Wednesday, August 28, 2013

OR GO HALFSIES...

Holy cow! I loved the response I got on Facebook to help me pick my wall! Thank you all for your opinions!

However, I'm about to let all of you down and say I'm going in a different direction. I kept looking at all those color options and wishing I absolutely loved any of them, but I just didn't. I thought some were cuter than others... but that was it.

The next day I ran into this photo... from Crate & Barrel (Selling that floating clock)



Gasp! I knew had to have a half yellow wall! So of course, I popped it into my photoshopped hallway and sure enough. That dirty yellow was the answer to all my problems; wanting a bright hallway and my lack of color commitment. Not to mention I use pops of yellow all around the house and it could help pull it all together.

Love it or hate it? 



Monday, August 26, 2013

GO BIG OR GO HOME...

The truth is... I am a girl that is perfectly content with shades ranging from white to black. As many of you have noticed I'm content right there in my gray world. Add some wood elements and some warm textures and I am happy as can be. However, I'm trying to branch out. I figured that my garage entry hallway would be the perfect place to do it. It's a short hallway, but it's wide an spacious. So, I need your help! I want to do something bold, because I know I can always paint back over it when I don't like it anymore.

Here is a shot of that hallway from my entry door. I want it to look good with the reminder of the main floor which is light gray walls. So, what are your thoughts? Remember, none of these are the exact color I would use, but give a general idea of the direction! (Please ignore my photoshop job, obviously it's sub-par. Also, my carpet doesn't actually look purple-ish in real life. Again, sub-par photoshop)



Monday, August 19, 2013

LOSING THE WAR...

Imagine my surprise last summer when I found out Jake had drawn out for a hunt, seeing that I didn't even know he put in for hunts. While dating, he had vaguely mentioned that his family hunts on occasion and I had vaguely mentioned how much I hate the idea of hunting and that was about all that was exchanged.

At first I didn't mind... But as I realized he would be gone on my birthday week (yes, I still celebrate the whole week) and the cost of this hunting business my tolerance/excitement for this hobby started to wane. But it wasn't until I realized he was planning on mounting his first deer that our battle really began. 

I am a modernist. Hopefully there is no part of my home that resembles a hunting lodge. Meaning, there was no room for that deer. I was so bugged when I realized the most expensive piece of home decor I will ever have in my house garage is going to be a deer head. Here came the threats... "If you bring that deer into my house I will _____fill in with favorite option_____"

     a. Cover it in plaster and turn it ceramic.
     b. Spray paint it bright pink with gold glitter.
     c. Cover it in floral fabric.
     d. Paint a pattern all over
     f.  Cry.
     g. Sell it on KSL, for free.


Jake had a man room at this time, but it had low walls with an attic feel, so a large deer wouldn't have fit. And it wouldn't be allowed where women would judge my taste based on that dead deer. So it was decided, above his motorcycle in the garage would have to do. I was happy and I had won. 

The mount still has not been delivered. (Did you know it takes about a year to get those back?) It bought me some time in a deer free wall environment. But it's coming, and it's coming soon.

In this new house Jake has his very own theater room yet again, but this one has walls... deer size fitting walls. Apparently that meant that the deers location was once again up for discussion. Ugh, after arguing and seeing the bummed out look on Jakes face when I threatened that deer head with a can of spray paint, I caved. I hate to disappoint that man, so I agreed to let that furry dead creature into my home. Hopefully I can come up with something to make that room look good, right?

Monday, July 22, 2013

HOPE THIS UPDATE LASTS A WHILE

Wow, I really have gotten worse and worse at writing on here. I think the more I tell myself I'm going to write, the worse I get... However, today I'm laying sick in bed and can't get myself to sleep so I decided to update this pathetic thing I once called a blog.

I feel like so much has changed and yet, nothing has changed these past few months. We still spend our nights cuddled up on the couch multi-tasking watching TV and playing on our iPads but now we're doing it in a new house.

Aww, new house. We love this house. Now, don't get me wrong, our old house was a great house. Perfectly grand for someone with taste different from mine, but, it's hard to come home to a house that feels like it was meant for someone else.

This house, even though it's not modern and scandinavian and filled with sharp corners and cement goodness everywhere, it is headed in the right direction. The white cabinets, custom lighting and lack of wrought iron really get this house on par for my decorating taste. There's actually a lot of things that we prefer about this house... So here's my list of pluses this house had.

- Open-ish floor plan. The thing that's great about this plan is that there is a single floating wall that separates the kitchen from the family room. So no matter how hard visiting teachers may try, they can't judge my dirty dishes from the family room. It's such a relief on Sunday after church when I don't feel like cleaning up in time for the lovely ladies to stop by.



- Windows, SUNSHINE, so much sunshine. Natural light, something we lacked in our cave like structure we use to live in, townhomes can do that to you I guess. It didn't help that we were on the golf course and any time you opened the windows in our living area, many creepy men would be peering into your window to see what those houses on the golf course looked like inside. I now open my windows daily and love to have the sunlight fill the house in every corner. Jake would prefer I open them a little less because sometimes he's surprised when he's not fully dressed and walks downstairs to a fishbowl, but I feel like it's all worth it.

- Paintable walls, now I know that technically all walls are paintable, but I have a strong argument against that. At our old house we had this GIANT two-story vaulted ceiling that spanned across half of our main floor, kitchen, dining and living room. This wall was GIANT and because it was all open space, you couldn't just paint some, or half, or section of part of the wall. If you were to conquer some, you must conquer all. The thought of it would make me cringe, I couldn't decide what was worse, spending a few weeks painting that space, or hanging beautiful art against the peach/gold hue someone decided to put in that house. Luckily there is no wall too large in this house. Which has been fortunate considering the previous owner preferred powder blue walls in the rooms we spend the most time in.



-Under counter mounted sink- I feel like that's all I have to say.

-Master bathroom. Ahhh, now our old floor plan was pretty well crafted for the amount of space we had, but someone completely spaced the master bathroom. Our closet was larger than our bathroom. I'm pretty sure it was one of those things that the architects thought... oops, hmm, good enough. It was a glorified closet. Shower/tub combo and a toilet stuck right between the shower and the counter. Don't even get me started on jacuzzi/shower death traps. I'm 5'1, climbing in and out of that thing when wet was a hazard I don't have to stress out about anymore. We now have a rather large master bathroom with A SEPARATE SHOWER. It seems like a sweet miracle to me. I love taking a squidgy to that shower door, because I feel like it means that I've made it in life.

-My 5 minute walk to work that I usually drive anyways.

-Last but not least, the smell of air. Now, most people don't have to worry about their house smelling like an outhouse, but we did. We lived close by the sewer treatment facility. Some days you didn't smell anything at all, those were the blessed day. But then there were those days where if any of your windows were cracked you'd wake up gagging and feeling like you had gone back a few hundred years in civilization to when they would toss their waste into the curb. There were plenty of awkward moments when you would drive past the facility with someone new in your car and they would look over at you with accusing eyes and you would glare right back at them to make them feel self-conscious. However, that's all over now. Until I lived there I had never really noticed how a home smelt, now I do. And it's nice to be able to breath deep when I pull up to mine.

Overall we're really enjoying what this place has to offer.

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Day Two: Something you feel strongly about

Well, I feel strongly about a lot of thing, but truthfully, I need a little vent session. So I'm going to chose the moving process. I strongly feel that the moving process sucks.

I am sure at some point, when we actually know where we're headed that it's going to finally get exciting, but so far, it has sucked.

Here is why:

People walking through your house talking about how they could never downgrade their mansion to a town home with a small kitchen – Then why are you here... you saw the photos online. Tell your mansion to suck it. 

People walking through your house and loving it and then their parents that have a much larger home budget come through and tell them that they should live in a much larger home and this house was not appropriate for their child.

Realtors calling you 24-7 looking to list.

Having people call and say they're right outside and would like to come see it now... then scrambling to make sure everything is perfect, just to have them take about 2.5 seconds to go through the whole house before they leave.

People telling me that they could get a much larger home for the price out in Eagle Mountain... then when my sassy self tells them to move out there they say... "We just sold our house there because we didn't like the area."

People texting me an offer $60,000 less than our asking price... take it or leave it the offer lasts until tonight. Needless to say, we left it.

Packing and making a moving mess out of your house, just to have your appraisal come back mysteriously low and have to find time to get things back in order for a re-appraisal.

No offense to the in-laws, but having to move into their house until you find a lot.

Trying to find a lot...

Offering the highest price on a great lot and losing to lower offer of man who just foreclosed on the lot because the investment firm wants to "work with him."

Packing... needless to say.

CC&R's that don't allow modern homes because they would rather have a terrible looking, out of place tuscan looking home than a low-grade roofline.

This is not even a full list, but I feel a lot better so I'll save you all the pain.

Anyways... We finally found a great buyer! And we're set to close on the 18th if we can get the appraisal up. Wish us luck!

Sunday, April 07, 2013

Day One - 5 Ways to Win my Heart

So, I started a 30 days blog challenge to hopefully get me back in the blogging spirit, so that I'll be better at documenting our life! Here it goes...

Day 1- 5 ways to win my heart.

1. Typography: Kern (properly adjusting the space between each letter), hate papyrus (the dreaded, awful font) and love Helvetica. Pretty simple right? ;) I always assumed it was too much for me to ask to find a normal non-designer male that would share even a hint of my passion of typography.

However, after Jake had listened to almost 1 million hundred rants about papyrus on the freeway billboards, and the poor kerning in the Macy's display banners, his interest started to peak and he too began scoffing at papyrus *swoon*, I was hooked.

2. Humor: My favorite people to be around, shoes to watch, and songs to listen too, are ones that put a smile on my face. This can generally and easily be done with humor. I love a good laugh and I'm always giggling. The president of my company says I have a good sincere laugh- similar to a toddler (yup, he literally compared me to a toddler. In front of a client nonetheless.)

3. Suits: Nothing better than a man in a good tailored suit. That's actually one of the first things I noticed about Jake. First his eyes, then that suit of his. Ironically, when Jake bought that suit he also thought he looked good. So good in fact, he told his friend he would meet his wife in that suit.

4. The Spirit: I want to be around people that add to the spirit in my life, not take away. If you can do that I will treasure my time around you.

5. Don't judge me: There is nothing worse than being around people that you know are judging your every move. It gets tiresome and I want to be who I am, doing the best that I can. If I feel that I can be myself, the good, bad and ugly around you, then you have my heart.

Monday, January 21, 2013

2013. WOOT.





My resolutions are always a bust, always. Don't get me wrong, I always start out enthusiastic, before failing miserably and making excuses for why it couldn't be done. But every new year I come in all ready to get fit, keep a perfectly clean home, made dinner EVERY night, get up at 6 EVERY morning, etc...

So this year I decided my resolution was to do better today than I did yesterday [Hence, why I am again writing on this blog]. One step at a time... At all aspects of my life. I also want to be more understanding when my best isn't as good as I wanted it to be. I've tried to not sweat it if I didn't run as far at the gym as I would like, or heck, if I wasn't able to make it to the gym at all and work harder the next day. Who cares if Jake had cereal for breakfast yesterday, I'll try and make dinner tonight.

This has seemed to be going a lot better for me. Instead of a clear cut guide line of what I can/cannot accept from myself, I wake up every morning trying to be better at something/anything than I was yesterday. Didn't get the laundry folded last week? That's fine, I'll try today.

I was inspired by this concept from this blog that I read the other day...

http://www.daringyoungmom.com/2012/12/19/drops-of-awesome/

If you haven't read it, you should. It's nice to come to terms with accepting what you are capable of every day and celebrating the good that you do, instead of everything you didn't accomplish that day.

I mostly wrote this for myself, so that when I look back at this post I can remember why I am striving to improve and that it's okay if I don't.

I also just started a fitness challenge with one of my dear friends & her family. I'm excited to have someone to try and improve with. Something that's nice about this challenge is that it's sole focus is not on weight, it's on a healthy lifestyle. Exercising everyday? Check! Drinking all your water? Check! Eating fruits & veggies? Check! It has different variables that you can do to improve... so that the number on the scale loses some importance and being healthy gains some.

For this challenge we also had to give up a vice, ugh, I had so many it was hard to chose. However, I chose the cursed free soda fountain at my work. That thing is of the devil, it glows as I walk past it and I sit close enough that I can hear the "ahhh's" as people take their first sip of Dr. Pepper. Hopefully I'll be able to resist & chick my Soda habit.

What are your New Years resolutions & how are they going so far?