Update

I have been a terrible blogger... what's new. John and I are in the home stretch!!! We officially have one more till we're DONE with our second year of dental school. Can I get a hallelujah!! This year has been tough to say the least. We're pretty much living one exam to the next... we cram... we take an exam... we recuperate (if we have time)... then we cram some more... take another exam... and so on and so forth. It has felt like a never ending cycle. We haven't had a ton of time for friends, family or much fun. I know, I know... cue the violins. I sound super whinny, I really don't mean to. I honestly wouldn't be giving an accurate description of our lives right now if I didn't mention how swamped we've been with classes, labs, exams, practicals, clinic etc. BUT despite how down-in-the-dumps I sound, we're really not down-in-the-dumps at all. Just pretty darn serious and in "get 'er done" mode. We have both been needing more alone time than we normally need... time to just veg out and unwind. Lucky for our house! Seriously, we both tend to gravitate towards house projects when we really need to relieve some stress so we've actually been doing some good stuff to the house. So like I said, lucky for our house!

John has been spending a lot of time in the garage working on a new workbench that he's building and I have been... give ya one guess... yep, painting. We repainted the front room and I'm now working on painting the trim and doors throughout the house. It has made such a HUGE difference. I didn't realize our trim was actually more of a brownish-yellow before, gross lol. But now it's become a clean and glossy bright white! It really looks great. It looks great on Maylene's booty too. She sat one some wet paint and is now sporting a white speckled rump. Haha, I should write a post tittled "You know you're a DIYer when..." and lead off with "Your chocolate lab is currently coated in Behr Premium Plus Interior Hi-Gloss Enamel Paint" lol.

Oh yeah, and then there's this little thing called a wedding... we've been working on that too. Actually it's all starting to really come together and I'm getting more and more excited! Here, I'll list all the stuff we have figured out so far (it'll make me feel like I've accomplished a lot): ceremony location, reception venue, food, drinks, my dress, band, flowers, photography, bridesmaids dresses and shoes, honeymoon, my veil, makeup for the girls, invitations, a photo booth, rehearsal dinner, registry. We still need to get rings and figure out the cake and the guys tuxes. And after that it'll pretty much be down to the little details like where I'm going to get my nails done and what kind of flower am I going to put in my hair. I'll have a lot more wedding dedicated posts as we get closer to it.

And just because I personally can't stand posts without pictures... Here's a picture that my cousin took at our family reunion at Fripp Island last summer. He found this little toy octopus on the beach. I think he's an artist/photographer in the making!

Out With the Old

So a little bit ago I posted some before and after pictures of our living room and den... well the "after" pics of the den are already out of date and are the new "before" pics. We took out the old giant rug that had been christened by our dogs more times than I'm willing to think about, cleaned up the floors, and put in a new rug. It's amazing what a huge difference it made! So here's the new before and after...

Before

After

Tufting Out a Headboard

John and I both like to read before bed but without a headboard to lean against we were always ending up in a pillow battle... whoever took longer brushing their teeth would usually hop in bed only to find that their pillow had been confiscated by the other and used for extra "head propping". So my fiance built a beautiful headboard covered in chocolate brown microsuede fabric and gave it to me for Christmas (he now has more upholstering experience than I do). It's nice and tall and super comfortable to lean against. We decided that tufting it would make the wonderful addition to our room even better... so guess how we spent last Tuesday night? Tufting. When some friends called that night to see what we were up to there was a slight misunderstanding when I said we were "tufting our headboard"... apparently tufting and testing sound a lot a like over the phone, heh heh. Anywho... here are a few pictures and tips in case anyone else out there is tired of stacking pillows against a bare wall just to get their bookworm lean on.

First we bought 10 "Half Ball Cover Buttons" and covered them with leftover fabric (the same fabric that the headboard was covered with). That part was fairly simple... cut the fabric into circles, wrap it around the smooth top portion of the button, and snap on the back of the button. We then threaded wire trough a little hook on the back of the buttons; the wire goes through a hole in the headboard and is then wrapped tightly around a screw just underneath the hole. This holds the button down nice and tight and makes a little tuft. We then took some measurements, decided where we wanted the buttons to be, and marked spots all along the back of the headboard. John then drilled holes where the spots were (from the back of the headboard straight through to the front). Just be sure to hold the fabric tight and drill slowly as you poke through the fabric.The only problem we really encountered was getting the wire to go all the way from one side to the other without getting caught up in all the padding. It kept bending before it made it all the way through to the other side. This step probably would have been easier if we had drilled bigger holes (note to self). BUT we rigged a little tunnel system that helped guide the wire. We tried a regular straw but that we too big so we used a straw from a juice box which just barely fit. It was much easier to thread the juice box straw from one hole to the other than it was the wire... so all we had to do was place the straw and then fish the wire through it. (can you see it in these pictures?)

We repeated the juice-box-straw-threading-wire-technique 10 times and voila!!We have a comfy cozy spot to read before we hit the hay.

House Updates

Since we moved in together back in June we've done lots of home improvement projects... some that were done start to finish in a day or so and others that have been worked on bit by bit for months. But as dedicated as I am to fixing up our house I'm not so great at taking pictures of everything. So tonight I went around and snapped pictures of 2 big room makeovers; our living room and our den. Lets start with the living room (or what we called at the time the Blue Room) before pics....

(yep, that's a microwave and a toaster oven... on TV trays... yikes)

And... drum roll please.... after!

The pictures on the wall were inspired by a YHL post on making art out of just about anything. I took some picture frames that were collecting dust in our catch-all room... I mean our office... and stuck in some pictures from a vintage alcohol advertising 2009 calendar.


I was so excited to fill up a blank wall without spending one penny! The 2 big additions to the room were gifts from our parents. The awesome love seat was given to us from John's dad. Thanks Keith! And this gorgeous wine cabinet was a gift from Santa (my mom and dad).




Thank you thank you! Moving on to the den... I didn't have any great before pictures but you can kinda get an idea in this picture that we took back in December. Our dogs had a big surprise for us when we came home from school one afternoon. They had gotten into a box of old family ornaments and crunched them up into tiny bits allllll over our house (the den was the may scene of the crime though). As if chomping on glass wasn't bad enough, they also (I'm assuming) spent an entire day walking back and forth across the glass bits. I was ready to roll up the carpet and hall it to the dump but John talked me into attempting to clean up the mess. To our amazement there was only one teeny tiny drop of blood on the kitchen floor. Our dogs are like cockroaches, indestructible and incredibly resilient. So here are the befores...


And here are the (very recent!) afters!...

I'm thrilled with how everything turned out... er, I mean how everything is coming along. These rooms will probably never officially be "done". We'll always keep making improvements and changing things around. It's just in our nature I guess... always looking for the next project. Now that we've gotten a pretty good handle on the front portion of the house it's time to make our way down the hall! Our bedroom, the office and the guest bedroom haven't been touched yet. Stay tuned!

A fence, a hallway, a wedding, and some dentures.

Just wanted to write a quick update on all the goings ons in our school/wedding/DIY/dog-filled lives. A great big, giant, HUGE thing happened today... John and his dad finished our fence!!! Blood, sweat, and tears (literally) have gone into this fence project and I can't even describe how happy I am to have it done! You see, we have a very spirited (and athletic) golden retriever that has an incredible knack for busting out of our yard and venturing into the street, neighbors yard, etc... We know he wouldn't hurt a flee but we also understand that our neighbors shouldn't have to put up with a random dog peeing on their crate mertyl or tagging along on their evening walk. It has led to months of frustration and battles since we can't exactly keep Agent locked up in our house all day but we also can't spend tons of time with him outside (our school schedule alone keeps us away from home the majority of the day). Having a 6-foot tall privacy fence should finally do the trick as long as he doesn't learn to dig his way out.... if that starts happening you can plan on seeing a "Dog For Sale" post (John- I'm only kidding). So next step is to install a doggie-door and let Maylene and Agent self-regulate their outside play time. I'm A-OK with this more hands off approach! We've also spent the last week fixing up our hallway by ripping up the carpet, re-painting it with the Coconut Milk color that is in the bathroom, and hanging new pictures. The pictures are of a hawk that John photographed while we were on a white water rafting trip in West Virginia last May. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out although, according to my fiance, we now have a "lack of color" issue. The hallway was street-line-yellow before soooo.... yeah. If it were up to me I'd probably have browns, tans and creams on every wall so I'm glad that John forces me out of my comfort zone and pushes my creativity buttons. Maybe we'll pick a bold runner or something (although, again, I would probably rather pick a natural jute material). As far as wedding updates go... we have picked the ceremony and reception locations and are in the process of picking out a photographer and finalizing the wedding party. The ceremony is going to be at Trinity United Methodist Church. This is the church that John's family goes to and is the same one that his sister Keri was married in. Our reception will then be at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens (only about a 10 min. drive from the church). I was sick with swine flu a few weeks ago so while I was stuck on the couch I started our wedding website... www.mywedding.com/boylandreynolds it's not finished by any means, but it's a start. This week is the beginning of our finals. We have a fixed prosthodontics exam and a cariology exam Monday and then an occlusion lab exam on Tuesday (making a bite guard) and a removable prosthodontics lab exam on Wednesday (finishing up our dentures). I had NO idea what all went into making dentures... let me tell you, it is not an easy process!! So please people, I beg and plead... for your sake and mine... brush and floss your teeth so that I don't ever have to make a full set of dentures for you! It involves hours and hours of work for me and the lab technicians and about a dozen appointments for you! I promise you it's much easier to just brush your teeth twice a day... or even once a day is probably enough to keep those suckers in there.

Finally, Finally!

I'm finally posting pictures of our bathroom (the entire reason this whole blog thing started... googled "small, old, black and white bathrooms... ended up on younghouselove.com ... decided to start my own blog, yadda yadda). So here we are... before, during, and after.

We're very happy with how it turned out! Now maybe someday I'll get around to posting all the other projects we've done... installed a new storm door, finished the kitchen, re-did the living room, installed half a fence etc. So a bit of news... looks like my blog will no longer be just a "home improvement" blog, it's also becoming a wedding blog! Yep, John and I got engaged at the beginning of October. Can't quite describe how excited I am (and I think he is too) :-)

Recent Projects

June has been a busy month for us so far! Between finishing pathology (aka learning more about cancer and the negative effects of smoking than I ever wanted to), a family reunion (aka 16 hours in the car, it was well worth it though), and moving in together (aka trying to smush all our stuff together) I've gotten way behind on posting pictures. So here are a few before and afters (and some in betweens).

We built a little fence to go around one of our veggie gardens... first step was to pull nails out of all this old wood that we used. Then we had to cut the wood into small boards.

Can you believe John just sat back and made me do all the work!?! ;-) Kidding... he was busy teaching me how to use the tools, doing most of the cutting, and taking these oh-so-lovely pictures of me.

There he is.

And the finished product!

Next project was ripping up the carpet in the front/living room/blue room... it has many names.

Never did get a great "after" picture of the carpet ripping project. But we'll be doing more stuff in that room so just stay tuned.

Whew! This post put up a fight! I'm still getting the hang of blogger.com. Some post go smoother than others. I think I'll quit while I'm ahead and get back to unpacking/cleaning/organizing etc.

Finally Had Time To Post Something

John and I had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We left after class on Friday and went straight to West Point where his family has a house on the Mattaponi River. The weekend was filled with boating, meeting new people, laughing at Kyle's (John's baby nephew) nonstop cuteness, a few river house projects, and time to just veg out. Sadly Tuesday was spent studying for a pathology exam which we then took this morning. Lets just say I'm less than thrilled with my results but c'est la vie. I tried my best. My less than stellar exam was then followed up with an afternoon in the clinic practicing administering local anesthesia on each other. Gave two shots, got two shots in return. My nose and lip felt all tingly and fat for about an hour... not something I'm in a hurry to experience again. Needless to say I was in much need of some retail therapy by the end of the day so I took myself shopping. Between gift cards and some awesome discounts I managed to only spend about $23 and here is what I got........... 12 cloth napkins, 4 napkin rings, 1 little spice jar, 1 larger spice jar, a grill basket, 4 glass storage bowls, a tea pot (finally!), 2 decorative cups/candle holders (super excited about these for a very specific reason), a garden tool, and 2 flower pots. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself ;-) So why the excitement over the cups? Well if you're even half as obsessed with This Young House as I am you should be very familiar with these specific 2 cups/glasses/candle holders (still not sure what they are) that seem to pop up all over their house! I swear you can spot these two little cups in almost every other picture taken in their house (whether featured in a magazine or posted on their blog). You could seriously play "Where's Waldo" with those cups on their website. Apparently they give a room/shelf/table etc. that just-a-little-too-lovely-for-real-life-but-perfect-for-a-magazine vibe. You know the vibe I'm talking about. I told myself if I ever found decorative pieces even close to those cups I would buy them right then and there, no questions asked. Lo and behold as I'm browsing the shelves at TJ Maxx I look down and see two little cups staring up at me. So I made my purchase..... no questions asked. Just to take it a step further (probably too far) I'm going to give you a taste of what I'm talking about (mom you already know).

The next 3 pictures are various spots in their house where the cups showed up:
And here are my cups:

Does it look like it's out of a magazine?? Does it? Does it? Okay... so not really. But I'm telling you these little cups will fulfill their picture-perfect destiny someday.

**pictures taken from the This Young House website** (not sure if that's necessary but better safe then sorry right?)