X-mas decorations...

Hello! It's been a long time. After weeks of promising you pictures here are pictures of my x-mas decorations.









I leave you with a teaser of what the inside of my house looks like until next time.

Garden statue...

While prepping my soil I was reminded of some wonderful memories working with my grandma in our vegetable garden. Me in my blue rain boots with a small hoe by her side removing weeds. I've been thinking and in her memory, I would like to buy a statue to watch over my garden. I was thinking an angel, but I'm not religious and it just wouldn't look right. So I found this darling statue. Tell me what you think about it? Does it remind you of granny and me walking to the store or coming over to visit?

I'm not sure what I will be planting, but I can't wait. I'm not looking forward to the insects and creepy crawlers such as caterpillars. I hate them slimy, gross, and ugly things. I can't wait to serve my first garden salad or eat my first cucumber with chili and fish sauce YUMMY!!

Home decor...

Finally we have some decorations up. I have tons of pictures to post, but looking for my cord is the last thing on my mind. There's been a lot of things going on, but overall life is GREAT!

I bought accent pillows for my sofa and loveseat. This is what I bought in brown along with a plain green color to complement. I figured that it would be nice to bring the green from the kitchen into the living room. I'm using the colors from this pillow to keep a flow throughout the 2 living area. They also have this design as a table runner which I bought.


My fireplace mantle is black. I painted it and it looks very elegant. I bought this wall art to hang on the wall, but it looks kind of small. My husband loves it and I don't want to take it back. I'll figure something out and make it nice.

I also bought a big plate, vase with some white flowers, a painting, and this funky metal wall art to go on top of my kitchen cabinets. They all look very nice together. I do need some more green on top of my cabinets but I don't know where to buy big silk plants.

This is a sample of the curtains I bought for my dining and living room. I love stripes, the color and the fact that they are 108'. It's difficult finding the perfect length. They also go so well with my pillows.

For my bar area instead of using my old black mirror on top of the bar, I found 3 skinny, long mirrors in brown and black. The cool thing about the mirror is that instead of it just having a border around it with the mirror inside. It looks something like this, but bigger and with 3 or 4 circles. I put them side by side and it looks like one big mirror. I love that it's so different.

Bulbs planted and starting on vegetable garden...

I planted my bulbs 2 weeks ago. The instructions called for a 6 inch hole and the bulbs had to be 4 inches apart, which required a lot of muscle from my husband. Our dirt is hard as rock. My husband got blisters just digging 3 flower beds. I ended up selecting a mixture of pastels and bold color tulips, hydrangeas, and something else.


I'm a little worried that the flowers might not grow because the dirt is hard. How will the roots push through the dirt? Well I won't know until early spring and summer. Hopefully the bulbs doesn't go to waste. I would love to have some fresh flowers.

I've been spending my Friday mornings taking care of my backyard. I know it's my husband's job, but it's very relaxing. I tend to my flower beds by taking out unwanted weeds. I've been prepping the soil in my vegetable garden. My husband tells me that it's too cold to plant anything now, so I'll have to wait until the spring. I'm not sure what I will be planting, but probably a typical vegetable garden.

Help Wanted...

Do you feel like you spend the majority of your time vacumning and mopping? We all wish we can afford maids, but it's not always possible. The other alternative is ROOMBA and SCOOBA

These are robots that you can time to vacumn your home 7 times a week. Just imagine coming home to a clean house every day. These two items will be on the top of my christmas list this year. My house is tiled and it tends to attract a lot dirt. I usually vacumn and mop 2-3 times a week. If I had this I can just come home and watch my soap operas instead of clean.



It's kinda pricey, but cheaper than a maid. The ROOMBA cost about $399 and the SCOOBA varies based on the square footage. I'm hoping Santa brings me the SCOOBA. I just recently purchased a Dyson, so no ROOMBA for me. Check out the video, it's so cool!

How do you like your bulbs?

It's that time of year to plant bulbs for the spring and summer. I want my own garden so that I can have fresh flowers. How do I go about accomplishing this? Internet!! So I found some really neat articles on how to plant bulbs in a way that they look naturalize. What is naturalize? Well it's a technique to make your flowers look like they just up and grew like that. Just like wild flowers in the mountains.

Since this is my first year and attempt, I'm worried about the outcome. I'm going to plant lots of bulbs. I don't want to wait until Spring to find out that there will be no flowers because I screwed up.

I thought about just sticking to plain white flowers, so the yard doesn't look like a rainbow threw up in it, but that's boring! The following are the color schemes and flowers that I want:

Behind on pictures...

Yes, I know I'm behind and you all have been waiting to see how my house is coming along. I can't seem to find my cord for the camera. I have tons of pictures to show you, but no cord. URGGGG....the husband is no help. He's probably the one who misplaced it.

My backyard is finished and we bought an outdoor utility sink kit from Home Depot, so that the landscaper can installed our sink. At no additional charge, isn't he wonderful? I came home late last night from running errands, so I didn't see it yet, but my husband likes it.

I also bought these trellis thing to go around my AC. I'm going to cover it up with silk leaves/vines to mask the ugliness of the AC. I thought about growing actual vines, but too much maintenance involved. The trellis thing I got from Target for $5 each. They usually run about $10 each, so I saved $15. Wooohoooo!!!

We also placed an order for a high pressure double burner stove to cook outside. Apparently the place in town that carries it no longer sells the tall ones. We desperately need this, because I can honestly say that we've been starving. Starving?? Yes, we haven't been cooking indoor and I miss a nice, and oil smelling meal. Can't wait to get it!

Paint, paint and more paint...

So we finally finished painting the kitchen, nook, hallway, and living room. I used Valspar's digital painter to create this kitchen and the living room. The kitchen color is slate green with the nook wall in coffee n' cream to complement my dark furniture.


The living room color is natural, the fireplace wall is skylark (milk chocolate brown), and I'm thinking of painting my fireplace mantel black as well. The hallway is also coffee n' cream but due to the different lighting the color looks different.



I thought about going darker in the living room too, but figured that with the kitchen being dark already I needed to go light to balance the two. Overall I'm happy with the outcome. I also felt that with these colors, I can change my accent colors with the seasons. Bright orange in the fall, soft blue in the summer and so forth.

Right now, I just need decorations and my furnitures which are arriving this Friday. I'll post the actual pictures up soon!

Landscape almost done...

After much deliberation we decided that we absolutely needed to have our backyard landscape done. With winter, rain, and all, we just know that it's going to be messy. Also we don't want our yard over flooding because it's super tiny.

We got a pretty good deal, paying a little under $4K for the sod, drain pipes, sprinkler system, concrete, and an extra water spigot for our outdoor sink. This is by far the most affordable out of all the quotes that we got. The most expensive was $7K.

The concrete is done and we are just waiting for it to dry. Two weeks before the landscaper started, the weather was perfect not too cold or hot. Right after the concrete was done, it rained the next day. I'm kind of worried about how this will affect the concrete, so we'll have to see.

The yard should be done by this week, just in time for my halloween party. I don't think anyone will be outside because it's just too cold.

Pictures to follow.

Settling in...

We have kind of settled in. These are our furnitures from our old place. My new furnitures will not be deliver until next month because I'm waiting for the tile people to come first. I'm going to paint the house after the tile people and before the furnitures get deliver.

Right now, we have been talking about having the back yard landscape done. The reason being that I don't feel comfortable cooking in my house plus I want everything to be semi-ready when you all visit me in the summer time.

How we are paying for all of this stuff you might ask? I don't feel like I have to justify my actions to anyone, but I will tell you our secret. When we decided to buy our house, we prepared ourselves for these expenses and have saved up for quite some time now. We've also slowly bought items that were on sale to help lighten the load.

Welcome to our home...

This was taken after our final walk-through. Our house closed as expected and we are glad that it's finally over. Yeah right...one week before the house was going to close, we actually considered walking away. The landscape was not completely done and although the doors to the cabinets had been changed the inside lining was not. So many things going wrong, but I will save that for another post, so enjoy!
Entry Hallway and Living area:








Kitchen and living area:








Kitchen:




Guest Bath & Hallway to Bedroom 4:




Bedroom 4:



Hallway to Bedrooms & Living area:
















Bedroom 3:


















Bedroom 2:


















Master Bedroom & Bath:












Bathroom 2:




Laundry: