A Nugget and a Doodle

So you guys have surely noticed the surly, jaded tone of all my posts lately.  I am fairly confident the root cause of that tone goes back to our landscaping issues that are still not resolved.  I wanted to give you all the WHOLE story from the beginning because it's more bizarre than science fiction. Just to refresh your memory, here's the list of mistakes/problems prior to this latest round of emails, though it's been such a long road I'm sure I'm forgetting a few line items. * We showed up very prepared for our very first meeting with the landscape designer.  In typical fashion, I obnoxiously provided him with a powerpoint deck of our likes/dislikes and do's/do-not's in the design he was to put together.  I was nervous to bring all that info to the meeting because not everyone is capable working with OCD control freaks, but he made us feel like it was not only helpful, but gave him confidence that he had everything he needed to give us our dream lands...

I'm in such a mood, so if you don't want to read a bunch of whining about one letdown after another resulting from the setting of mediocre expectations, not even high expectations, then just click on the little 'X' in the upper right corner of your browser.  I realize we have so much to be grateful for, and we are.  I promise we are.  But on a daily basis I feel like I'm being swallowed by the incompetence all around me.  You tell me blogger friends, you can be honest with me!  Is it just me? In honor of Jimmy Fallon's late night "thank you notes" in which he writes snarky thank you notes to random people, places, and sometimes inanimate objects or abstract concepts... Thank you WALMART I'll get the embarrassing one over with first.  I'm a big fan of teeny bopper cult book series.  There, it's out!  I just recently let go of my Edward Cullen pillow case when we got all new bedding in the new house.  You with me?  So, it's no surpr...

...and that amounts to about 2,400 strips of sod we laid this weekend.  SUCH.  HARD.  WORK!!! It's also very rewarding, and it makes me happy beyond words to see the kids running and playing on grass instead of packed dirt (that then comes into the house!)  Our yard was embarrassing - we felt like the rif raf in our community!  We haven't met everyone in the neighborhood yet, so we refer to each house by a nickname or a reference point and I'm afraid to think of what others might nickname our house based on the yard! We've had major drama and disappointment (after disappointment after disappointment) ongoing with the landscape company our builder usually works with.  They win the award for the most stupid mistakes in the entire project.  And I mean STUPID!!!  Our crape myrtle were replaced 3 times because they planted the wrong type of tree, and then came back and replanted more of the same wrong trees, and then came back to replant a third ti...

You've seen almost the whole house now - I'm holding out on the living room and pictures of the whole open space altogether until our furniture arrives.  Sorry!  And we haven't decorated the game room, so someday I will take pictures in there when it's photo-ready.  :)  I haven't yet been inspired, though I really should hang at least some semi-sheers to keep Gus from "greeting" our neighbor and all his visitors! Until then I thought I'd post some of the small things keeping me busy at night. UNPACKING I know this isn't exciting visually for you, but I unpacked the last of our kitchen boxes, which a) gets them out of our back hallway so we can let the light shine in and use that door again!!!  and b) I found an awesome place of honor in my kitchen for all my nana's old cake pans - they have an entire double door lower cabinet, and I have a large drawer for all my cake decorating paraphernalia like coloring gels, fondant tools, frosting ba...

This dining room is truly a room of face lifts.  It started with my very first new-house project last summer when I stripped and refinished mom and dad's dining room table that was formerly a golden oak color.  Then I refinished a craigslist steal on Drexel Heritage chairs, then a giant buffet also from craigslist. As a reminder here are those before and after shots:

I'm going to keep this post brief because I think many of you are not caught up on all the latest posts.  :)  But we worked really hard this weekend and wanted to share everything we got done outside! Saturday was all about mom and dad's exterior.  We added matching board and batten shutters like the front of our house has, and that alone took their front elevation from a McDonalds drive-through window to a cozy cottage just oozing with charm.  Doesn't it look like it should have a fire crackling inside?  :)  We also painted the front door to match the corbels and the gray exterior stain on our house.  The color is Gibraltar Gray by PPG if anyone cares. BEFORE: AFTER: Amazing transformation, right?  Spoiler, Sunday we landscaped the back as well, which you can see here.  :)  Also, the shutters are going to be stained the same french aqua as ours once the cedar dries out a bit more.  I can't wait to see them all finish...

So the kitchen probably doesn't look ALL that different from when we moved in, but there's STUFF in the drawers and cabinets.  :)  Trust me!  I have nighttime and daytime photos, and neither of them are really capturing how the kitchen feels.  I think I should have waited until later in the afternoon for the daytime photos because there's just too much light at the window in these, but I did the best I could to share the real deal.  Speaking of, I was super tempted to take the kids' booster seats off the gorgeous counter stools for the sake of pictures, but decided to keep it real.  We do live here afterall, and the blog is kind of named after them!  That said, I confess I hid the sponge under the sink.  I should also mention, the island will only look this immaculate when I'm taking pictures.  It's the same deal as our last house where you walk in and that island is a magnet for random stuff that either doesn't have a home yet or just collec...