Thanksgiving 2009

I have more pictures than words for this post as a picture says a thousand words! Henry and I did our traditional Thanksgiving today. We joined the Kornegay family at our annual family reunion for lunch, and the Brods got a few pics after lunch.

After the reunion, we headed to Corpus, and we are enjoying time with the Borchards now! We had fun watching the A&M vs. tu game tonight even though we watched a loss. The Ags made them sweat, so it was still an exciting game to watch!

We are also, obviously, taking a nice break from home improvements. I should have some pics to show you soon of the office and the laundry room!

Laundry Space Saver

So, do you have a laundry basket anything like this?

Most people do. After all, it is a LAUNDRY basket!

However, for my first year of college, my parents let me wander The Container Store to get some things I wanted for college. I decided on this fancy cube not knowing what I would use it for. I just thought, "Well, it has to be useful somehow!"

I have the large one which is a 16" cube. Well, even in 2009 (I bought the cube in 2002), I'm still using this laundry cube for all of my laundry loads! Henry and I have other bags and sorts for storage, but for taking out of the dryer and holding while folding, we use this awesome cube. The cube collapses like the drawing below.
The cube becomes a 16" square; it goes from cube to square! Thus, it slide right in between say, your washer and dryer! Then, you don't have this bulky laundry basket sitting out on top of your washer and dryer or taking up other space in your laundry room or closet.

Just had to share my awesome purchase from...7 years ago :)

OMG, how cute!

Ok, there is no way you cannot think this is just absolutely adorable! This is Henry's...wait...Henry and I's (yey, I an say that!) second cousin! Her name is Tori (Victoria) and she is the daughter of Joseph and Samantha. Joseph is Henry's cousin and married Samantha. Sam is wonderful about sending out pictures of this beautiful girl, and she sent me this one this morning!

Makes my heart so happy! She's holding the 12th man towels that we handed out at our wedding. They were used as our getaway item :) See...Anyway, I just had to share this adorable picture of sweet Tori! Love her and her wonderful parents!

Minor Improvements

Ok, so we haven't done tooooo much yet, but here's what I have pics of to share so far.

First off, this is what the brick wall in our living room looked like before...

...then I painted it!

Much whiter now, and we like it that way!

Next, I've added a few decorative items to our guest bath. That means it's for YOU! :) Once we get furniture for the guest rooms, you can all come stay :)

I've been waiting to use this shower curtain for over a year and a half! I love it :)

Thoughts?

We've also fixed our door bell button, Dad and Henry cleaned up the backside of our house clearing it of unnecessary wiring, we replaced the light fixture in our hallway, aaaaand that's all the non picture stuff I can think of right now.

A larger and more tedious task was the ceiling in our office. OMG! I started scraping and quickly determined that scraping is an insane task. I turned to a power tool :) I got the sander and heavy grit paper and went to town. Then I painted the ceiling, and this is the after result!

I'm in the process of painting the office right now, so that should be a new update soon. Plus, our living room and bedroom are painted, but they still need a little cleaning before pics are taken ;)

So what do you think so far?!

Workin' on the House

Man, we have been going and going like the Energizer bunny! We've been able to take a little rest this evening. We started working on the house on October 27th, and we've already made some good progress, I think :)

First off, I bought some paint samples and painted posterboard for Henry to see the colors on any wall we wanted to see them on. Well, turns out we are only using 2 of those 4 colors. I then bought 2 more paints samples, and we aren't using either of those. Haha!

We did determine that we wanted to paint our bedroom Warm Stone from Sherwin Williams. You can click here to click on the color to see it. We thought it would go very well with our Espresso furniture and some good white accents. Not to mention, my hubby likes darkness when he sleeps, so that should help him sleep a little better ;) For the living room, Henry was a big help in helping me choose the color Hopsack. I originally was thinking about Chateau Brown, but, after painting the bedroom, I knew that would just be too dark. I then thought Mocha would be a terrific color, but, on our living room walls with our lighting, it just looked so 1980's Mauve! I know, I know; how can Mocha look Mauve?! I'm serious, it did. Henry was able to head to Sherwin-Williams for me and ask for something with the same color combination but with less Maroon in it :) Thus, we have Hopsack! Thanks Mom for helping me paint the living room!

Though I haven't painted the dining room yet, I'm pretty sure I want to paint that room a little differently than the other 2 rooms. I'd like to do an accent wall and then paint the other 3 walls a different color. Here's what I'm thinking about currently:

Arresting Auburn for the accent wall-this color looks muck more wine-like on the swatch
Glamour for the other 3 walls

Now, this next room color is going to be shocking I'm sure, but don't jump too far out of your chair with shock :) Our office is going to be color matched to be Aggie Maroon. Oh yes...it's true. For the entryway, hallway, and 2 extra bedrooms, we made an easy and quick decision to paint the color Latte.

We also have a huge brick wall in our living room that I primed first, then painted it Extra White in oil-based paint. It shines now :)

As for our kitchen, bathrooms, and laundry room, I have no idea! I'm thinking about just leaving them as they are. I know for sure that our hall bathroom will have black and white accents (shocker, I know), but I don't want to paint the whole bathroom red! I dunno. Any advice?

On the outside of the house, Dad and Henry cleaned up the backside where the meter, breaker box, and telephone box where as there were soooo many wires that had been installed from various providers over many many years. Now, the clutter is gone and is not such a huge eyesore :) Thanks boys!

I also got some exciting new shiny things for the house! I know it sounds crazy that I would be this excited, but look....

Yes, it's true. Now my truck, phone, laptop, washer and dryer all match! How dorky, right?

Oh, I can't believe I haven't bragged more on Henry! Sorry hunny :/ He also installed a new light fixture for our hallway! We found a steal of a deal at Ikea for this new fixture :) He also got to mow our lawn for the first time yesterday; it was really cute.

Ok, well, I hope that provides a good update for the house so far! I'm sure there will be more to come later :)