We had our Housewarming this weekend and it was so much fun to show everyone around our new home. Since it was clean I took the opportunity to get some shots of the “finished” rooms. Of course, decorating is an iterative process but I finally feel as though most rooms in the house are at a good point.

Here is the living room before:

We pulled up the carpet, put down laminate, changed the fan/lighting, painted the walls and trim and redid the tile around the fireplace to match the Bianca Carrara marble in our kitchen and the tiles in the bathroom and laundry room. Bear and I loved this room in my Domino book and used the colors as inspiration:

And here is the living room now:

The coffee table, chairs, side tables and most decor pieces (candles, vases, books) were all thrifted or vintage. The sofa table is from World Market, the rug from West Elm as are some of the accessories on the tables and bookshelves and the loveseat is from Ikea. The bookshelves are the same from our old house as well as two more we bought off Craigslist and were just sanded/painted a neutral beige from their former black. The print above the fireplace is from Urban Outfitters.

Still trying to figure out what to do with this area….thoughts?

I still want to put canvas prints of the furbabies up on the staircase wall, put up some curtains and there will always be space for more knick-knacks in the future as well as more pillows for the loveseat, but for now it’s quickly become the center of our home. We’ve had many friends over and it’s perfect for late evenings spent chatting over cocktails.

Sandhya

Since I work with furbabies all day and get covered in everything by the end of the day, my uniform is basically old shorts and tank tops. Add the fact that for over a month the temperature here has been 100+ degrees and there’s really no motivation to get dressed up.

Yesterday, something miraculous happened. We watched movies. In the afternoon. Y’all, we haven’t done that all year! We finally got to a point where the house is pretty much done. Seriously. Furnished, decorated, the whole bit. There are a ton of medium to long-term projects but at this point, we would be OK with folks coming over. And we’ll be even more ready in a couple weeks when we have our Housewarming.

So we celebrated with drinks and movies and then went out for a dinner party at our friends’, so I finally got a chance to get dressed up….nothing too fancy. Perfect end to the weekend!

Top: Thrifted, $3  -  Jeans: AG, $100  -  Shoes: Kenneth Cole Outlet, $14  -  Watch: Citizen, $60  -  Bracelet: Le Tigre, $5  -  Necklace: Garage Sale, $2

My girls and I are headed to Miami this weekend! And since we spent the rest of this weekend eating cake balls (I promise we were taste testing for the reception) I’ve given up on dieting and have determined I shall just wear a cover-up over my swimsuit during my Bachelorette Party trip. Can’t wait and hopefully I’ll find some time later this week to show off some of the fun things I’ve decided I need for the weekend. Need I tell you.

Sandhya

Hi! Been uber busy with moving into our house (eek! OUR house!) and getting everything set up. I’m eager to have everything decorated and furnished so we can have a housewarming but I’m also trying to slow myself down with only necessities now so there’s still more to do later…and to enjoy the process. Thanks for all the great feedback on the before and afters…I’ll post more soon. Once there are no more moving boxes in the house.

But we’ve also been chugging away at the wedding planning and the big thing this month was getting out the Save the Date postcards. We used our pictures from the Engagement Shoot and put a fun twist on it. Love the way they came out…and Bear did a fabulous job on the website as well.

What do y’all think?

Sandhya

No, not together. That would be bad.

For Bear’s birthday, I surprised him (along with some good friends) with a day of brewery tastings!

He had a great time and was properly drunk by 3 pm. As it should be.

But we’re not done yet..that was just his present. For his celebration we’re having a fun birthday BBQ, complete with a vodka spiked watermelon and margarita machine! We’re joining forces with Andrea for her birthday…can’t wait!

In the meantime we have been charging ahead at the house. Both the garage there and at my parents’ place is stacked to the brim with new and old goodies. We’ve been thrifting and shopping and garage sale-ing for furniture and decor. We’ve also got all new fixtures and lights. The painting is now done! The carpet upstairs is now done! The tiles are now installed! The cabinets and countertops should be finished by tomorrow and the flooring should be done by next week before the appliances arrive. Then we start filling ‘er up…

I think I’ll do a huge before and after once it’s all decorated but for now here are some of the paint and flooring (and new fans!):

Master Bedroom and Bathroom –  walls are painted a yellow color that took us forever to choose and then the ceilings are the same color cut with white so they are lighter and make everything look bigger:

Guest Bedroom – love the soft green stripes:

Game Room – had to have that red somewhere in the house (it’s been an accent wall in every place I’ve lived after moving out):

Still have to post the painting job in the office and all the cabinets…as well as the floors. Will update again soon!

Sandhya

A couple years ago on a trip to Napa, I looked up and saw the Southwest sign and thought how cool it would be to one day take pictures at the airport with the heart and wings as a backdrop. Bear and I spent so much of the beginning of our relationship flying all over the U.S. to see each other because of work and it only seemed appropriate we honor the airline that carried us around. So my fabulous friend and wedding planner, Lush Occasions, set it up for us and with the help of Southwest and Cory Ryan, we got the photo shoot we wanted! Fun bonus: the suitcase is the same one my parents used on their honeymoon!

See more here!

I wrote to Southwest about our shoot to thank them and they tweeted about us today! Our fun 15 minutes of fame!

Sandhya

Picking the blue for our dining room was pretty frustrating. I wish I could have taken my new car (very pretty midnight blue) into Home Depot and had them color match it. But even then I’m sure it wouldn’t have been perfect because we did try color matching for a few things and boy was it off.

Before (no idea what Bear is doing and I have no other shots so this will have to do!):

Anywho, we did try a million and settled on Behr’s Daring Indigo…the grey was a color match from Valspar’s Blind Date. We are giving it a few days to darken as the guy said and may change it if it doesn’t because sometimes it seems a little too blue for me and not dark enough. We shall see but either way I do love the combination and it’s definitely the look I was going for.

What do you guys think?

We are going to cover the walls with all the vintage gold mirrors we collect (every one is under $10, it’s a rule) and replacing the chandelier. Started to buy some of the furniture and are picking out the flooring this weekend. Again, we can’t wait!

Sandhya

We got the house!! It’s only been about a week and a half since we closed but we have made some big changes already. It was a steal for sure because the owners live in another state and didn’t want to do any of the cosmetic changes. So they left dirty carpets, yucky paint, and tons of dings and wear/tear. So we’re pretty much changing everything.

I adore before and after pictures on all the design and DIY blogs so I”m definitely sharing the updates with you all.

We’ve gotten the gutter fixed and the fence up as well as the whole house powerwashed. They made a huge difference and while we have a ton of landscaping to do at the end, it looks way better already.

But the biggest thing we’ve done is started the painting. It’s amazing how much a fresh coat of paint really changes a room. Everything is brighter and cleaner and the house looks years younger already!

My favorite so far is the living room, which looked like this before:

We tested a BUNCH of colors (we have a huge bag filled with at least 30 paint sample containers in various colors now!) all over the house. Here were the color choices for the living room (there are four more on the sides you can’t even see because they are so light):

We finally decided on Celtic Gray by Behr which isn’t gray in the least. I wanted something warm but light with a hint of green and maybe even some robin’s egg blue. (Please ignore the debris):

At dusk:

SO happy with the way it turned out. Our living room feels bigger and brighter…can’t wait to furnish and decorate!

Sandhya