Home Tour :: Dining Room

Welcome, welcome! Let's continue with this home tour, shall we?

Things I have to say about the dining room:

+ It isn't so much a room, as it is an extension of the kitchen.

+ I took this picture with my back to the kitchen counter, the fridge/stove/doorway to the living room on my right, and the back door to my left. Hopefully that isn't too confusing? 

+ That door you see here opens into a nicely sized pantry, with shelves for groceries, a spot for the trash can, and the ugly water heater. And the half-naked-cowboys you see? It's a bag dispenser. Thanks Mom! Also, the Tommy Bahama Rum sign was a 21st birthday gift from my best friend Ian - "borrowed" from a favorite bar.

+ The chairs (which we snagged from T's sisters before they moved to CA) are getting a fresh coat of paint - each one is going to be a different color. 

+ That shelf you can kind of see behind the roses needs to be refinished and put up on the wall, where it will become storage for spices + tea.

+ The wall behind the maps is going to get a coat of paint (probably something like Betsy's coral wall)! 

When I post pictures with all of those updates, I'll try to remember to grab a picture of Nellie's little corner at the base of the map wall, behind the table. As you can see, it's a great little space that simply needs some color + love to spruce it up a bit further!

happy news

Hi there, friends!

First of all - thank you so much for your sweet comments on my last few posts. It feels so good to be back in the swing of things with blogging, even if I am terribly behind in responding to comments. Sorry about that. I promise I'll be caught up soon! In the next few weeks I want to show off more of the house and fill you in on all the things I've accomplished from my spring bucket list. Just over a month to go on that one! Stay tuned. 

WE HAVE NEWS!

On Monday, T was offered an amazing job working for Virginia Tech. Earlier today, I was offered a nanny position that I couldn't be happier about. Timing is a funny thing, isn't it? We're both thrilled with our new job plans and we both start next week.

Tomorrow I have a full day of house cleaning planned in preparation for Mackenzie's weekend visit to Blacksburg. We're planning on enjoying a mediterranean feast, a couples massage (my first ever!), and a lazy Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market. I think once we combine all of that with a few bottles of wine, we'll be set for one of the Best Weekends of sister time ever to exist. I have a few other fun things planned for the next week, because it's the last week of blissful freedom before the real days of work and routine begin.

What's on your calendar this week?

Home Tour :: Kitchen

Welcome to our kitchen! While I know there's still a lot to be explained when it comes to why we moved + how we ended up where we are, today I want to show you around our kitchen - because those other posts are tricky - and kitchen tours are fun + easy! Take a look around!

Things I have to say about this kitchen:

+ The back door, the primary way we come into our house, enters directly into the kitchen. Being such a high traffic area, we try to keep it as clean + tidy as possible because this room has such potential to become the messiest room ever. 

+ We have limited cabinet space, so that metal shelf near the fridge is home to our small appliances. It's also my favorite part of the kitchen - so cute and colorful!

+ Recognize the rug? It used to be our living room rug in Georgia.

+ My sister gave me the hand soap + candle from a favorite Etsy shop

+ Speaking of soap, I always keep at least two dish soaps on hand because it makes doing the dishes a little more exciting. And storing all that messy stuff on a cake stand makes me smile daily.

+ My dad found those vintage metal flour + sugar canisters at a thrift store for me (can you see them back there, in the corner?). I've had them in every apartment I've lived in since I moved out of the dorms for senior year of college.

+ In an ideal world, my cabinets would be mostly open, rustic wood, and pretty white. But considering what crappy cabinets we've had in the past, I'll take these without complaint!

+ We eat a strictly corn-free and dominantly gluten-free/dairy-free/Paleo diet. Because of that, we have quite the mix of cookbooks + recipe resources. (I'm compiling my thoughts as best I can for a "how we eat" post, coming soon!) 

+ My main source of recipe inspiration comes from this Whole Food Kitchen class I took this spring. The class happened while we were moving so I didn't get to make many of the recipes at the time, but I've saved them all, and will slowly be working through the class on my own this summer.

There you have it! I hope you enjoyed taking a look into our kitchen. Now, when are you coming for dinner? xo

Day Nine // a moment

This blog every day in May challenge has already taught me a few things. One, I love blogging. Two, blogging keeps me centered. Three, I like blogging on my schedule - twice in one day, or not for a week at a time. That's not to say I'm not all for blogging every single day! In fact, I rely on that consistency from my editorial-calendar-type blog friends. I check their blogs daily, and I love seeing wonderful new content every single morning. But now, at this point in life, a regular blogging schedule feels forced - because nothing else in my life is regular or routine. And if I'm to blog about life, my blogging should be appropriately timed with my living, don't you think?

Today's prompt: a moment from my day

Yesterday was so full of cleaning + picking up furniture + borrowing the truck from my father-in-law that by the time 11:30 rolled around, I realized I hadn't blogged yet. My first thought was "shoot. I should probably go do that." - followed quickly by the realization that I would much rather cozy into my new love seat with a bowl full of fresh-from-the-oven apple cobbler and a before bed episode of Dawson's Creek. Such a perfect way to spend the evening. I think I'll do it again tonight.

Family

I've received a few questions over the past week or two about how my family fits together. Here's my attempt at making things a little more clear - because with a family of more than 20, I know that it can get a little confusing! Especially because now that we live in Virginia again, we're just hours away from my whole family so I'm often mentioning people on this blog + Instagram by their first name. Let's get started!

+

Here's a picture of the whole group, taken at our wedding in October of 2011. (It's hard to believe this picture is quickly approaching being two years old. Time really does zip by!) Since then, we've added a serious girlfriend and a baby is on the way... So there you have the whole group, and in an effort to make this as easy as possible, I'm going to break things down a little further.

My parents - Todd + Laureen - married for 31 years this summer. My mom is a stay-at-home mom who home schools the kids while my dad works from home + manages my brother-in-law's gym. (Luke Bryan worked out at that gym one time!) She loves knitting, He loves reading, They love the Outer Banks.

My older brother Zac is married to Heather (whom we affectionately refer to as Ducky), and together they have Charlotte, Zoey, Ellie, Molly, and due-in-July baby #5. He knows everything you'll ever need to know, She is a crafting/homemaking genius, and all four of the little girls love getting Thomas to read to them each time we visit.  (Obviously they have mad crazy awesome parenting abilities to have five kids in under seven years.)

Mackenzie, my older sister, is constantly making appearances on my blog + IG feed. We talk each and every day, sometimes constantly, and see each other quite frequently. She's the Nutella to my spoon, you know. Two halves of a whole. You simply shouldn't have one without the other - and if you do - things get messy, and it becomes quite obvious that something is missing. She is married to Joey, who is currently on a two year deployment to Afghanistan, and their little ones go by Jenny, Bob, and Nomi. Their dog is Muffin, who you'll also frequently see on my blog + IG feed.

++ Then ME! ++

Next in line is Olivia - lucky thing is currently traipsing around Ireland in celebration of her recent successful completion of her first year of college. GO GIRL. She's adorable, HILARIOUS, caring, and wears neutrals in a way I can only dream about.

Zane (the one who has snagged the beautiful girl previously referred to as "serious girlfriend") is a hard working, Lacrosse playing cutie. He is a man of few words - so I will leave it at that.

Laney is our resident giggler, and at 13 is rocking her new short haircut. Max. OH, my Max. There are no words to explain you. I hope one day you'll teach my kids to be as wild, funny, and crazy as you are. Last in line is Zelie, who happens to be younger than Jenny + Charlotte. (See above.) 

The youngest four live at home with my parents, my older brother + older sister live in the same county as my parents, and Thomas + I live about three hours away. So there we have it! The whole gang. Now, did I leave anything out? xo

All pictures were taken by me, a family member, or Little Arrow Photography

moving in: the living room

There are few things in life I love more than a perfect paint color! We threw a few samples on the wall yesterday afternoon, a soft gray, a buttery yellow, and this frosted lilac that we quickly decided was "the one" for our living room walls. We've chosen a rug from Lowe's and tomorrow we are going to see a love-seat we found on Craigslist. Besides those two pieces, we're also hoping to find two chairs to sit opposite the love-seat since we've chosen to go without a TV for now. Bookshelves, lamps, pillow fabric, and wall things we already have...it's just a matter of placing the furniture and organizing all the books, yarn, puzzles, and so on.

The top picture shows the paint color rather accurately, and the bottom picture shows off one of my favorite features of this whole house! It's incredibly rainy outside today, so I'll have to wait for a sunnier day to take pictures of the entire room. My arms are exhausted after an this long day of painting, so I'm going to make some soup and curl up with Nellie, who doesn't seem to do anything besides sleep on rainy days. Let me know what you think of our paint choice! xo