Milestones

     Scott and I celebrated our two year wedding anniversary two weeks ago.  Time flies when you are having fun...or slowly remodeling a house, changing jobs (Scott), taking grad school classes (me), etc. 
  

One Year Anniversary

Two Year Anniversary

Family Room Updates

     Today I wanted to post another one of the big projects that Scott completed this summer.  He designed and built our new entertainment center.  Here is a picture of what the family room looked like when about a year ago.

      Here is a picture of the new entertainment center in the family room now.

     There is beadboard on the back panel of the entertainment center and the bottom cabinet doors.  It's a little difficult to see in the pictures.  Here is a closer picture of the entertainment center itself and our new TV.  Please ignore all of the smudges on the TV, I just noticed how bad they were because of the flash on the camera! :)

     It makes such a big difference in the family room and really helps to make the room feel more on it's way to being completed.  The next project is for Scott to build two window benches on each side of the entertainment center.  I'm hoping they will help to make it feel like it's more "built-in".  We are also in desperate need of new furniture, but baby steps.  I am still trying to figure out what to put in the nook on the top left of the fireplace.  Any ideas?

Summer Gardening

I found this photo online and it inspired me to give it a try.

Here is my version of the planter.  I found the bowl at Marshall's and the succulents were from Lowes.  Not bad for $25! 

This is the best kind of planting/gardening to do during the summer in Florida.  I didn't even have to leave my semi-air conditioned house!  Just ignore all the stuff on the counter, I'm finishing up some signage for my classroom.  Can't believe it's August already!

Summer Summer Summertime

     This summer has been busy for Scott and I here in Florida.  I started graduate school in May to get my Master's in Exceptional Student Education.  I took two classes this summer during May and June.  Scott and I also worked on several house projects.  One of the bigger projects was finishing the dining room.

     When we moved in, Scott painted a plaid design on the bottom of the existing chair rail.  I had seen several pictures online of board and batten wall treatments in houses and decided that I really wanted to have this somewhere in the house. Somehow, we landed on doing this in the dining room and got working on it soon after.

     Here is a before picture of the dining room.

     Here is an after picture of the dining room (about one year later--the project only took about a month though!)  We got a new curtain rods, I made new curtains, we (Scott) refinished a dresser, and added a few accessories.

    This is by far my favorite room in the house.  It's so relaxing and it's inspiration for how I'd like the rest of the house to feel.  The dresser was a craigslist find and it was a mess when we picked it up.  It's from the 40's and was being stored in a outside shed that was basically a tent.  We (Scott) stripped off the old paint, sanded, repainted and put on new hardware.  Here is what it looked like before

   and a closer "after" picture.

    We had intended on sanding the top and staining it to match the table, but there were several water stains that were too deep into the wood to be sanded out.  So, Plan B.  Scott painted it and sealed the top so it will be pretty durable.  I really like how it turned out.  Yay for craigslist and Scott! :)