replaced it with this find from the Brass Armadillo.

 

Here’s the new chair in the room.

I think it goes with the bed frame quite nicely!

(By the way, you can expect a new bedding post shortly. The current mish-mash is mostly the result of poor planning and an over use of bleach.)

Garden Update

Well, it’s almost July and its so hot here that it seems like everything is wilting… especially me. Luckily however, my garden seems to be doing very well, and that always makes me smile.

I think the garden cover that we installed a few weeks ago has really helped. The area that we planted inis not very shady, so the extra UV protection really perked up my seedlings.

… and now my seedlings are not seedlings anymore. They are full grown plants! Here’s how they look now:

Cabbage:

Turnips:

Jalapenos:

Snap Peas:

Cantaloupe:

Zucchini:

Entry Door Options

I have been collecting pictures of various entry doors for he past few days. This is the next project on our list…

We are just in the beginning stages of planning the project, but I do have a general idea of what I want. It has to be white, have sidelights and a transom with glass divisions that are similar to our french doors, and it needs to “feel safe.”

I haven’t decided which company to go with yet, so if you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them! I will say that were are very hesitant to go through Lowes again though. That’s where we purcharsed french doors, and they were extremely difficult about installation.

Here are some of the pictures I have collected so far.

 

My Favorite Bloody Mary Recipe

My favorite cocktail, hands down, is the Bloody Mary. I have tried several recipes at home, but all of them seemed to be lacking something… or in some cases, a lot of things. 

I had all but given up on a good at-home Bloody Mary until I found/adapted this recipe from Isa Chandra’s Vegan Brunch cookbook. You don’t even need the alcohol if you’d like to make it virgin!

My Favorite Bloody Mary

Makes 1 drink

Ingredients:

• 1.5 ounces of vodka
• 3/4 cup tomato vegetable juice
• 2 tablespoons pickle juice
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard with horseradish (She uses regular horseradish here.)
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 3 sprays of liquid aminos (liquid smoke)
• 1 1/4 teaspoon tabasco (If you don’t like it spicy you will want to cut this down.)
• A dash of pepper
• A dash of pink salt (you can use kosher)
• Salk of celery for garnish
• One pickle wedge for garnish
• 3 green olives with pimento for garnish

Directions:

Fill a drink shaker with ice and add all of the ingredients except for the salt, pepper and garnish. Give it a good shake. Fill a big glass with ice and a few dashes of pepper. Strain the drink into the glass and garnish. Sprinkle with a little pink salt and serve.