Friday, December 13, 2013

Hello, friends!

Thanks for sticking with me through my dwindling number of posts lately.  Sometimes life (and work) just get in the way of blogging, as I'm sure you all know!

If you love me enough to follow me on Instagram, you've probably seen most of these photos already. But for those of you that haven't, here's what I've been up to.  (Because obviously it hasn't been blogging!)

We celebrated Thanksgiving at my brother's house like usual, and my assigned item to bring was "fruit tray".  (I don't think my fam trusts my awesome average cooking abilities!)  

I decided to take it one step further and do a Pinterest-inspired turkey fruit platter.  It was a hit!


Having four days off for Thanksgiving was AMAZING!  It seemed like we got so much done around the house, starting with putting up our tree!

Cutest lil' helper ever!

We also made a few improvements to our bedroom, starting with finishing our nightstand makeover.  Last month we bought two of these nightstands from Craigslist.  The seller was asking for $30 each but I talked her down to $50 for both.  A steal of a deal!  


And let me tell you, these things were solid wood.  Not like the Ikea furniture I'm used to.  They were probably 100 lbs each, no joke!

Tony and I wanted to paint them a bright, fun color since our bedroom is pretty monotone (lots of gray).  We liked the idea of yellow or a bright orangey-red, and decided to go with "Fiery Red" by Behr.  I also ordered some vintage drawer pulls from Etsy.  Fun Fact: This style is called a "Chippendale" drawer pull.  Learn something new every day!

Here's an inspiration pic I found online, next to one of our completed nightstands.  I didn't paint the drawer pull black, but I still want to at some point.  I love how it turned out!


And here's how they look in our room!  I want to tie in the red by adding more pillows or maybe a fun lampshade.  And we still need curtains.  And a ceiling light.  And a million other things.  Baby steps...

Don't mind the messy comforter...Chloe likes to jump on our bed.

Notice anything else new??  10 points if you guessed the headboard!  After we brought the nightstands into the room, we noticed how much taller they are than our platform bed.  We knew adding a tall headboard would help with that, and it just so happened that Tony had some wood laying around in the garage that he bought for a project and never used.  Score!  And they just happened to perfectly match the wood on the base of the bed, so it all came together pretty well.

There was even enough wood left over to make two matching shelves.  The brackets are from (where else?) Home Depot.


Here's how they look in the room.  Now how to decorate them?  That is the question.


 I love that we don't have a completely blank wall above our bed anymore, but I still want to add something else.  I'm super obsessed with dream catchers right now, so I'm hoping to get Tony on board with something like these:

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I don't know though, are our walls too dark?  I love the dreamy, ethereal quality of the dream catchers against the super light walls in these photos.  What do you think?

Xo,
Rachael







Tuesday, November 5, 2013

October Recap

I did so much this month, but just realized I haven't blogged about any of it!  So if you happen to have even the slightest desire to know what I've been up to during the spookiest month of the year, read on!

The month started out with a trip to Portland with my sister and parents for my cousin Ryan's wedding, which was amazing!  I wish we could have stayed in Portland longer, but it was a quick trip.

My lil' sis and me!

The lucky groom!

The next weekend, Tony and I headed to Leavenworth with some good friends for Oktoberfest!  Leavenworth is the cutest little Bavarian town in WA, and we rented a cabin for the weekend.  Oktoberfest was fun, and the beer was flowing!

 I don't know why Tony was being a creeper in the background!


One of the highlights of the trip was Tony's now-infamous cat hoody.  For some reason he didn't bring a jacket to Oktoberfest and it was really chilly.  While we were walking around Leavenworth, he spotted this beauty hanging in one of the gift shops.  We were all several beers deep at this point and thought it was a great purchase.  What we didn't expect was that this hoody would be such a chick magnet!  I'm not even joking.  Girl after girl kept coming up to him for the rest of the day, telling him they loved his hoody, or that they wanted to get a photo with him.  I think it will forever remain a staple in his wardrobe.

The next weekend, my family celebrated my Mom's birthday by all meeting up at a pumpkin patch.  The place was huge and had a giant corn maze.

On a hay ride!


Picking the perfect pumpkin!

The following weekend, my friend Natasha came over from Spokane to see our new house.  I used to live with Natasha and hadn't seen her for almost a year, so it was so fun to have some drinks and catch up!  We decided to check out the dive bar down the street from my house, which was having a costume contest.  We found the Eskimo costume at Goodwill, and I dug the jersey and gloves out of my cheerleading bag from highschool.  Sadly, we did not win the contest.


Which brings us to Halloween!  Chloe was a vampire this year, and it was fun to trick or treat in our new neighborhood.  There are sooo  many kids from Chloe's school that live nearby, and I'm so happy we picked this neighborhood to buy a house!



So, there's my October in a nutshell!  Hope yours was equally exciting!

xo,
Rachael



Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Our $10 Dresser

About a month ago, Tony and I found this midcentury-modern dresser at a neighbor's moving sale for $10.  I didn't think much of it at first, but Tony loves that style of furniture, and it was such a steal! We couldn't resist.  


Per usual, I turned to google for inspiration on what to do with it, and I found this picture.  Love!!


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We have loads of white paint leftover from other projects, so all we had to buy was some primer and some dark stain for the drawers and legs.  There were also a few spots where Tony had to use wood putty and do some heavy sanding.

I love how it turned out, but once we brought it into the house and out of the dimly-lit garage, it was obvious that the drawers still need more sanding and stain.  They're not quite dark enough for my taste!


But let's be honest... it will probably stay just like this!

The dresser lives in what we call the "guitar room" right now, which was actually intended as the formal dining room.  I'd love to put a rug underneath it at some point, just to add some contrast between the legs and the floor.  Maybe some faux fur?  And we're still deciding what to put on top of it.

I'm thinking maybe a vintage globe?

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 Some faux antlers?

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We also plan to do a gallery of frames covering most of the wall above the dresser.

How would you decorate this dresser?

P.S. Tony thinks it's a great idea to place this giant, creepy head on top of the dresser!


I said absolutely not!  He thinks it's funny to place this hideous thing all over our house.  First it was in our kitchen, then it was in our master bathroom, and now he thinks it's going to reside on the dresser, front and center.  And clearly from this photo, Chloe loves Mr. Head so I'm starting to worry that I'm outnumbered!

A little back-story on Mr. Head:  Tony found it years ago at some estate sale.  Apparently a high-school student made it in art class, and it's supposed to be a character from the 1970's tv show "Kung Fu".  *sigh*  If only Tony had never gone to that estate sale that day....

xo,
Rachael

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

This Weekend, I...

My weekend started out bright and early on Saturday morning with a 9am football game that Chloe cheered for.  She beckoned me down from the stands during one of their breaks to request a licorice rope during halftime.

That kid always has sugar on the brain!


Later on that day, I headed over to my sister Heather's house, where I got ready for our Girls' Night!! For the last few weeks, we've been planning a night out with our older sister, Jen, our nephew's mom, Alysse, and our sister-in-law's sister, Des...Are you confused yet?  It's ok, you don't really need to know all that.  You just need to know that we had an amazing time!

Heather and me, after managing to get ready in between cleaning up pit bull puppy pee & poo.

We started out with some grub at The Wilde Rover in Kirkland, a really fun Irish pub.  I had the best potato soup ever!  I've been dreaming about it every since.


From there we walked around town and checked out a few different bars.  I really haven't spent much time in downtown Kirkland since I was a lot younger, but for the most part, nothing had changed!  Except for the feeling of being older than most of the people there.  (Let's all take a moment to mourn the loss of my 20's, shall we? *sob*)


When I came home the next morning, I found Chloe bundled up in footsy pajamas, socks, and even a stocking cap, claiming she was chilly.

But not too chilly for a photo shoot!  It's obvious she's the next Gisele.



Link up with Sarah and tell me about your weekend!

xo,
Rachael


Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Fair Day!

Yesterday was such an amazing day at our state fair!  Chloe's cheer group was scheduled to perform at the fair during the evening, so Tony had the brilliant idea for us to both take the day off work, pull Chloe out of school at noon, and spend all day at the fair before it was cheer time.

The weather was supposed to be in the low 60's with showers, but it turned out to be a gorgeous day!  


I love this picture of Tony and Chloe on the Scrambler (my favorite ride as a kid!) because the ride actually wasn't moving anymore! Since I couldn't get a good shot while it was still in motion, Chloe re-enacted her excitement for me.  Gotta love faux action shots!


We rode a ton of rides, and once we were sufficiently dizzy, we took a break to check out the animals.  Being a vegetarian, I always feel a little sad seeing all the animals caged up at the fair, but they are just so stinkin' cute, I love looking at them!

Especially this guy!  Trust me, you need sound for this one.


The alpacas were super cute too.  Check out his teeth!


My favorite were these bunnies, especially the super fluffy one!  I wanted to take him home with me.



Just hangin' out with Mother Goose!


Next we got Chloe all ready for her performance.  She is so cute in her outfit!!  I love it.



I highly recommend taking the day off work when your fair comes to town!  It's so much better then fighting with the crowds on the weekends.  Oh, and I also recommend that you consume as much cotton candy as humanly possible!

xo,
Rachael


Friday, September 6, 2013

Green House

I'm back!!

Well, sort of.  I have a super quick before & after shot to show you today...basically as proof that I'm still alive and DIYing!

We painted our house!


And I can happily report that thanks to this project, I have overcome my fear of ladders (sort of) and spiders (kind of)...but not bees.  And there were plenty of all three.

We totally could not have accomplished this feat without Tony's mom and step-dad, who not only footed the bill for all of the paint (they love us!!), but also put in long hours helping to get the job done.

It feels so good to no longer be living in a salmon-pink house!

Tony was set on have a green house, so I let him choose the color.  My first choices would have been dark gray or some shade of blue, but since I picked almost every interior color, I gave him free reign of the exterior.  (Fair is fair, right?) We brought home three samples from Home Depot and painted swatches on the side of the house, and both decided that Behr's "Ivy Topiary" in satin was the winner.  For the trim we used Behr's "Polar Bear" in semi-gloss which has just the teensiest hint of cream, so it's not blinding, in-your-face white. We also wanted it to match the garage door so we wouldn't have to repaint it.

We plan to paint the front doors a glossy black color, sort of like this:

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I have so much more to share with you, but I'm out of time for today.  I really hate the feeling of being so behind on my blogging, and especially my blog reading!

Seriously, 96 unread posts on Bloglovin??  Not okay.


Please tell me I'm not the only one who gets this behind in Blogland??

I plan hope to write some more posts next week, but I'm a procrastinator by nature so I make no promises. Although I do have some pictures from an ocean camping trip with Tony & Chloe, some updates to Chloe's room, and an awesome dresser we found at a yard sale and have some fun plans for.  Stay tuned!!

Happy Friday!

xo,
Rachael


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Birch Bay

My family and I spent the weekend at Birch Bay, which is about 2 and half hours north of my house.  We rented three separate cabins, and spent the weekend visiting the waterslides, playing in the bay, riding go-karts, playing mini golf, playing games at the cabins, cooking way too much food, and just enjoying each other's company.  The weather was perfect!

Here's my instagram recap:




Hope you had a lovely weekend in the sunshine!


Monday, July 29, 2013

Chloe's Party!

Chloe's 7th birthday party was yesterday afternoon, and she had so much fun!  Everything went smoothly, which was great considering the fact that I was still rushing around trying to finish my hair and makeup when guests started arriving.  I was so busy during the party that I totally spaced and didn't take any pictures of the guests, which included most of Tony's extended family, my immediate family, and a few friends, so about 30 people total.  Even though it may have been a little crowded, I'm just happy to finally have a house big enough to hold more than 5 people at a time!


Here are a few more pics of the dessert table and decorations.


We also had a bean bag toss, which was just a piece of medium density fiberboard from Home Depot that Tony cut a hole into with his saw.  It was a hit with the kids!


Chloe really wanted limbo at her party too!


And of course we had a pinata!  I made the pinata using this tutorial, and it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  (Don't mind our sad looking lawn...the grass is growing, slowly but surely!)


Happy Birthday, Chloe!