home owning

Wise words from a good friend. So I decorated for fall…

I could never be one of those people that decorate their house and years later still have the exact same colors. Same curtains, decorations… Maybe I’m fickle or just get bored but I like to change things up when it comes to decorating the house. I am currently planning my bedroom redo since it has looked basically the same for WAY too long.

It’s going to take forever to get just one of these things, let alone all of them. For now, it’s just an inspiration board.

Malm Dresser from Ikea, Custom decal by Mykea
DIY Tufted Headboard – Tutorial by Centsational Girl
Grey Vines Duvet from CB2
The Secret Print by blanchucha
Ocean Chevron Pillow by HoneyPieDesign
Gray Linen Pillow by Sukanart
Secret Key Handle from Anthropologie

I’m not sure about the wall decorations yet. I’m tossing around the idea of making my own abstract art (like Oh Happy Day). I do know that my wall collage is moving to the hallway so I can add to it and change things up.

It’s fun to plan things out though I do feel a little depressed looking at this. I’m so ready for a change but know we can’t afford to even get the room repainted right now. Hopefully soon I can start on this project!

This was originally posted on April 22, 2008. The day after we closed on our house.

It’s the little things but gosh darn it, if they don’t make me giggle with happiness.

1. I have a porch. I HAVE MY VERY OWN PORCH! Sorry I felt like that deserved to be repeating…loudly.
2. I have an awesome window for my Christmas tree. Is it wrong that I already have my outdoor Christmas decorations planned? I can’t help it because I now have a porch!
3. There is a ceiling fan in almost every room of my house.
4. My car gets to be parked in a garage. I bought that car brand new (they even pulled it off the showroom floor for me). It has never been parked in a garage. I also keep thinking about how amazing it will be to get groceries and not have to carry the bags up a flight of stairs.
5. The natural light in the house is about a hundred times better than my little dungeon of an apartment. The random pictures I take are going to be so much easier.
6. I can plant flowers, plants, trees…whatever I want. I really want a blooming tree, a lilac bush, a peony bush, flowers for the front. I did find out that we will have our own grapes!

We spent a lot of time at the house last night getting stuff cleaned out (although everything is remarkably clean). My dad moved an outlet for us (thanks again dad). My mom scrubbed a few doors and baseboards (something I probably never would have done). I’m thinking that the move on Saturday isn’t going to be too bad at all because we’ll probably have so much moved this week!

Edited – I uploaded a bunch of pictures to flickr and tried to make notes and descriptions.

Wednesday morning started off like any other day. Josh got home from work and went to bed. I was determined to have a good day and not cry at all. Sometime around 9:00 I thought I would put some Easter stuff away in the crawl space. I’ve been needing to dig around in there and get out all of our garage sale stuff anyway. (I’m having a garage sale next weekend and have yet to price the mountain of items.) I opened the door to the crawl space and flipped on the light. Pretty sure I was in shock seeing at least six inches of water right by the door. I stood there for what felt like minutes not sure what to do. I closed the door, ran upstairs and tried to gently wake up Josh.

“Josh… Honey, our crawl space is full of water. The sump pump must have stopped working.” Josh threw the covers back and yelled, “WHAT??”. I said, “Calm down. Breathe. I need you to get up”. I seriously don’t know how I was so calm. We ran downstairs and opened the door to the crawl space again. He decided to run to the closest place (10 minutes away) and get a new sump pump. I had him bring down the shop vac because I didn’t think I could just sit on the couch waiting for him to get home.

As he left I filled up the shop vac once. I got a few things out that I could easily reach and then didn’t know what else to do so I called my mom. “Mom? Our crawl space is flooded.” I think at this point when I tell my mom something else terrible has happened to us, she isn’t really surprised anymore. She offered to come help but I said that I didn’t know what she would do at that point. Josh got home in record time. He waded into the basement and hit the pipe for the sump pump. It instantly started working again.

We had the bulk of our stuff out in no time. Josh was inside bringing things to the door and I was drying and stacking them in our downstairs. Jasper was a rock star as usual. He played and watched TV while we worked. By lunch time the only things left were all of the garage sale items which is what I was dreading most. I store pretty much everything in Rubbermaid containers so that stuff was safe. Everything for the garage sale was in boxes or garage bags.

We decided to let the rest of the water drain since there was only about an inch left and Josh went to sleep some more. I tried to move a few things but after two boxes broke as I moved them I realized I had hit the wall and needed a break too. Thank goodness for my parents who took Jasper when they got off work. Josh and I laid tarps down on our living room floor and started hauling the really wet stuff out. It was a mess.

Unbelievably, most of the soaked boxes contained only clothes. I sorted through everything and moved everything for the garage sale up to the spare room. Six loads of laundry later and all clothes that I want to sell are clean again. We lost our old TV that I had planned on selling and a really old Christmas tree that needed to be retired anyway. Our old entertainment center that my brother is going to have someday was way back in the corner. Somehow that corner stayed pretty much dry so I think that survived. The biggest loss (for me) was my Real Simple magazine archive. I’ve been saving them since 2005. I lost all except the last year or so. When Josh hauled them out I had to turn away from the sadness.

This week has not exactly gone as planned. I now have one week to price an enormous amount of stuff for my garage sale. But by last night the crawl space was mostly dry and we were able to move everything back in. I’m so incredibly thankful that Josh was home when I discovered the water. I’m thankful that I store everything in Rubbermaids and all of our stuff was safe. I’m thankful that I found the water when I did and our whole downstairs didn’t flood.

Having everything a mess like this is basically like living in a nightmare for me but I know it could have been so much worse. Josh and I agreed that had this happened a year ago we would have reacted a lot differently. I feel like after the year we’ve had I can handle things so much better. I did cry a few times on Wednesday but I totally didn’t lose it. I think the crawl space flooding is a good cap to our year of bad luck. May 7th is circled on our calendar. That day last year is the day that everything changed for us. I think we’ll buy a lotto ticket on the 7th. Time for Karma to work in our favor…I think we’ve had enough.

If you follow my twitter feed, you know that yesterday was a crazy day. Our sump pump quit working and flooded the entire crawl space. I didn’t have the motivation to do a quote and picture. I did want to share some of the things that were said.

As Josh and I were standing in six inches of water looking at each other he said, “There is no one I’d rather be with while dealing with a flooded crawl space”.

Kimberly: “Doesn’t this outfit make you wanna do me?” (I was wearing black sweat capris, grubby tee, hot pink knee socks, and rain boots.)

Josh: “You should see all of the garbage. We look like white trash. No wait…we look like people who had their basement flood. Christmas tree, check. Carpet, check.”

Kimberly: “I don’t care what you do, just get the freakin’ water out of the crawl space.”

Josh: “Let’s start drinking.”

Kimberly: “I need a drink.”

Kimberly: “I’ve been dealt so much poo that I can’t freak out anymore. I just say, ‘Where’s my shovel?’ and start digging my way out.”

Josh: “Why is the ‘Kimberly Keepsakes’ box so incredibly heavy? What is in here!?”

Kimberly: “So this mountain of clothes all needs to be washed.”

Kimberly: “Aren’t we lucky I’m an organizational neat freak and keep everything in Rubbermaid containers?”

Josh: “I sure love you.”
Kimberly: “And I love you.”

We got the front door painted this weekend! (And by we, I mean Josh.) I got really nervous that I was going to screw something up and I actually really hate painting so Josh took over. I still wasn’t sure what color to go with when we stopped at Home Depot. Josh wanted the dark blue, I was leaning towards the green so we compromised with the aqua.

On Friday the weather was fantastic. It got up to almost 60 degrees so I thought what perfect timing to have our front door off. Wouldn’t you know it? Saturday the weather sucked. It was cold, windy and snowing. Hence the blanket over our front door. I thought I was really funny pretending to turn the door knob when I went out through it. Josh humored me with a chuckle (as usual).

I really, really wanted to replace the hardware on the door. I had no idea how expensive it would be. It would have been at least eighty bucks to get new (non-ugly, non-gold) hardware. So that will wait for another day.

I’m really glad we finally got it done and very happy with how it turned out!

I’ve been feeling pretty low the past week and a half. Between the new night shift job for Josh, worrying about money, and sickness, we’ve had a lot on our plate. It doesn’t help that this time last year is when we found out we were pregnant with Grace. I decided to hurry Spring along and put a wreath on my front door. I got the wreath for half off at Hobby Lobby and added the green berry looking sprigs.

A month ago I found this etsy shop and fell in love with this wreath. I totally overestimated my crafty ability because I instantly thought “I could make that”. As I stood in the floral section at Hobby Lobby I realized I was in way over my head. I had absolutely no idea where to start and I definitely couldn’t make something that gorgeous. So I picked up a premade wreath that I liked and added a little bit to it.

I wasn’t really thinking about the fact that my door is still white even though I’ve wanted to paint it for months. So I’m thinking this weekend I’m going to scrounge up some cash and paint my door. I mean, I can’t very well have a white wreath on a white door for the entire season. Right?

Jasper almost knows his abc’s but he still usually says the wrong color when I ask. He’s so impossible sometimes. I got a little nervous that he was colorblind. I found a test online that they give to kids. Jasper is definitely not colorblind. I think the diagnosis would be ornery.

Well we survived our first week of Josh working night shift. I wish I could say, “It wasn’t that bad” but that’s not really the case. It sucked, big time. I stayed up late every night because I was too freaked out to go to bed. Once I turned out the lights and tried to sleep I would get paranoid about all of the noises I heard. Josh’s sleep schedule and eating habits are all out of whack. Wednesday he woke up around 3:00pm not feeling well. He spent the night at work with a 100 degree fever. Besides all of that I just really miss him. I don’t like being on opposite schedules as him. I don’t know how couples do it regularly. It could never be a permanent solution for us. So basically I hate it and I’m really hoping it doesn’t last for long.

I told Josh that once he gets his new job and we have money again, the first thing I’m doing is getting our bedroom painted. I’ve had the blue and orange for almost four years. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with the decorating but I do know that the walls and trim are going to be . . . WHITE! Are you shocked? Practically every room in my house has some color, mostly bright ones. I’ve just been thinking for awhile that I would like white walls in my bedroom. I can hardly wait, I’m so excited. I’m also thinking about making an upholstered headboard, kind of like this one. I’m just really unsure about what colors I want to use for curtains and the headboard.

I am ridiculously excited to get my haircut tomorrow. I’ve been due for about a month. I always go every 7 weeks or so. It makes such a difference even if I’m just getting a trim so to go this long is driving me crazy! I almost canceled because I felt bad spending money that we don’t have but decided to keep the appointment. We got our state tax returns the other day so it was perfect timing.

Some Links:

I wish Josh and I had seen this site before we got our new glasses this year. Warby Parker gives a pair for every pair they sell.

My good friend, Nicole, has started a blog. She is documenting her goal to accomplish 101 things in 1001 days.

My little brother just earned a big promotion at his job. I’m feeling like a very proud big sister. And I can’t stop thinking, “TONY is a manager???”. Ha! Way to go, little brother. You deserve it.

How to Frost a Cake

I made these bacon pinwheels a couple of weeks ago. They were so yummy.

Have a good weekend, my friends.

I’m a dreamer, always thinking of big plans for the future. One of my big dreams is to have a large open kitchen. I have a folder of hundreds of decor pictures I’ve saved over the past few years. This weekend I sorted through the pictures into specific folders, like pictures of kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms.

Josh and I always love talking about how we’ll remodel the kitchen someday. The great thing is that our kitchen right now is totally usable. So someday when we eventually can remodel it, we can do things to make it all kinds of awesome (not just make it functional). I started showing Josh my kitchen pictures this weekend so he drew up a layout in a free CAD program. He loves the technical, I love the details and pretty things.

I have a few things that I would like to see in my future kitchen. Some (like the white cabinets) are non-negotiable while others are hopeful suggestions.

-more windows and skylights
-breakfast nook
-island with cooktop
-white cabinets
-light wood floor
-large food storage pantry
-functional storage for specific kitchen items (ie. my KitchenAid)
-wide oven

It’s fun to dream with Josh about our future kitchen. I know that someday we’ll do it though it will most likely be many, many years from now. I see the look of determination in Josh’s eyes, mainly because he knows how much it would mean to me. Until that day I will close my eyes and imagine my large bright open kitchen and smile.

My house looked so bare after I took down the Christmas decorations. I have never decorated for Valentine’s Day before but I thought it seemed like a good idea this year.

I cut out loads of hearts from paper I had to make a little garland.

Josh made me this little tree right before Christmas. I liked it so much I thought I would leave it up. So I used some of the paper hearts and made little ornaments for it. I also had made a bunch of pom poms forever ago. Finally got them made into a garland and hung that down the stairs.

I got little beaded sprigs on clearance for 75 cents each. I spray painted them white and put them in vases I already had.

Then I painted two little canvases with an X and O.

I only spent $4.25 since I had everything but the beady things and white spray paint. Not too shabby and the house looks happier!