Fur Vest!

I am loving the fur vests or fur-lined for fall this year :

Belk

ramzrevell.blogspot.com from Belk

Wilsons Leather

Macys

I am going to attempt to make one this week using a sweater and some faux fur. Fingers crossed I can get my sewing machine up and running.
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A little exterior refesher

We finally got around to painting the exterior of our outdated, paint chipping house.

Here is the house before:

After in Behr's Rocky Ridge.:

A few other things we're looking to update is the front door:

And maybe adding a few not too modern, not too country looking shutters:

I am really digging this deep peacock color as an accent, so we'd build a patio set to match for the new patio too!  

And for the details, touch up the old house numbers (I might just go buy new ones though), hardware and paint the lanterns on either side of the garage door.

What do you think? Anything else you would add or change?

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IKEA Fix This Kitchen

Have you all heard about IKEA's Fix This Kitchen?


A&E, Apartment Therapy and IKEA are teaming up to fix up kitchens.

Send your kitchen design questions, along with some photos of your design-challenged kitchen Here

All submissions are due by next Friday, Sept. 16th tune-in for the next installment of kitchen design fun, airing Saturdays this fall at 9:30am (8:30am CT) on A&E.

I have submitted mine, view the 80's kitchen I am stuck with:

I'd love to rip out this wall with the bakers rack and the peninsula and make an island with trash and recycling pull outs.

Pintrest

A couple notes on these, we had a contractor out and told us this wall is not load bearing so thats good, but the bad news is the bakers rack wall has the TV on the other side, so I will need to rearrange my living room:

Next, rip out the sofits and install taller upper cabinets or just new doors and add glass front cabinets on top with lights like this:

Pintrest

What are your big design challenges? Are you all going to sign up for the contest as well?


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Pfister Fixture Forward Sweepstakes

Pfister's Design-Inspired Sweepstakes  win $5,000 or one of three $500 giftcard by sharing your style!

My style (surprise surprise) was the Vintage Decor:

Click HERE to enter!




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Looking Forward to Fall Fashion!

It's something like 125 with the heat index outside today so I decided to check out some cool weather trends for this fall!

One trend I am noticing is color blocking:

AnnTaylor

Anthropologie

Rebecca Taylor

JCrew

Accessories! Loving the turban look

Harper Bazar

Mad Men! By Banana Republic This classic 60's look is hitting mainstream beautifully :)

 

Stay cool, have a good Monday!!

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Updated Patio!

 We Finally bit the bullet and added a small patio to our front yard. I have been hating this awkward rock bed in the front of my door since I moved in. It ends up being a huge dumping ground for snow in the winter and weed infested in the summer. Here is a Before picture from when I painted the bistro set last year.

We pulled out most of the rocks a few weeks back and have been living with this mess in our yard and garage due to rain and overall too darn lazy to get started....

 The process was pretty straight forward, just terrible work to dig down in an old rock bed 4 inches and rip out the old weed mat.

Once we had a good pattern planned out, we kept one off to the side so we could refer to it easily.

 Next step is to lay out and stamp down Paver Leveling Sand, we angled this down a small slope from the house so water would run toward the driveway and away from the house. This keeps any water away from the foundation.

Once we got the sand pretty level next is just to lay out all the pavers 

 The last steps are to lay out a fine sand called Paver sand over the top using a broom to brush it across the pavers to fill the cracks between the so they don’t shift,  then lightly mist water over the pavers.

We had to do this step a few times so sand would fill all the cracks.

So here is the final with our temporary furniture, we want to build a bench with a little table to enjoy the summers with our neighbors.

It took us about six hours and cost less than $300 to complete!

We promptly showered and enjoyed a beer just in time to watch the sunset :)

Happy weekend all!

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Confess Today

I Confess I hate eating breakfast even though it makes me feel ten times better if I do.

I Confess I haven’t done a real load of laundry in 2 weeks, I just keep running mini washes so I don’t have to put anything away.

I Confess that I have had a coffee cooler at least once a week for the past month (I never do this because I hate the price of them).

I Confess that I am ADDICTED to my gym! I even got a Badge on Foursquare from it.  I went twice today... nuts I know.

I Confess that I am a social network FIEND. I even have a special internet browser (RockMelt) that helps me see all my feeds!

I Confess that while work is stressing me out, I love being everyone’s go-to gal and their goofy grins when I tell them I can fix it.

I Confess that I love all these rainy days.

I Confess that I can sit and watch whole series of shows if it didn’t drive my husband nuts (Dr Who season 4, X-Files again, Star Trek TNG again...etc.)

I Confess that last night I was supposed to do homework and laundry (see above) but spent most of the night playing StarCraft. Nerd.


What are you confessing today?

Happy Summer Solstice!

I hope you all enjoy your longest day of the year :D Did you all get your $2 off Caribou Coolers? I was all over it, and dragged poor co-workers along with hehe.

Fun fact for all: My husband does most of the grocery shopping, this is why:

I was supposed to get ODouls and Crystal Light.... which you dont see coz I had to go back and get it... 

Here is what happened, I went into the grocery store and saw my crazy messed up hair in the window and thought 

1. oh I should get some black hair dye to put stripes in my RED roots!

2 and 3. Then I see the deep conditioning oil next to my fav hair spray which is on sale. Sweet! Dull hair no more for me! PS like the shirt? Says "I fight like a girl" World of Warcraft style <3

4. I see Tonic water on sale, love. My thought process "Yay! I'll have lemon tonic water while I do homework"

5. Back on track, I am perusing the rest of the beverage aisle and my eye catches I scream internally "is that an AQUA can over there?!?!?" And see this lovely set of energy drinks in Pomegranate, Mango, Berry, etc. My thought process: "OMG how CUTE I'll buy 3!!"

6. Darn Cub Foods puts the dumbest things on clips between shelves Me: "What is that thing sparkling... OMG Skulls... OMG They are tattoos!!!, buying those" And yes I talk like a screaming Bieber- loving 14 year old in my head. And Yes, I have already put 4 tats on before starting this post.... and before I started my homework.

7. I am done for with a zero calorie water thats lavender mint flavored. It didn't even make it home. Its seriously incredible delish. Go get some.

ANYways, happy Tuesday all. Happy Summer Solstice :)

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