The red door

A few weeks ago, I went to NYC to meet up with some friends. My husband picked me up from the bus station and told me he had a 'small surprise' for me when we got home. I got home and there it was- THE RED DOOR!!

   

We went from this: (the only picture I can find of the old front door)



















To this:

My sweet, sweet husband had gone to the ReStore while I was away, picked up the door and painted it RED.


And I love it!

I am back- sort of....!

I am really bad at keeping up with blogging, but I will try and do better :)

We are settling in nicely into our house and have even hosted a few parties. Here is a picture of the FALL FIESTA that I hosted for my friend Julie. We served coffee and dessert and mulled wine and dark chocolate since it was a late night event.

  

FALL FIESTA.

Love the 'home' your with

This morning's lovely surprise was a flooded basement. We have been having some weird storms that last literally 10 minutes but take down trees, causes power outages etc. After a brief meltdown, I settled in to remove buckets of water with my super duper tools- 2 empty yogurt containers and an old paint bucket.  

Minutes into it- it made me think of all the people whose homes have been destroyed by extreme weather/quakes/fires. In the bigger scheme of things, a flooded basement is a drop in the bucket (no pun intended). 

So today, my prayer that displaced people everywhere find the solace that 'HOME' brings somewhere.

In other news: my fellow thrifter buddy Jess and I are going to this. 
43 Miles of HAPPINESS (yes, yard sales make me happy).  We have our truck ready, some red bull and lots of water and cash!

Today's purchases.

I went to get some grout today, and decided to stop by my favorite RESTORE.

Side table for my couch $10. Lovely 'Robin-egg blue' lamp- complete with shade: $6. Sixteen dollars later-tres, tres happy.

I love the spindle legs on the side table. And I love that it is a little higher.

Real Housewives of DC-home edition

Yes, I admit- I watch TRASHY TV, and yes, I am watching RHODC.

Thought I would share some pictures of their homes.

Mary's house:  I like her bathroom. As for the dressing room that needed CIA technology to get into- hmmmmmm.... (its cute, but seriously, a special lock?)

Stacie's house-    Her kids rooms are adorable.

Cat's House - Ohhhhh catty-cat. This is my favorite house- so much yumminess!

No butter after all

So after going back and forth on a paint color, I finally painted the dining/kitchen combo. We did not end up doing the 'color-of-butter'. We picked Benjamin Moore's Horizon Gray. For some reason it shows like a Sage-Gray. But I still love it.

Also, we got started on the backsplash. We chanced on this carrara marble subway tile at a tile closeout place. They had about 9 boxes left, so just enough for a backsplash. Conversation went something like this:

Me: How much would you sell me the 9 boxes for?
Sales guy: $100
Me: That is too much
My contractor: That is too much, give us a better deal
Sales guy: $75
My contractor: $50
Sales guy: $50 and you buy me lunch
My contractor: $50, and we will bring you McDonalds.

Sold!!!! and saved probably 85% OFF the actual cost of the tile. It is still wet- hence the gray hue, but it will dry closer to white.

In other news.....

We got some plants and furniture on the front porch. Cooper is enjoying it.

My contractor's wife told me that frogs bring good luck to your home, so I got some frogs :)

More plants on the ledge. And here is Cooper with a cone! He has been scratching a scar that he has, and that had to stop so it could heal.