Shelves: Splurge or Save

I just loooove online shopping.  Not for clothes or shoes- I have to try everything on.  But for household items and gifts, it's the best.  The bf and I use Amazon Prime and it has saved us bundles of money on shipping.  Need a bed frame for the guest bedroom?  Shop around on Amazon and BAM!  Two days later it's at our doorstep.  In our new place I decided we had to have a pair of shelves flanking the TV in the living room.  I'm not a fan of traditional TV stands.  Our TV is now mounted on the wall above an antique sideboard we found at a thrift store.  I wanted some open shelves on either side to add some height to the wall and to display some chotchkies from our travels and our books.

I found these in the Pottery Barn catalog for $349 each...

After hunting around on Amazon, I found these for $62 each.

I'm sorry to say this is a teaser post.  Did you think I was going to show you how they actually look in our coral-colored living room?  Well, I'm sorry to say it's not ready for the big reveal just yet!  If I showed you what our living room looks like right now you'd think we're hoarders.  The moral of the story is: Amazon Prime is worth it (and no, I'm not affiliated with Amazon, although it would be awesome to get paid for saying that, if anyone at Amazon wants to throw a few bones my way after the fact).

I'll try to have some real house pics to share soon!  :)

Our New Hood

I took a walk this morning to check out our new neighborhood on foot, since I've only driven through it and haven't had time to pay much attention to my surroundings.  Maybe we should have done this before we bought the place?  I was pleasantly surprised at how nice our neighborhood is!  American flags, live oaks, and even a duck pond!  All we need is a white picket fence around our place and we're suddenly The Cleavers.

Does anyone else feel awkward and/or creepy walking the streets of a residential area without a dog or a stroller?  I ran into my neighbor and waved at her from a distance, and I could tell she didn't recognize me.  She was pushing her two kiddos in a stroller and I could see in her eyes we had that awkward "do I know you and what can I do to protect my kids from this stranger walking towards me" moment.  Maybe it's time for a dog??

Moved In

Last Thursday was our first night spent at the new place!  Here's how we celebrated...

(Crystal glasses courtesy of our fantastic Realtor!)  We still don't have cable or internet, which might be a good thing since we need to finish our painting projects and organize our lives.

Chalkboard Fridge

Thanks to Pinterest, I've been obsessing over chalkboard paint for a while.  I've especially been lusting after a chalkboard paint-covered refrigerator, which sadly I could not have in my rental house.  Before we even moved into our new place, we painted the fridge black with chalkboard paint and it was everything I dreamed it would be!  I know, that's a little dramatic, but I was way too excited about this project and surprisingly the bf was too!  The primer wasn't even completely dry before we had the first strokes of chalkboard paint on the fridge, which I don't recommend doing.  You should always make sure your primer is completely dry before you start the next coat of paint.  :)  Here's what we started with:

Here's the almost finished product:

It could be finished, or we could put handles on it.  I'd love to buy some stainless steel or some polished wood handles to replace the boring white ones that were on it.

Rental House Review

The bf and I move into our new (purchased) digs this week!  As I'm sitting in my living room of our rental, it hit me that there will be a few things I'll miss about this house.  Our new place is about 300 square feet smaller and would appraise for less than our rental, but regardless of the size and value, we feel like it's a step up.

The yard at the new place is smaller, so it should be a lot less time-consuming to manage, but I will miss the beautiful kockout roses that surround our lawn....

and our neighbor's pomegranate tree that straddles our property line.

Living Room Paint

This week has been completely house-centric.  We only have a few days left to prepare before we move our stuff in, so we're hustling to get as much painting done as possible!  On Saturday we picked out our paint colors at Home Depot, and I was shocked when the bf agreed to go with Tropical Coral for our living room!  We got the paint mixed, and as he was carrying it around in the store a woman approached him to say what a "pretty" color it was!  Her seemingly innocent comment started an avalanche of second thoughts.  The woman working the cash register did not help the situation by telling us the color was "awfully feminine."  Yeah, I was pretty annoyed by that.  Don't judge our paint color!  Just take our money, lady!  Here's a pic of the living room when we saw the house for the first time (and no, we didn't get to keep Bambi's head).

Here's the living room now with one coat of Tropical Coral on the walls...

I'll admit, it looks kiiiind of pink in this pic, but I promise, it works in real life!  We're keeping the trim white and we have dark wood furniture that will contrast nicely with the coral.  Life is too short for white walls, right?

House Update

What a week!  I got back from San Diego Wednesday night and the bf and I closed on our house Thursday morning! It's such a relief to have the everything in place.  Since officially becoming homeowners, we haven't wasted one second working on our place.  We'll move in at the end of the month, so we have a great opportunity to paint while it's relatively empty (we've been moving our stuff into the new place each trip we make).  We literally worked all weekend and I'm exhausted!  We are thrilled with the progress we've made so far in the kitchen.  Check out our handiwork!  Here are some before shots...

 And this is what it looks like as of 8:30pm tonight...

I am such a DIY nerd.  I woke up at 6:00am Saturday morning because I couldn't wait to go to Home Depot to get paint!  We're going to spend the next three nights this week painting the new casa, then we have to leave town for the weekend for a family event, which will be a welcomed break from our house project.  Now I'm off to scrub paint off of my arms and legs and get some sleep so I can be ready to get back at it tomorrow night!