Painting The Town(house) Red...I mean GRAY!!

YEEES our new house is now GRAY!! Gray is everywhere in diffrent shades and tints. YEEES was our painters favorite word.  He used the word yes at least twice in each sentence and even used it when the answer to our questions was sometimes no.  But, he did beautiful work on the house! The paint was completed the day of the bridal shower and the floors are currently being put in.  The flooring guys are little bit messy so we will be needing some touch up paint on the walls after all of this is done.  But the good news is there is no more mauve on the walls or shades of split pea soup!!! Take a sneak peek at some before and after pictures.

Before and After in our breakfast nook!

Before and After in our basement...hello eggplant :)

Before and After in the second stairwell

Before and After in the foyer

Before and After in the living room

Before and After in the kitchen + a new tile backsplash

So long mauve and spounge paint! I never really enjoyed you on the walls.

Bridal Shower: 85 Days Till I'm Hitched

First, I have to start off by saying I have AMAZING bridesmaids and a GREAT mother! They did such a wonderful job organizing, planning, and decorating for the shower!  This blog might be sweet and short with words but full of pictures!  :)  I had a wonderful time at the shower and am so grateful for all of our family and friends that came to celebrate our upcoming wedding.  The party started at 2pm and we had some foods and drinks. 

Entry 

Drink Table

Engagement photos as part of the decorations

Refreshments :)

Cute Gift Table Sign

My WONDERFUL bridesmaids 

Advise wreath

Cute ring and dress cookie favors for all of the guest :)

Then we got started with a quick game so that the guests could get to know each other.  We played a bingo game that was similar to a "find someone who" game.  The squares on the bingo board described different people that were invited to the shower and the guests had to find a person that matched the description and get five in a row to win a prize.  For example, some one of the boxes read "went to middle school or high school with the bride" and the guests had to find either my friend Corinne or my friend Malia in order to fill that bingo spot.  Donna was of course the first to get bingo because she is great at games!  Lydia came in at a close second and they both won a prize :)

The BINGO winners!

After bingo we played a game that Sara had made.  She and her husband interviewed and recorded Will and I had to answer the same questions Will was asked to see if we had similar answers.  Sara divided the movie into three parts: 1 Questions about Will, 2 Questions about me, and 3 Will's this or that.  I got a little nervous and didn't do too well with part one but I rocked part two and three :)  Will as super silly but it was fun for people who didn't really know him very well to see him on the video.

If you look close you will see Will being interviewed on the TV :)

Questions in the game

Me in the hot seat

After the game I opened gifts.  We got some wonderful things for our future house.  Overall it was a wonderful shower and I had a terrific time.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture with everyone before they left but here are a few :)

Jennifer a great friend of mine from George Mason 

My beautiful mother and soon to be mother-in-law

A family friend of ours who has known me since I was a baby and it turns out she knew Will when he was  a child too!  What a small world!

Happy 4th of July!

3 years ago on July 4th Will said "I love you" for the first time and now here we are about to get married and about to move into our first house! So we bought the house back in April but the owners before us wanted to rent back until they found their house...this worked our great for us because now here we are getting the house ready to move and I don't have to work for the summer!! So while we waited and planned and waited for this month to finally arrive so we could officially feel like home owners Will and I came up with a three week renovation plan.  The plan went a little like this...

• Week 1: remove carpeting, pick out paint, install new light fixtures and recessed lighting throughout house
• Week 2: have painters prep and paint all walls, ceilings, and closets.  Also, remove current back splash in kitchen and replace with new tile back splash and put up crown molding in living/dinning room.
• Week 3: have new carpet put into basement and bedrooms, refinish hardwood floors on the second level and stain cherry, and install hardwood flooring on both stair cases and 3rd floor landing.
• Week 4: move in!

So far our week 1 plan is going to plan...the lights are currently being installed.  However, there is one major project that we failed to think of...landscaping!!! We didn't realize how much work needed to be done to the yard because there were many over grown shrubs.  Thankfully while I was on the way back from my bachelorette party Will got started on trimming down trees.  Then on Monday we when we had planned to remove all of the carpet we did a little and then spent the remainder of the day in the year.  We moved all of the plants that we didn't like to our back yard and then bought new plants for the front.  We also mulched Tuesday and now I have some great before and after pictures!! Enjoy!!

                                

Before and After...Good bye butterfly bush 

Before and After...ahhh so much more organized :)

Before and After...Love my new purple flowers!

I don't have a good before and after of the backyard but we moved some of the big shrubs that were in the front to the back to build a nice little wall to create a little privacy.  We are also working on leveling out the current patio.  More home updates to come soon and next week Will and I are also going to work on more wedding details.  We are going to talk with our officant to go over the ceremony in more detail. Also we are going to pick out the boys tuxedos. My Mom and I will also be going back up to Musket Ridge on Wednesday for an appetizer tasting and to pick out table cloths for the reception.  BUSY, BUSY, BUSY but loving every moment of this right now because I am going to miss all this planning once we are moved in and the wedding is over.  

PS. we have finally hit the 2 digits in our count down!! I think today is 95 days until the wedding.  So glad to not be in the 3 digit numbers any more :)

Ladies Weekend in Charlottesville

So the adventure for my Bachelorette party started at 10:30PM the night before the party.  I was packing, all excited and ready for Saturday to come.  I had clothing spread all over my bed and all of the sudden I heard wind outside and boom....out goes the power.  So I grabbed a flashlight to clear off my bed and call it a night so I could get up early to pack.  Usually when our power goes off in a storm it comes back around 1 or 2 in the morning.  However, when I woke up at 6AM Saturday morning  our power was out.  At my parents house, when the power goes out so does our well water.  Therefore, I couldn't take a shower.  So I text all the girls trying to find a place to shower but our phone lines were down and everyone was having cell phone difficulty.  Finally, my wonderful friend Jennifer got her fiance's phone to work and I ran to their house to shower quickly before we left on our adventure.  I packed up quickly and we were ready to hit the road at 10:30AM.  We drove down and when we got to our hotel about about 12:30PM they had no power so we through out bags on a cart, headed to get sandwiches, and begin our wine tasting!  First stop, Blenheim Vineyard, which is owned by Dave Matthews Band.  It was gorgeous and we had a nice little wine tasting over looking their barrel room below.

After Blenheim we went to Jefferson Vineyard and had another tasting.  Our wine pourer was actually a teacher that used to work at Lindsey's school when she was a teacher in Charlottesville.  It was a tone of fun!

After our two winery visits we headed back to the hotel room with our fingers crossed that the power was back on.  Thankfully it was so we checked in, got cleaned up, and then changed into our black dresses for dinner.  We ate at a wonderful restaurant called Bang! We each ordered a special martini then did a little sip a pass with all of our martini's so that we were able to get a little sample of all of the great martini's they had there.  After dinner we went back to the room for a fun little game to see how well I Will and I know each other.  Then we headed out for a night of dancing.  We went to a bar called Trinity.  The dance floor was empty when we got there so we had a huge dance floor and stage to our self but it quickly filled up and we had a great time dancing! On the way back to the hotel room we made a little pit stop at a pizza place and took it back to our room for a little late night snack.  In the morning we woke up to a table that explained it all... pizza, Oreos, Doritos, glow sticks from the dance party, and Gatorade. 

Our room was a mess, it looked a little like the room from the Hangover...minus the tiger.  We had a few fun laughs, cleaned up, and traveled back home after stop at the bagel shop.  We left Charlottesville with some great memories and a terrific time was had by all! On another exciting note the night of my bachelorette party Will got the keys from our town house renters and we now officially feel like home owners.  Ana drove us back to our new town house and Will and I got right to work on renovating our future home. 

Tomorrows blog post will be all about our next adventure...designing Will and I's first home!