Closet Renovations

Another one of the great things about our new apartment is that it has plenty of storage space for us. There is a large pantry in the kitchen in addition to cabinet space, an extra stairway entrance that we can use completely for extra storage, a nice sized laundry room with shelves and a little storage alcove thing, a pretty built-in cabinet in the bathroom, a deep built-in medicine cabinet in the bathroom, two closets in the bedroom and another bigger closet in my office. However, two of the closets were a little quirky. Quirky in this case meaning not so practical.

This is the closet in my office. I’ve heard of double names in the South, but double closets? Apparently, the original closet (the very back one) wasn’t big enough, so someone decided to expand it. Instead of tearing down the half wall area between the two spaces to make a nice walk-in closet, they left it creating two awkward spaces.

Even more awkward was the positioning of the shelves and hanging rods. You couldn’t even get to the back one and the front one was at the perfect level to knock you right in your forehead if you tried to reach toward the back one.

Before unpacking all my clothes, I wanted to give this space a little more practicality. I decided that we should add shelves to the back part of the closet to put stacks of sweaters, jeans or t-shirts or pretty boxes for extra storage. I also wanted to raise the bar and shelf in the front closet so that I didn’t hit my head on it every time I tried to reach in for a pair of jeans.

I took all the measurements for the shelves so that we could go to get wood cut and buy some other supplies when Drew got home from work. A quick trip to Lowe’s and we had our wood and some screws.

We didn’t have any power tools either, so we also had to get a drill. On a side note, I don’t know what it is with Drew and older women, but he gets hit on all the time by them. Even when I’m with him. I asked this lady in the hardware store about a drill they had in the ad, but that wasn’t on the shelves. Drew walked up and she was in mid-sentence talking to him about the other drills that were on sale and she couldn’t even get a sentence out without having to stop and tell him that he had beautiful hair and eyes.

This project was pretty simple and only took about an hour or so to complete. We were sort-of lazy the whole time and really didn’t measure that much. I just had Drew hold the shelf up to about where I wanted it, we put the level on it until it was leveled, and I marked underneath it on the side walls for the supports. He made sure that the supports on both sides were level and we ended up pretty much right on every time.

Pretty soon we ended up with three shelves in the back closet. (we left the top one where it was already) Then we moved the front closet’s shelf and hanging rod up farther.

So much more practical! Now I have a walk-in closet! I have room to hang my clothes with storage on the shelf above them and then three more shelves in the back for more clothes and things!

It also makes the closet feel so much bigger!

It is easier to see the changes once there are clothes in it.

Even though the bar and shelf in the front are moved up higher, there is still plenty of room to store things on top of that shelf. It is nice to have tall ceilings!

Plus, because the clothes are up a lot higher, there is even more room on the sides to put in more shelving if I wanted to. This would be great to store other smaller things. Shoes, purses, scarves…

So much better!! But the fun doesn’t stop there! We still had another closet that needed our attention and this one was worse!

I forgot to take a picture of this closet before we put the first shelf in, but you get the idea. The top shelf in here was high enough that you wouldn’t hit your head on it and it also had a hanging bar as well. The problem was that this closet is less than a foot deep. That isn’t even enough room for a hanger!

See how small it is? I don’t know what this was ever used for, but it was completely impractical as it was. However, we really needed a linen closet to store all of our extra bedding, sheets, towels, rugs, tablecloths, pillows, etc… Since this closet is in the bedroom right outside of the bathroom, it fit the bill perfectly.

To keep this from being wasted space, we added three shelves and moved the top shelf that was already there down a little bit.

This one took a little longer, but just because the house is older and the walls were a little wonky and the wood length was a little tight in areas where the wall was bowed out. But in the end all the work was totally worth it. We wouldn’t have been able to unpack our boxes without this little linen closet. Look how full it already is!ย I’d have to say it was a pretty successful day and a pretty easy building project together. It is nice to see our little apartment already transforming into our little home. ๐Ÿ™‚

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Planting

What was one of the first things I did in the new house? Clean all the floors? Unpack my clothes? Nope, neither of those. (well, I did them, just not before this) I planted flowers and herbs in the kitchen window box we discovered on move-in day. It was such a nice surprise! I love gardening and that was really the only drawback about this apartment–the lack of real outdoor space. But we didn’t really expect to get outdoor space in any apartment we were going to get. Not that a window box is actually outdoor space, but I was thrilled at actually being able to plant some flowers and herbs!

A little sad looking, don’t you think?ย One side of the box was also a littleย rickety so Drew put an extra nail or two in it to keep it together and then I got to planting. I guess it is nice that this particular window doesn’t have a screen in it and it is pretty easy to open it to plant things, water the plants, or snip bits of the herbs off to cook with.

The tree next to the other house sort of makes it hard to see my plants. But I planted two hot pink geraniums on either end with six little pink and white flowers spread throughout (I forgot their names–they are the ones that look similar to impatiens but like full sun) and three herb plants–a boxwood basil, oregano, and the other basil plant that we already had in our old house.

You can see them a little better in this one.

The basil plant that we already had is planted in the middle, although you can’t really see him very well. He sort-of didn’t get enough sun in the old house so he has rather wilty stems and they hang over the edge of the planter box.

We have our little kitchen table right under this window, so it is nice that you can see the pretty flowers when you are sitting at the table.

You can even see the flowers out the window from across the kitchen.

They must really be liking their new home. I only planted them on Monday and they’ve already gotten more blooms and the Oregano is about to take over the whole box. Pretty soon it is going to be halfway up the window! (although I didn’t take a good picture of it to show its progress–it must be the moisture rich soil I gave it) ๐Ÿ˜‰

We are also thinking about making planter boxes for the front porch of the house. You can see part of it in the first picture, here. It would be nice to spruce up the curb appeal and also to add some pretty colorful flowers mixed in with a few veggie plants so that we could have some food out of the whole thing. The landlord said it was perfectly fine if we wanted to do it, but we have so many other things that we need to spend money on for the house (we don’t have hardly any furniture!) that I don’t know if we will get around to doing it just yet. Although if we want to plant veggies they should have already been planted. We’ll see how it goes.

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Birthday and Moving Weekend

Oh my goodness. This past weekend was one of the busiest/most hectic/exhausting weekends of my life. Friday was my 20th birthday!! It was the end to my 20 Before Twenty. My mom and uncle came into town from southern Illinois. We also moved out of our old apartment and into our new one! All on Friday alone. Saturday and Sunday were spent moving boxes around/unpacking/cleaning/running to the hardware store/having the landlord’sย maintenanceย guy fix all the little things in the apartment and also spending every second possible running around New Orleans to the Garden District/French Quarter/cemeteries/streetcar/mall/restaurants/French Market and so on, to show my mom and uncle New Orleans in a nutshell. It was a pretty insane weekend.ย (Saturday was also my niece, Evie’s, birthday–she turned 6!) Most of our stuff is all still in boxes, the house still needs a lot of cleaning, and my entire body aches from all the moving and lifting and scrubbing and walking.

But we are in our new apartment! I really love it already! It seems so much bigger than when we looked at it. The foyer and living room at the front of the new house alone are about the same size as Drew’s entire old apartment. I am LOVING all the windows in here. Especially with this amazing weather we have been having here lately! (in the 70s with no humidity and a cool breeze!) We’ve had the windows open throughout the house and we haven’t had to have the air conditioning on since Friday! They also let in so much sunlight and views of the trees outside, so it feels so much more like home. (I was raised in the country, in a house with lots of windows and trees all around) I absolutely love when the indoors and outdoors are so connected. You can sit in the living room and feel almost as if you are outside. LOVE it! The kitchen also feels so much bigger than our old one and having a pantry and a dishwasher are amazing! So is having a full size fridge! I feel more like an adult now! Having a bigger bathroom and a separate bedroom are amazing too! It is funny how you notice all the little things after living in such a small space!

Overall, it is just so nice to have all our stuff in one place and to be working on making this house our home together. We know that we are going to be here at the very least for two years because that is how much school I have left. Although since Drew is already forming a good little niche in the area he works in, we will probably be here longer than that. It is nice to be able to make changes and feel better about making this place more ours since it is a little more permanent. I’m so happy to have a place that finally feels mine. It is such an amazing feeling! I never moved around as a kid. We always lived in our same house on the land that my family had lived in for generations. So the first time I ever really lived anywhere different was in my dorm rooms at school. I’m a pretty homey person and sorry, but a dorm room just doesn’t cut it. Those rooms never really felt like home. I had a good time and have lots of memories of them, but I always knew that pretty soon I would be leaving them. I’ve spent quite a good amount of time at Drew’s apartment too over the past two years, but it never felt like home really either. I didn’t have my stuff there and it just wasn’t mine. So it is so nice that finally I have a place that can be my first little home.

That isn’t to say that the last few days have been just peachy either. We couldn’t get Drew’s desk up the stairs to the second floor of the new apartment. It was too heavy and we were all exhausted by the time we got to it. So we had to give it away. We also had some issues with the dryer plug being a safety hazard with the cord right on top of the washer and when they tried to fix it they broke our dryer. Drew spent several hours yesterday and a few more today taking the thing apart, cleaning it, checking all the parts, re-wiring the cord they wired incorrectly, and putting all the dryer back together and I think it finally works now. I was taking a shower the first night we moved in and I looked up at the little window in the bathroom and the entire thing was covered in termites. They were crawling and flying everywhere. Up the shower walls, across the shower and on my soap and shampoo bottles. They were flying into the water and drowning and then floating around my feet in the dirty water in the bottom of the tub that takes forever to drain. That was one of the least pleasant experiences of my life, lets just leave it at that. The maintenance guy had to fix the drywall mudding and taping in my office room and his sanding got white dust all over almost everything in the entire house. He, of course, left it all for us to clean.

So anyway, that is what all I’ve been up to. I wanted to post about lots of things going on this weekend but just haven’t had time before now. Tomorrow I’ll try to get up a house tour of the empty house before we moved in and an update of a few little things we’ve already been working on. I also have the new couch to show you and pictures of the lovely window box we discovered in the kitchen window and have already planted full of flowers and herbs. I also need to post the outcome of my 20 Before Twenty. Stay tuned! ๐Ÿ™‚

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Packing, Packing, Packing

What have I been up to lately? You guessed it. Trying to get all our stuff ready to move into the new house. I can’t believe it is actually getting down to being able to move for real! It feels like it has been FOREVER since we signed the lease! It has just been a little over a month, but it feels like a long time. Anyway, my mom and uncle will be in town tomorrow to help us get to moving, so we’ve got to get all this stuff in boxes. So far, we have most of it all pretty much ready:

My stuff has already been packed for a week or two now since I had to move out of my dorm room. This is the corner with all my stuff in it. (and a few of Drew’s things)

This is Drew’s corner half of the room. His stuff is still not all packed and he already has like three times as many boxes as I do! I swear the first like 5 boxes he packed were almost all full of electronic/computer parts/equipment, etc…

Oh goodness. The house is such a mess! All this packing madness also has me doing outrageous stunts like this one:

Drew, of course, pushed all his boxes of stuff to the back of this little storage area above the bathroom and couldn’t pull them out with the end of the broom handle. So guess what happened next? Yes, thats right. I was unwillingly hoisted up to the top of the 11+ ft. tall ceilings and into the dirty and crowded little storage area. All while wearing Drew’s clothes (that obviously didn’t fit) over mine because I didn’t have any old clothes that weren’t already packed in boxes and I had just done all my laundry when we were home. I wish I had a picture of me standing on Drew’s shoulders, with him standing in the chair to even be high enough to be able to climb in there. It is a lot higher up than it looks. And was even moreย treacherous trying to get down from there. Luckily, no one was harmed in the sake of packing. (yet, at least)

Mom and Chris, you better be prepared for this weekend. ๐Ÿ˜‰

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Home for the Weekend

We just got back into New Orleans last night from a lovely/crazy/busy/whirlwind weekend at home in Southern Illinois. It was an easy drive there and back this time and although we were there for 4+ days, it still went by in like a millisecond. While I love New Orleans and New Orleans is my “home” for now, Southern Illinois will always be my “Home” and will always hold a special connection that no other place can. Maybe it is just that my family is there or our land has been passed through so many generations, the beauty of it, or the fact that it is where I grew up and I have so many memories there, but it always creeps deeper into my heart every time I set foot there.

Anyway, it was a jam-packed weekend with it being Mother’s Day weekend, my Granny’s 70th birthday party, the early celebration of mine and Evie’s birthdays, and Kelsey’s first high school prom. Lots of family time, cooking, eating, more eating, playing with the baby, teaching the baby to say new things, trying to catch the chickens, helping Evie catch tadpoles, packing up stuff that I wanted to take to our new apartment in New Orleans from home, catching up with the fam, even more eating, watching promenade, taking lots of pictures, and all sorts of fun things.

I didn’t take as many pictures as I should have, but it was nice to not have my face behind a camera all day and to just be able to relax and enjoy the time with my family. My uncle took more pictures, so maybe I’ll get some from him. Here are some of the shots I did end up with though:

There has been extreme flooding all around Southernย Illinois, and on down the river southward. Here is me in front of a lake field.

This picture is really bright and Evie’s hair is blowing in her face, but cute nonetheless. ๐Ÿ™‚

Womble Mountain = Home ๐Ÿ™‚

The last time I was home (in January) all the trees were bare. I love the beauty of Spring. ๐Ÿ™‚

Kelsey all dressed up. (But then again, when isn’t she all dressed up?) ๐Ÿ™‚

Sisters ๐Ÿ™‚ We didn’t manage to get one with Blake in it to be a sibling picture. That little rascal. ๐Ÿ™‚

Evie jumped in though. Georgiana was asleep.

Tonya and I got to visit as we both watched promenade. Her little brother went as well. I can’t believe how fast we are all growing up! It seems like not that long ago that Tonya and I were at prom, not our younger siblings!

I just realized that I didn’t take a single picture of Georgiana all weekend. ๐Ÿ™ I was so busy running around, visiting, taking pictures of prom happenings, and carrying G around and taking her out to pet “Hoppy” (Holly, our Golden Retriever) that I didn’t get any pictures of anything else! ๐Ÿ™ Oh well, we had a good weekend, even if it is only remembered in our memories. ๐Ÿ™‚

 

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In Retrospect, Final Painting

For our final in my painting class, we did a painting completely different than any others that we had done in the class thus far. This one wasn’t strictly from life, we could use photographs and it was up to us to morph multiple things/images into one final image. We were to pick two things, one 2D object and one 3D object, with one being reminiscent of our past and one being related to our lives now. This is what I ended up with:

So what does it represent about me? Well, the background is a fabric pattern. I liked this pattern- a quatrefoil pattern reminiscent of Gothic Architecture and I love art and art history. It is also very graphic and I love graphic design. It is also fabric, which I love and want to design my own collection of one day. Fabric represents a lot in my life. Learning to sew when I was young, my mom sewing all kinds of things, my love of the home and home decorating.ย  I’ve been looking for fabric for curtains for our new apartment and I was drawn to lots of pretty graphic patterns like this one. It just seemed fitting.

The watering can and flowers represents my childhood, home, growing up, my parents. I was always outside in our backyard as a kid, so obviously something related to nature would be perfect for relating to my past. My dad is an avid collector of various old/antique things and I guess my mom mentioned to him sometime how she liked watering cans and that began a period of him collecting all kinds of them for her. Most of them looked really similar to this one. I remember as a kid, filling them up with water from the hose and dragging them around the yard to water all the flower beds. The flowers inside this watering can are the same flowers that my mom would let us pick out at the feed store every summer in little cartons to plant in the yard and help her do the gardening.

Tying the two together in a cohesive way represents the meshing of my past with my present and how they are ever intertwined, but separate in a way as well. But then again, that is kind of obvious.

I’m so thankful for all that I learned in my painting class and I’m kind-of sad to see it end! Although I am happy that I’m done with school for the semester! I’m so ready for this summer!ย  I can’t believe that I’m halfway done with college though. It has gone by so fast!

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Human

I’m only human, as much as everyone else is. I feel like I need to say that for some reason.

I don’t want people to get the impression that I’m this one sided-person who only cares about what color my curtains are or how my green beans are tasting this evening. In a world that is so crazy and with so much going on, do I only care about myself and my home decor? Of course not. I’m a human with thoughts and opinions and cares and struggles just like everyone else. My life isn’t perfect and it isn’t always easy. Who’s is? I know about all the craziness in this world. But what can I do about it? Dwell on it and let it make me crazy and angry? What would be the point in that? I won’t get into my thoughts and opinions on the world or politics. But I will say this, with all the negativity and sadness that the world can cause when you start to investigate it farther, I can’t help but retreat into the things that I love and that matter most to me. God, family, and things that center around the home. This is my escape. Especially since I’m in college and my classes force me to see the world closer, to investigate its politics, and evaluate our meanings in life. It is only natural that I use this blog as my outlet to value beauty and nature and talk about cooking, art, and decorating. It is my way of staying positive and happy in an otherwise stressful world.

There are still a great many lovely and wonderful things in this world of ours. This is my place to do my best to focus on those and remember the wonderful things that God has blessed me with. I hope you can all find a way to do the same.

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20 Before Twenty, 2 weeks Left!

I’m turning 20 in two weeks! How am I doing on my 20 Before Twenty list? Let’s see:

(and these are in no particular order either)

1. get engagement photos taken –we just finished this! I haven’t posted the pictures yet, but you can see a sneak peek here or the practice ones here.
2. officially set the date for the wedding –we’ve had this date set in our minds since the beginning, so why don’t we just commit to it already! Okay—-May 26, 2012!!!! ๐Ÿ™‚
3. try cooking new things with new ingredients (I think we might pick at least 1 new recipe a week) –we’ve done really well with this one I think! This semester we really have expanded our cooking repertoire!
4. write a substantial poem –well I might be kind-of cheating on this one. I didn’t really write a “substantial” poem per say, but I have written several smaller ones and I signed up for a poetry class for next semester, so I’d say that counts enough. ๐Ÿ™‚
5. launch Drew & I’s combined design business (We’ve been working on it and I’m excited about it!) –YAY! This one has been done for a while! ๐Ÿ™‚ Read about it here.
6. finish the stuff I need to do for my mom’s bow business –this one is pretty much done. I’ve re-designed her site, store, business cards, product tags, and made a custom order form. I just need to order the print products. She also needs a few more pics for the online store.
7. officially decide on a location for the wedding & reception –Well…this is as official as it is going to be at this point. We know where the wedding is going to be and we have a place reserved for the reception, but it is still far enough away that it could change.
8. go bridal shopping and try on my first wedding dress! –Blair and I did this in Nashville over my spring break! YAY! I can’t wait to go again and show my mom and Kelsey and Jill!
9. sew something on my new sewing machine I got for Christmas (I have several projects I want to do) –well……honestly, I haven’t done this at all. I haven’t had time. ๐Ÿ™ I have several projects I want to do for the new house but I have to wait until we get all moved in and that is after I turn 20. I also already packed it up to move it out of my dorm room. But we’ll see. I might just have to unpack it again. ๐Ÿ™‚ Although I did sew this recently, just not with my new sewing machine. ๐Ÿ™‚
10. Have a Corks N Canvas date night with Drew (more about that here) –This one we decided to veto. Or at least hold off on until a later date. At least the official Corks N Canvas one that is. It is expensive to go and we would rather go with a group of people. I am in a painting class right now and have been painting more than enough lately. I even got Drew to work on a little painting too! I would say that has to count for now. ๐Ÿ™‚
11. write another creative non-fiction short story –Well, I didn’t write an official story to count for this one, but I blog about non-fiction stories that happen in my life on a daily basis here, so I think that counts.
12. get a job for this summer –I started babysitting for Drew’s landlord’s baby girl a few weeks ago. I also plan on getting another job (as some kind of design intern) this summer, but for now, I do have a job. (PLUS I mean we have our own business, so I had a job before too. I have been doing a lot more design work lately.)
13. start a bible study that Drew & I do together –I bought Drew a new Bible and an engaged couples Bible study book for Valentine’s day and we’ve started it together! We should have been done with it by now, but at least we’ve started it.
14. Make a budget/spending plan for Drew & I –We are doing pretty well at not spending over the amount we have allotted for that week/month and we’ve been saving a lot more. ๐Ÿ™‚
15. Continue my healthier-self diet & start going on more walks –we’ve slacked a little lately on the carbs and cookies, but overall this semester we have eaten much healthier. We both drink only water most of the time, use almost all fresh vegetables and meat and have been spending more time out and about. Babysitting Lucia has been good for this because I take her on walks in the afternoons! ๐Ÿ™‚
16. work on decorating Drew’s apartment so it feels more “homey” –We’ve been working on this one too! It is coming together! Soon it will be “our” apartment and not just Drew’s so in the new house, this will automatically be much better because I have a lot of “homey” decor. ๐Ÿ™‚ Just recently we bought a couch, which definitely works for this one by itself!
17. finish my 50 hours of community service for my scholarship that I need this semester –ummm…this one still needs some work. Or a lot of work.
18. make my creative portfolio of all my art and design work –I’ve already made a list of all my design work that I’ve done recently and I plan on creating the design and print portfolios on our website soon! Just as soon as I get done with my final exams!
19. get my first apartment –DONE! DONE! DONE!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! I can’t wait until we move in on May 15th! See our new house here.
20. work on the design for my wedding invitations and other various wedding planning –Ahh, well I have some some sample designs for the wedding invitations and I’ve looked into printing and envelopes and papers and all that jazz. I just can’t decide for sure on what I want them to look like. I have done other various wedding planning though. I obviously have a lot left to do. ๐Ÿ™‚

Not too shabby. Most of them are completed. At least to my standards. Which luckily are the only ones that count in this project. What do I have left? Just sewing, community service, portfolio and wedding planning. Not bad. ๐Ÿ™‚

I’ve got two weeks left to get it done!! Wish me luck! ๐Ÿ™‚

P.S. I just noticed that I used “we” on pretty much all the descriptions on these. HAHA! I love how it started out as my project, but Drew automatically gets roped into everything I do. ๐Ÿ™‚ I don’t think he minds though. Most of them applied to him anyway from the beginning. ๐Ÿ™‚

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Pictures in the Park

Today has been a ridiculously busy day. We had about a thousand errands to run and have been rushing around non-stop. It was very productive though. Mainly because we got one thing done that we’ve been needing to do for months. We took our engagement pictures! How lovely and exhausting at the same time! Today was a beautiful day and we knew that we were going to be too busy to do it for about another month if we didn’t do it today, so we finally gave in and got them done! (Plus I think that watching the Royal Wedding this morning got me in the lets-get-wedding-planning mood!) I hinted around about them before, here and here.

I still have lots of editing to do. Lots of sun spots and people and cars to remove and lighting and coloring to edit. So it might be a while before I have them ready to show. Mainly because for the next several days, I am going to be doing nothing but studying for final exams. But I will leave you with this one little sneak peak:

I was somewhat irritated during the whole thing because there were a bunch of rude people in the park that saw us taking pictures and refused to move and get out of the shot. I wanted to push them in the creek. It made me so mad. It takes a lot of work to get all the stuff together for these pictures. But anyway, when I look through them and see at least a few that captured the moment perfectly, it makes it all worth it. ๐Ÿ™‚

I hope to share the rest with you soon!

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Paris Prints

I’m so excited!!! Remember my post about Rose Windows from last week? Remember how I was talking about the rose window illustration print that I wanted, but that Little Brown Pen’s shop didn’t list it? I had sent them an e-mail about it, but never heard anything back. However, I saw today on one of the blogs that I read, that Little Brown Pen was having a sale through all of April on all their prints and illustrations. So I visited their blog to get the coupon code. (They are offering 20% off through May 1st!) I saw underneath the coupon code that it applied to not only their Etsy shop, but their website as well!! I didn’t know that they had a website, so I hadn’t even thought to check it before! Sure enough, I found the illustration of the rose window on there! It is available in yellow, gray, charcoal, and brown! PLUS they offer free shipping in the US! I ended up getting this one:

So excited!! Not only did I find the print I wanted, but I got free shipping and 20% off!!!ย  You should definitely check out their prints and illustrations. They are all of scenes around Paris and are so pretty! I talked about more of them in this post a while ago. Get their coupon code at their blog, here.

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