Updates!

We haven't been able to blog in awhile! We had an extremely busy week! James had to dog sit for mom and dad (he could't take off from work) while I went to Knoxville with my parents to celebrate an engagement and graduation. I had told Sarah months ago I was not taking off to go to her graduation and then a few weeks before it rolled around, Nat informed the fam that he would propose that week! Can't miss that!! Fortunately, I am blessed to have co-workers who will rearrange/swap shifts with me to work it out, so Wednesday morning after work we hit the road. And let's just say, Sarah was surprised! To read the proposal story, go here. Here are some photos from the short, but sweet, trip.

 

Showing off that bling!

 

The graduates

Our little Sarah is all grown up!

James and I are finally close to being entirely moved in. It was kind of bittersweet to pack up the apartment. Sweet, because we were getting out of there and moving to a house. Bitter, because this was where we started together. 

Last year when we found our apartment!

Our first Christmas :)

Proof that I cook :)

The first party we hosted

Definitely bittersweet. :)

Goodbye Olive Branch, MS. Hello Collierville! I must say, I am THRILLED to be back in TN!

Kitchen chairs :)

James and I were at my favorite store (Sheffield's Antique Mall) looking for kitchen chairs. I knew I wanted all different chairs, and possibly multiple colors. I wish I had a better "before" picture of all of them, but I forgot! We got all the chairs at a great price and I bought 3 sample size paint colors from Lowe's because they are only a couple dollars. It took me forever to decide if I wanted them to be all the same color, 2 different colors, or each one different. You can see below what I decided and I'm extremely excited about the way they turned out!! We are using the chairs in the breakfast nook of the kitchen.

This is the closest thing to a before picture...just picture them all white before

These are the sample size paint you can get for super cheap. I had at least half left in there when I was done

all done! (they each took 2 coats)

the perfect splash of happiness!!

Projects coming up this week:

*James has a special project we are SO excited about. He won't let me put a teaser picture on here but he promises to post about it soon!

 I will be turning this thrift store treasure into something much cuter

I have BIG plans for this mantle....get ready!!!

Long weekend projects

We realized we have way too many projects going on at the same time. However, we have made a pretty good dent in our "to-do" list before we actually move our stuff in. We officially have 30 days to move out of our apartment, but plan on taking care of that in the next 2 weeks. Thankfully the entire downstairs is almost painted. I still have to decide on a color for the hallway and laundry room.

James took a couple days off work this week because I had 3 nights off in a row and we wanted to make a good dent in some projects.
Things that can be crossed off
Paint the living room
Pressure wash the back deck
Paint chairs for the kitchen
Put ANOTHER coat of paint in the kitchen 
Clean out gutters
I'd say we are making good progress!

We finally were able to tackle the living/dining area of our house. It's a huge room! Luckily we loved the color it was, it just needed a fresh coat of paint to cover up some holes/scratches/marks. The kitchen cabinets are still a work in progress. Dad worked on them while mom helped me paint, but I don't want to post pictures until they are all done Here are some of the pics we snapped as of late

The deck looks so much better! We love our helpers!

Mom and I nominated James for this task above the stairs

Scary!

(btw....who decided the rails would look nice with white and stained mixed together? That's on my list to fix )

Our paint went on exactly the same color as before so it was hard to make sure we covered everything...James and his dad had to touch a up our misses in a few spots :)

Lucy needed some quality lap time after all that painting.

Sun glow :)

We only had one afternoon to really work on the house this weekend. Not that we minded- we got to spend time with the whole family this weekend because Sarah, Nat, and T.J all made it home for a couple of days. Which we spent wisely playing bezzerwizzer, eating, and a redbirds game.
Sunday afternoon we got back to work though. We needed to get the kitchen painted so we wouldn't have to worry about hitting the cabinets once they were finished. We had to paint over green...aka the worst color to paint over. After doing one coat of the trim we knew we were in for a hard job. If you ever have to tackle this task, we recommend the signature paint from Lowe's. It is a primer/paint in one and can save you a lot of time! We used it in the master bedroom when we had to cover dark brown and it worked beautifully. I think we would have had to put several coats on the kitchen if we hadn't grabbed it again. It may have taken us forever to get this job done, but the results are beautiful...

Goodbye green

Hello sun glow!

 

(I may or may not have leaned against the wall onto wet paint while taking this photo) 

Feeling rather accomplished once we were done!

I love a good deal...

I am on the hunt for the perfect furniture for our house. And thanks to Craigslist, we now have the cutest coffee table, sofa table, and end table for our living room. I saw it online a couple days ago and knew it was exactly what I was looking for. James had to work late today so I recruited Dad (and his truck) to go with me to check it out. After about 15 minutes of meeting the lady selling it we found out she was from Wisconsin, in the Navy, and a nurse! I think that might have helped me out because she gave me a great deal! Check it out! It's hard to tell in the picture, but the furniture is a white/cream color and it is distressed (which is my fav!) 

End table

giant coffee table

and sofa table

This is all hanging out at my parents garage at the moment, thanks to the rain.

As for the house....Dad (or shall I say Super-Dad) spent his day priming our cabinets! Isn't he awesome? Keep in mind that this is just the primer, we still have to paint them sugar cookie! 

Thanks Dad!!!

Master Bedroom

While the guys spent the weekend working on cabinets, Mom taught me how to paint. We tackled the master bedroom! You will be able to see that I am not a fan of dark colors. James and I both love blue and green so you will also be seeing a lot of that! The look we are going for is a chic/shabby cottage look...with a twist of Hannah-style mixed in I guess ;-)

Before...with some of the many shelves the previous owner left. 

Goodbye brown...

 I got distracted.... :)

 Hello green! Much better!! and much more cheerful!

A better after picture is still to come..but you get the idea :)

This has nothing to do with the master bedroom but aren't they cute?!?

Overall we had a great start to fixing up our new home! We were sitting on the couch last night talking about how blessed we are to have parents that will help us with anything! We are so excited to start a new chapter in our lives, and we can't wait to fill up the pages with memories. We love that we will be able to look back on all the things we have done. We also wanted an easier way to keep our families updated! We both have such big families and they all live so far away! We hope this is a good way to keep everyone invloved/updated in our lives like they were only a few miles away!

-JB and HB

Kitchen Cabinets

We really want white kitchen cabinets. Dad recently painted theirs white at home, which turned out great! So he got put on Team Kitchen Cabinets with James! It is a huge messy project but I know it will be worth it. Luckily we are doing this before we actually move in so we won't get dust on furniture...just all over the walls, floor, windows, counters...haha! Check it out..

Before

All the doors/drawers were taken off. The hardware was put into

 tupperware to keep it from getting mixed up

Dad covered everything to keep it from getting dirty

And now for the annoying part...sanding. Dad used a deglosser

 for his but decided sanding helped the paint stick better so we took his advice!

It's a work in progress...