Fabric Funday

The Fabric Fairy, okay UPS, arrived at my house last Thursday.  I dove right into the box like a kid at Christmas and immediately started playing around with the fabric by wrapping every pillow I could find with each fabric, and then imagining that they were the perfect 'envelope pillows'. 

My anxiousness to try my hand at sewing was realized quickly.  I whipped out Bernina bright and early Saturday morning and started sewing 7 envelope pillows.  I used a pattern/instructions from Our Little Beehive.  Lets just say that the first 30 minutes were interesting.  I was pretty sure I remembered everything my dad showed me, but my stitches weren't holding.  I made a plea to Hubs to 'fix it please'.  He sat down for 30 seconds, tested it out, and his stitches were perfect.  At that point I was baffled.  Hubs gave it another thought and said 'did you put the foot down'.  It was like a light bulb ... 'uh silly me' haha.  After that minor stumble I was off like a jet plane and whipped up spent several hours making 7 envelope pillows.  I am pretty pleased with the results and kept saying to Hubs 'look what I made, I am pretty pleased with myself'.  In the meantime, Hubs took on another exciting project in the Bathroom which has lead to a multitude of exciting 'events' this past weekend. More on that this week.

Pillows (and a messy couch) before

Pillows After!

On Saturday evening I was staring at the ottoman and realized that I desperately wanted to refinish the thing, you know, to make my pillows look even better.  I had a bunch of scraps left over from my pillow making and thought it would be perfect if I could whip up a cover for the thing.  I tore off the flaps on the ottoman, but left the original cover on for fear of unintentionally destroying it.  With two of my largest scraps I sewed togeter a circular top with a seam in the middle and then picked up about 4 or 5 scraps laying around on the floor, pinned them to my circular top, and made my very best effort to sew these things in a circle.  Lo and behold, it fit!  So Sunday, while Hubs pleaded we make our coffee run, I stapled my cover on my ottoman, stood back and smiled, and then headed for coffee. 

Ottoman Before

Ottoman Before (this used to be Grouper's 'spot')

Ottoman After (Grouper admiring, I hope)

On to curtains next!

Inspiring Bathrooms

With exploratory work completed in the bathroom last weekend it was time for Hubs and I to try and decide on 'the look' for the bathroom.  Little did he know that I have been a busy bee on Pinterest finding inspiring pictures.  I divulged these photos to Hubs on Friday night and asked whether he liked any of them.  Typically we have similar decorating tastes, but sometimes there are disagreements. 

Here are photos I love. 

Love the Cabinets and Bead Board







All photos are from my pinterest page http://pinterest.com/jenwolf4/

It is pretty clear what I am loving:

1)  White cabinets

2)  Marble countertops

3)  Subway tile in the bath tub

4)  Small tiles on the floor

5)  Bead board / some boarding on the walls

Hubs comments on the photos were:

1)  I like the small floor tiles

2)  I like the subway tiles

3)  I think I would like a darker color cabinet better than a white one

4)  I would like some storage

He really didn't absolutely love or hate any of the photos... which was a good start and led to some Home Depot fun on Saturday night!

The Beginnings of a Bathroom Reno

After a fun-filled night of karaoke celebrating some friends birthdays last weekend, we woke up Sunday itching to start our bathroom reno, but without much motivation to get very far.  Lets just say we did the tiniest bit of exploratory work to determine what was behind and above the white surfaces of our bathroom. 

What we learned:
1)  Our old neighbors conclusions regarding the bathroom tiles were re-confirmed - there are 2 layers of tile in this space.  Thats right, they tiled over the old tile.  Hubs and I were like "who would do such a thing.  Why wouldn't you do it right and take out the old".  Well, that mystery has been solved.  That first layer of tile has probably been on there since the dawn of time and is hard core tough!  Hubs used some good ole muscle and slammed those babies with a hammer with no luck!  He then tried to pry them off the wall with no luck.  So, we are discussing the possibility of taking off the outside layer and installing our tiles and bead board over the original in hopes of saving money in the wall re-finishing category.

2 layers of tile

2 layers of tile - that first layer is hard core tough, it could be hammered through or pried off

2)  Our bathroom is desperately in need of an exhaust fan.  Unfortunately we cannot exhaust it out the space (condo regs).  We punched a hole in the ceiling to see how much room is in there and googled some non-exhaust time fans.  Hubs also realllllly wants to raise the ceiling in this room (it is way low).  Exploratory work shows there is space for a fan but possibily no space to raise the ceiling.

New addition to bathroom ceiling

When I originally wrote this post, we had no Big Plans to start full force with the reno in January, February seemed more likely.  Well, Casa de Wolf saw a lot of changes of this past weekend.  Buckle up for a ride over the next couple of days!

Rug Love

Our house was sans rugs for almost 2 years.  We had a shag rug in the living room when we first moved in, but he addition of Grouper to the family meant that rug aged rather quickly.  Shag is not good for a pup learning that grass is good and rugs are not and for labs that shed like crazy.  Our house was quickly expelled of all carpet and rugs.

A puppy sleeping on a comfy shag rug

But, now that Grouper is 100% house broken and we have all wood floors I was dying to add some rugs to the place.

I made a trip to Ross over Thanksgiving in search of some fabulous rugs at a fraction of the cost.  I came home with 2!  A 5'x8' rug for $30 and a 8'x10' rug for $50.  I don't think you could beat that price!

Here's the rug in the Living Room.  This rug was the inspiration for my fabric selections seen here. 

New Living Room Rug

The 8'x10' ended up in our master.  I love it, but not for this room.  So, I think it is going to make a debut in the hobby room soon.

Current Rug in Master 

Current Rug in Master

Whats funny is that I was trying to decide between 2 different 8'x10's at Ross - the striped above and a jute looking rug.  After having the striped one in our room for awhile and seeing where I am heading for the master I am still longing for a jute.  I have been stalking Overstock for one that is on super saver sale.  Maybe something like this.

Best 'for the House' Purchase Ever

Our couch is our favorite piece of furniture in the house.  Honestly, we are in love with the thing.  It is so spacious and both of us can sprawl out on it without even touching each other.  Even Grouper is in love with it ... although he is not allowed on any piece of furniture but manages to sneak up there during the day.  I guess who can blame him. 

This thing is from La-Z-Boy and was purchased shortly after moving in to take place of our couch and love seat combo that took up too much room.  It was pricey but well worth it and we look foward to many years of comfort on that baby.

It is about to be spruced up too ... you know, those pillow covers I am going to work on (it says the fabric is coming today!) and some picture swapping (more on that soon).  

Dance Dance

I l-o-v-e to kick off my shoes and get out on that dance floor bustin' some moves.  So, our music, as you know, was very important to us at our wedding.  Originally, Hubs and I were set on a Band.  We even had one picked out - Jangling Reinharts - but when we really sat down and looked at the numbers we realized that although music was important to us we just couldn't swing the bill.  Luckily, one of my besties is getting married this spring and is using Jangling Reinharts so I won't miss out on getting to see them in action.

So, we started looking at DJs, which were about half the cost.  I wasn't willing to let a review page go unturned in my search for the perfect DJ.  Wedding Wire was once again my go to source for reviews.  I quickly narrowed it down to about 5 DJs simply based on reviews.  Then, I did further research using that handy-dandy Google and spent some QT time on their website.  I narrowed it down to 3 at which point I called them up, talked with various people, and got a price quote.

Luckily for us, it was pretty easy to select our DJ.  Brian King with BK the DJ (now as Superlative Events) just 'fit' what we were looking for.  I was at ease talking to him over the phone.  Before we signed on the dotted line we met with him.  That meeting was exactly what I needed to confirm my selection.  And that my friends is how we ended up with our DJ.

I alluded to this in my other post, but honestly I couldn't have imagined a better DJ 'day of'.  He followed the extensive planner we developed (he had it all set up and we just had to fill in the information) and made sure we were right on track time wise.  He also often checked in with the two of us to give us heads up before the next 'activity' of the night.  He was fantastic!

Hobby Room Picture Progress

I was eager to share the pic of our more spacious Hobby Room, however I jumped too quickly on the photo snapping which showed n-o-t-h-i-n-g on the walls.  That night I hung all the pics we have now and added some wedding stuff. 

Wedding Items - Guest book and Invitation

Invitation

West Wall

South Wall

North Wall

I still have a pretty large wall to take up with some items (East Wall).  I am thinking of printing out some wedding nature shots and putting them in some Ikea frames.  But, I also have some ideas whirling around in my mind about adding built-ins in the living room where our bookcase is now and moving the bookcase into the Hobby Room for some extra storage.  Need to talk to Hubs on the expected timeframe for some built-ins.  It will probably be between Bathroom Reno and Built-ins and Bathroom Reno is at the top of my list.