'Twas the Night Before Christmas

and everything finally came together... peaceful and serene. Oh wait, we were up til 2am fixing food and wrapping presents ;)

It was a beautiful Christmas Eve though. We spent it at Grandma's house with a nice dinner and afterwards came home with Mom and Dad Robinson to finish getting ready. When all was said and done, Mom and I took some pictures of the house before all the presents were opened.





In years past, I have always jumped the gun on Christmas decorating. In fact, 2 years ago when Steve and I got engaged, we bought our tree the night before Thanksgiving. This year, we didn't buy it until December 10th. Because we have had a lot of projects going on since we moved. We removed the carpet from both the living room and dining room and the baby's room, revealing beautiful hardwoods. Hardwoods that desperately needed some refinishing. So that project happened beginning of December... and it's a big project. So no decorating was begun until the floors were completely done.

Even then, I thought, "the more I put up, the more I have to take down" so I didn't put much up. Til Christmas Eve... when I decided the house needed more sparkle. So I did what I could with what I had to make the house twinkly and I was happy with the outcome :)





This is a view into our front room that used to be a front porch but has been remodeled (not by us) to an additional room in the house.



This is the other side of the front room. Eventually, when the baby is a little older, this will be the play room :)



And here is the living room, looking in from the front room.



And from the other side of the living room... you can see how the front is connected.



I wanted to wait until next year when it's officially Baby's first Christmas to get her stocking and all so this year I just bought this mini Yankees stocking and we put a little Aflac duck we had in it and hung it on the tree... lol



And since we don't have a chimney, fireplace or appropriate stairway for stockings, this is how it went down this year! I'd like to come up with something better for the future :) But I thought this was cute for now :)

touring the apartment (office and bathroom edition)

If you've been reading closely, you may have noticed I made mention of the fact we are in the process of buying a house... consequently, all we are waiting for now is the lawyer stuff and we should be closing in a few weeks! And so I realize I need to get my booty in gear and finish posting pictures of this apartment before we move!

Yesterday I did something I've been dreaming of doing for literally years. I got to pick out paint. And noone else's opinion mattered. I don't have to worry about painting back over it when I move along, I don't need approval from my mom, I am free! No more mish mash paint, muddy blues and greens... ugh. So done!

Such a great feeling. Seriously. But you probably know that ;)

At any rate, you might think I hate my apartment after that little rant, but it's simply not true. Yes, we don't have to decorate for Halloween because the outside of the house already fits the description... but this little apartment has a lot of good memories.

So here are the final 2 rooms.

This is the office/2nd bedroom. It was a disaster for most of the year, but a few weeks ago we really cleaned it up. There were boxes and boxes of stuff that had never been unpacked... which had more to do with the fact that we just didn't know where to put it once it was unpacked and less to do with wanting to unpack it. Well now that it's all unpacked I can pack it up once again... but there's a lot less. That's one of the things I like about moving and organizing... it gives me the best excuse to purge and get rid of old things I just don't need.



This is the view from the doorway above, then the picture below is the other side of the room to the right.



When Steve first moved in last winter the tool chest there was his night stand...



Then there is our guest bed to the right in this picture, but it's a twin. When we move, we'll have our double bed in the guest room, but that's in storage at a friend's house right now since we don't have room for it!

So that's that... now on to the bathroom.



It's super tiny, but you know what? I absolutely love it. I especially love being able to wash my hands while still sitting on the toilet... :P But seriously, the light is really awesome in there and it's cute and cozy :)



I absolutely love this shower curtain! Pretty much everything about it. Needless to say, the bathroom in the new house will be decorated very similarly... I'm still trying to decide what to do as for paint in there though... I'm almost leaning towards just white. I'm afraid it's possible I could overdo it with the teal. If you have an opinion feel free to tell me!

touring the apartment (living room edition)

Moving right along with the apartment touring, today you get to see the living room. If you've missed any of it you can catch up here and here.

So here it is. I realized that this first picture is hard to tell what it is on the left side, but it's a dyptic showing my beloved shoe shelf that Steve mounted for me. Mounting things in this apartment is scary, because the walls are plaster. If you have plaster walls you know what I'm talking about... if you don't, you're lucky!

There are pictures hung on the wall in here, and with the exception of the bw collage everything you see hung is only there because there was already a nail and I needed to place to put frames because there was nowhere better to store them!


That random half wall behind the couch is actually a staircase leading to the downstairs apartment. It's also the "catch-all" here. Which I hate. But I am 50% of the problem so I can't complain much ;)




This is the bw collage I was referring to. I actually put nails in for that. Which I have to say, I'm not happy with the arrangement... but again, I needed somewhere besides a box for all my frames. They are sad when they have to stay in boxes :(


Anyways, there you have it. Next up is the bathroom. Much like the bathroom in my old apartment, I am quite taken with this one as well, I really love the way it looks :)

touring the apartment (bedroom edition)

I've been meaning to post more pictures of my apartment since the last time when I showed you the kitchen but something always got in the way. It was either a mess or not organized enough blabbity bla bla bla. Well, I realized it's never going to be perfect and even if I pretended it was it wouldn't be fair to anyone since I don't want to give them impression of "having altogether" because lord knows that's not true.

The other day my bedroom was pretty clean. OK who am I kidding, it was spectacular compared to the way it usually is. I always find such satisfaction in having my bed made and back when we first got married it got made almost daily... now, notsomuch. I'm trying to change that though, because for some reason, when the bed is made, I feel so much more at peace! Weird, I know.

So here is the view of the bedroom from the doorway walking in. To the right not pictured are two dressers side by side, one Steve's, one mine. For the first 2 months of our marriage I had no dresser at all... leaving all my clothes in laundry baskets and strewn about the room. I'm terrible at hanging up my clothes though and putting them away so I'm trying to be better about that, because again, it makes me feel more peaceful when it's all put away :)


Then here we have the adjacent view where you can see our "headboard" which I just love. We just have a standard bedframe that came with the bed and when we received that painting as a wedding gift I saw it above the bed right away! For the time being that will be its purpose, but I love that painting so much it may end up in a new place someday as I have lots of other ideas for headboards ;) I just have to get my craft on, and let me tell you, that doesn't happen often lol.


Also, I'm sure you noticed the array of pictures we have on the far wall there. I just love it, but there is a piece missing. It's not really the way I wanted it when I designed it to begin with. I have these shelves that are different lengths that hold knick knacky type stuff that I originally intended to go between and under or over certain pictures, but being that the walls in here are plaster, they just weren't holding.

So the gaps remain, and it's not so noticeable if you are just looking, but to me it's still a work in progress... that will not be completed until we live somewhere else. At any rate, I'm very happy that I have so many beautiful wedding and engagement pictures thanks to Rachel and Andrea.

The big square picture in the center is some scrapbook paper that I pieced together to fit in there, but my original intent was to do a 9 frame square arrangement like this. I've wanted to do this since I saw her wall 2 1/2 years ago! However, due to the fact that it's a very expensive project to complete and I didn't have any real solid place to carry it out, I have put it on hold... and I only have one 20x20 frame... I need 8 more. And ikea stopped selling those frames last year. Good thing other places do finally, but I love idea and I always stocked up on the clip frames when I was there. I have a bajillion and I love them :)

Anyways, so there's the bedroom. Next room (not like there's a lot to choose from lol!) maybe the living room. It's really boring, so I don't know, but in all reality it would be nice to have pictures of the place we first lived :) And I didn't take pictures of my last apartment, which I already regret. So I will probably end up doing it. Then we're on to the second bedroom/office. it's a disaster area. But I have incentive to clean up more because one of my Christmas presents was a new monitor! So now I have to clear up space on my desk for the 2nd monitor and I will feel all cool sitting in front of my two monitors. err, or something like that ;)

touring the apartment

Now that we are back from the honeymoon and things are still out of control starting to settle down, I've been working on cleaning and organizing the apartment. I find doing this so much more fun now that I'm married than when I had my own place, but I'm not sure why.

I've been working on everything little by little, but the kitchen was so clean and pretty much as organized as it will get that I couldn't help but take pictures of it. Plus, there is such crazy amazing light in there that sometimes I just walk in there to feel happier. Light can do that ya know.

This is what you see when you first walk in. Can you tell I'm still obsessed with the peonies?





Two of the cookbooks I received from the wedding is the Betty Crocker vintage cookbook, which is totally a blast from the past because it's the first book I really ever used recipes from :) And then there is the 500 cupcake book. Ooo lala! I made one of the recipes the other night... chocolate chip muffins. And it called for buttermilk... since I didn't have any, I used butter and milk. I am well aware that's not what buttermilk actually is, but it actually worked. They were eaten too quickly to take pictures of.



So there's my kitchen. My married kitchen :) Speaking of marriage, I'm shooting another wedding today and then also my own wedding pictures have been posted on facebook! I will be posting them on my blog asap!

the bathroom is my favorite

Why does that sound so wrong?

It's true though. Ever since I moved into this apartment, the bathroom has been my favorite... I think honestly it's because of the wallpaper. It's vintage and eccentric at the same time. So I decided this morning, with the lovely light streaming in through the window that I would begin the tour of my little apartment. And since I'm still waiting on prints for the wall in my living room, I figured since the bathroom was done I'd start there :)



This is the view from the doorway. The flowers that Steve brought me Monday I decided to separate into 2 vases so that I could enjoy them both in the kitchen and in here :) Putting them in there made me want to make this bathroom all white and pink. I get excited easily ;)

And do you see that space between the sink and the wall where the trash is? That space was created by the devil. There is no way to reach all the way to the floor to clean in there and because of that pipe, there's no way to get in there from the front! It is a nightmare trying to clean that spot.



For some reason when they renovated this house into apartments, they decided to go the el cheapo route and install stand-only showers when there was clearly enough room for a full bath. However, I like the open space... what I don't like, is shaving my legs in the sink because the showers too small to hoist my leg up and shave with my knee in my chest.



I went back and forth on whether or not to get a shower curtain that wasn't just the liner for quite some time. But then I found these hooks that I've had for like ever that I bought on clearance at walmart.

So on the days that I'm not wanting to decorate everything in white and pink, I want to decorate everything with a hawaiian feel using these hooks as inspiration... someday I'll have enough rooms to do all this stuff!



On my night table I have this lamp that I keep on 24/7. It gives off just the right amount of light in there and makes everything feel warm. Not that I have any trouble staying warm in this apartment... I do not control the thermostat and my utilities are included in the rent... yesterday it was 85 degrees in here.



Is it wrong to want to marry wallpaper? Cuz I seriously love this wallpaper so much that I would consider it.



This cupboard has been awarded "most improved fixture" award. Originally it was a dingy yellow-ey peach color and the inside was coated with a hideous floral contact paper, that was in fact browned from possibly cigarette smoke? Or cooking grease? (ps who uses straight up grease anyways?) But there was for sure grease all over that bathroom. I had to scrub the ceiling with a sponge. gag.ma.tos.tic. However, this little cupboard was redeemed with a paint scraper and a fresh coat of white semi-gloss. It now holds my toilet paper... hey, someone's gotta do it.

So there you have it! The tour of my bathroom has come to an end. I will have more tours as the months weeks go by but I have to finish up my projects. And they will get done.