Half Bathroom Makeover

As I mentioned in a post a few months back, we were making over our half bathroom.  I have always wanted to dabble in home improvement projects, and this room happened to be the perfect size to repaint, construct, and makeover however I wanted.  Luckily, the husband was on board too.

Below is the before picture.  Or at least this was what the bathroom looked like when we bought the house from the previous owner.  The changes we made were all cosmetic, we didn't change any of the fixtures because they were pretty much up to date as they were, I just wanted to make it my own.

We kept the same color scheme-- I actually picked out a new wall color at the store and came home to find out that it was almost the exact same color as what was on the walls before.

Minus the color, we added beadboard features which has made the most dramatic impact on the small restroom.  Amazingly, this beadboard is actually Martha Stewart wallpaper sold online at Home Depot.  It was so easy and stress free to install.  The only issues I ran across were finding wallpaper paste (since wallpaper is a thing of the past) and trying to apply the wallpaper around the toliet and sink.

Once I applied the beadboard, my husband sealed the look with the chair railing and then renailed the baseboards. 

I added some decorative touches to the space including a lot of finds from Homegoods including two shelves that complimented the style perfectly.  I also created a few DIY projects for this bathroon including this "S" from JoAnn's and artwork that I made inspired by this pinterest artwork.  To finish the look, my sweet Mother-in-law stitched this awesome tissue box holder to go with the theme of the bathroom.

Lastly, I found this perfect wax warmer that was small enough to fit on the shelf.  It brigtens up the small bathroom with a little bit of light and a lot of amazing smell.

This half bathroom makeover was demanding at times, but I love the way it turned out!  Now on to my next house project...

Colorado, Here I Come!

Today I booked my upcoming trip to Colorado in March.  I was approached by my manager at work about an opportunity to travel to our other corporate office in Colorado Springs, CO.  I have been to Colorado twice before this, once to Denver with the hubby and also to Colorado Springs for work.  Colorado is such a great state to explore and I am looking forward to experiencing all of the great things Colorado and especially the Springs have to offer!


The view on my way to work in Colorado Springs

Below are three things I am looking forward to most on my trip:

Yoga
In the last two months I have started my yogi journey and lately, I have been obsessed with the way it makes my body feel and how the breathing and meditation relaxes me from the stresses of my day.  Since I have a gym membership to my work gym here, I will be able to take classes at the gym in Colorado Springs as well!  I can't wait to try their classes to see if they are similar to our classes here.  Also, it will help me focus on my healthy lifestyle and continue my routine even though I will be five states away!

Food
The food in Colorado is always amazing - especially for a vegetarian like myself! Every Colorado restaurant I have been to in the past, had some form of vegetarian or vegan option which is really great for me.  Also, they have one of my all time favorite restaurants there (which we do not have in Cleveland), Noodles & Company.  I will have to make an effort to stop by a few times just to get my fix.

Exploration
Even though I've already been to Colorado Springs, I have not been close enough to the mountains and beautiful natural landscapes that make it a great place to visit.  This time around, I want to make sure I do some sightseeing specifically, the Garden of the Gods.  Since I travel for work, I usually don't have the chance to explore much during the day, but I want to make sure on one of my travel days, I get a chance to see it!  Also, the weather in Colorado has been crazy this winter! They have seen temperatures upwards of 50 to 60 degrees whereas it is currently 1 degree here in Cleveland.  Here's to hoping that good weather sticks around until March!

The view of Pike's Peak from the office

All You Need is Love {DIY Valentine's Day Wreath}

Tis the season for love in the air this week and what better way to commemorate the holiday then with a Valentine's Day craft!  A few weeks ago, I made a Valentine's Day Wreath and have outlined the steps below.  I came across so many great ideas on Pinterest and to tell you the truth I didn't decide what to do until I came home with a bag full of supplies and started putting it together.

Supplies:

-Styrofoam wreath
-Screwdriver with a small point
-Multiple pieces of felt in light pink and hot pink
-Chalkboard
-White paint pen

I started with the felt and cut 1 inch squares into round circles.  This was the most tedious task of all and I had to make multiple trips to the craft store since I underestimated how many pieces of felt I would need. This task is ideal if you have something else to do to pass the time.  Danny and I were in the midst of a Friends Marathon which was convenient.

Next, I took the screwdriver and placed it in the middle of a felt circle and twisted it into the Styrofoam wreath.  Depending on the kind of look you want, you can twist it as deep or shallow into the wreath to achieve your desired look.  The nice thing about this project is if you mess up the felt circles, you can always take it out and redo it!  I continued these steps to make sure to cover both the inside and outside of the wreath.

To make the chalkboard, I used the lyrics from a popular Beatles song.  My husband is a huge Beatles fan and I thought it would be a cute touch to include those lyrics in my project.  I looked up a variety of designs especially for the LOVE drawing and came across this awesome chalkboard art tutorial that I used for inspiration.  The rest of the artwork is free handed and isn't perfect, but it's not supposed to be!

After outlining in pencil, I traced it using a white paint pen.  You can use actual chalk like in the tutorial above, but I wanted it to be permanent, so I could use it year after year and it wouldn't smudge.

Happy Valentine's Day week and spend some time with someone you love this weekend!

I'm on a Boat: Our Cruise

After looking at my 30 before 30 list, I realize that 1) I am getting closer to 30 with each day (where does the time go?) and 2) I need to update this blog on our adventures.

In September, Danny and I embarked on our first cruise together! I had been on a cruise a few years earlier with my mom, but Danny had always wanted to go on a cruise and I really wanted to take him on one since I had so much fun on my first one.

We had a lot of stories and some really great times, but its been months now and I won't be able to hash out every detail, so I wanted to share our fondest memories in a top 5 list of the most memorable things on our cruise.  Oh and we also went back to Jamaica! Long (and boring) story later, we both weren't feeling well the day we sailed into Jamaica and we barely left the room until later that night once we had started to feel better.  I still think Jamaica hates us since almost the exact thing happened to us on our honeymoon.  But regardless, I'm crossing it off my list!

Now onto our top five most memorable things:

5. Food/Drink

The food was nothing short of amazing on our cruise! I found a few places on the ship that were not veggie friendly, like AT ALL, but for the most part, especially in the dining room, there were a ton of options for me.  Not only was the food delicious, but the drinks were too! We decided to get the unlimited beer and wine alcohol package which means me and Mike (Mike's hard lemonade that is) hung out a lot on the boat.

We had breakfast delivered to our room every morning and we enjoyed it on our balcony!

Sushi night!

Milkshakes at Johnny Rockets

Giovanni's table, Italian cuisine

The Cupcake Cupboard for dessert

4. The Boat

We traveled on the Allure of the Seas which is the biggest cruise boat ever to be built and it is quite a sight.  I was glad to show Danny everything that I experienced on my previous cruise since the ship that I sailed on was the Allure's sister ship and they are almost exactly alike.  Even though I had been on a boat just like this one, Danny caught on better than I did when it came to navigating this crazy boat!

Allure of the seas, the biggest cruise ship currently sailing

Infinity Whirlpool

Vitality Spa at Sea

Diving pool

Auditorium at Sea

Ice Rink

Comedy club

3. Trivia Nights

Because we traveled on such a large ship, there were always things to do.  One of those things to do, that we took full advantage of were the trivia nights.  Danny loves trivia so no matter what kind of trivia it was, he wanted to do it and by the end of it, it turned out to be a lot of fun.  One of the more memorable trivia categories was famous romantic movie songs! Needless to say, not all of our attempts at trivia night were successful!  Even though it was challenging at times, it was a fun memory that we have of our trip.

During trivia night at one of our favorite bars

2. Snorkeling in Mexico

Out of the three days we were in port, we only went on one excursion primarily because we wanted to relax on the ship the other days.  Our one exception was our snorkeling and beach playground day in Mexico.  I have been snorkeling a number of times and I continue to enjoy it as a fun and relaxing time.  I love to look at the various fish and sea creatures and this time was no different!  In all, we saw a sea turtle, a sting ray, and a lot of other colorful fish.  After snorkeling, the boat took us to a private beach where there were inflatable slides and trampolines set up.  It was so much fun and a highlight of our cruise!

Attractive, I know!

1.  Entertainment on the Boat

The shows on the boat were world class acts.  From the Broadway show Chicago to the amazing acrobatics in the diving show, everything was so well put together and very entertaining.  Danny and I from the beginning had planned out our shows to make sure we had a show or something to do every night.  It was wonderful each night to get ready for dinner and then know we would have a show or entertainment to go to after.  I've highlighted some of the magnificent shows we saw below:

Chicago: The Musical

We were in the second row!

Oceanaria Aqua Show

Blue Planet Aerial Acrobatic Show

Ice Games

We had an amazing time on our cruise, so much fun in fact that during our vacation, we booked our next cruise in 2016!  Already counting down the days.

Our new Windows

As I blogged about earlier in the week, the windows have finally been replaced!

After 2 full days of watching people work hard to install them, 5 regular windows and 1 bay windows later, we are done!

I wanted to share what we had decided on and of course the before and after shots.

We also decided on a few unique features in these windows that were not there before.  First, we decided to convert our Bow window into a Bay window.  Before I started this window journey, I had no idea the difference between the two, but after seeing a lot of pictures, we decided we liked the look of a bay instead of a bow.  Because we transformed the window from five equally sized windows to three, we were able to get a 78 inch picture window.  This is one of my favorite changes with the windows.  It is beautiful to look out and see such an amazing view outside of our window.

The second change we went with was a little more risky.  We decided to go colonial with the window style meaning we decided to get the horizontal and vertical pattern in between our windows.  This is purely cosmetic and was something that I thought would look good with our housing structure.  I will say, I was a little nervous about this decision since I had one window company tell me I shouldn't do something that is not already on our house (No we did NOT buy windows from him).  However, after seeing a lot of houses in our neighborhood transition to this colonial style, I wanted to take the risk.  And it paid off!! I'm so glad we decided to go with this style and I love the look!

All in all, I'm so happy with how the windows turned out! Windows Universe was cost effective, easy to work with, and the final product looks amazing!  I would definitely recommend them to anyone in the area looking for a reputable Windows company!

The big 2-8!

My husband and I celebrated his 28th birthday yesterday!  It was a Tuesday, so we weren't able to do a whole lot and to top it all off, we were in the middle of replacing our windows, so the house was a mess during that project.

 

The birthday boy on our cruise in September!

My day yesterday was spent checking in on the kitties and the puppies, while we had contractors over at the house.  The dogs were outside and the cats were tucked away in our bedroom (we are not replacing our bedroom window, so it was a undisturbed part of the house).

At about 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon, I had a grand idea!  I had already given my husband his birthday gift earlier (Columbus Blue Jackets Hockey tickets for this weekend!), but I wanted to make him feel like the day of his actual birthday was special too. 

I decided to hike my butt down the road to the local Drug-mart and buy ingredients to make Danny a cake!  The one part to my story that I'm leaving out is Danny's car is in the shop and he took my car to work, so I had to be creative and only do what was in walking distance to my house.

It was a great day and Danny was surprised and happy that I did something special for his birthday!  I enjoyed baking a cake so much, that I think it is something I'm going to continue to do every year.  I think a homemade cake is fun to make, but also delcious to eat!

It sure didn't look the best, but it tasted amazing!

The Perfect Pumpkin

So anyone who knows me or anyone who has ever stepped foot in my house between September and November knows one thing- I love pumpkins.  Or at least I like decorating my house with them.  Ever since I started living on my own, I've started "collecting" decorative pumpkins and I cannot go into a craft store or home decor store without adding to my collection.

I wanted to dedicate this blog post to my top five favorite decorative pumpkins.  Happy pumpkin picking!

1.  Fabric pumpkin from JoAnn's
2.  Ceramic pumpkin from unknown (My mom gave me this pumpkin from her collection...)
3.  Glitter pumpkin from JoAnn's
4.  Iron candle holder pumpkin from PartyLite
5.  Glitter leafy pumpkin from Pier 1 Imports

How much is that puppy in the window?

This week has a lot of anticipated excitement.  My husband turns the big 2-8 on Tuesday and we also have a very special birthday present for him-- we are getting new windows!  (Okay, its not really his birthday present, but they just happened to schedule it on his big day!)

Since we moved into our house back in April of 2013, we knew we needed new windows.  They were the ORIGINAL 1976 windows that the house was built with - we are talking completely wooden and no screens attached.  When we had the house inspection, we knew the windows were at the top of the list, however we didn't push window replacement on the previous owners because they were nice enough to not counter our original offer and they wanted to sell quickly since they had already purchased their next house.

They ended up cutting us a check for a very low estimate for some of the windows and we called it a day.  We found out quickly that when you buy a new house, you have so many other things that you can spend that money on, furniture, bills, etc. and that's exactly what happened.  The windows went to the bottom of our list until our first winter in the house last year.  Once we had the first below zero night and could not close one of the old windows, we knew we needed to get them replaced before this next winter.

After all of this time, we are finally getting our windows replaced THIS Tuesday and Wednesday!!

Below are the Before photos, so you can get a sense of how bad they are and what they look like before they are replaced. Get ready to see a whole new look for our house!

Now all we have to worry about is how to keep this puppy out of the new window.....