Moving on and outward

The nature of the beast of home renovation is multi-tasking.  Finish the current projects while planning the new projects is how it has to work to keep the ball rolling.

We are nearing the end of "Phase 1" of the renovation which included the entire upstairs of the house.  We are getting ready to put a new roof on the house-which normally wouldn't precipitate big decor decisions, but in our case it does.  We plan to paint the outside of the house-in "Phase 2" of our renovation, after the new roof.  To pick the right roof color I need an idea of what the outside color of the house will be-which makes sense. 

As a reminder the current house is light khaki with a dated teal color accent.  Not our taste.  Since I am all about taking risks with color I lean toward a grey outside color scheme (I know-CRAZY TOWN-but my comfort zone is khaki and taupe.)  I used the Sherwin Williams site to mock up some ideas.  This is crude-but you can get the idea.  Also keep in mind-our lot is heavily wooded..and we are not planning to change the stone.  We will do a full overhaul of the outside landscape next spring, "Phase 4."  I will be adding lots of color to the front of the house with reds, purples and white bushes and flowers.  Don't let the current UG-Landscaping influece your ideas.

Please let me know what you think.



Option 1.  Green, Grey and a Teal-ish accent.



Option 2- Grey/Blue, Taupe and Orange



Option 3- Khaki, Dark Khaki and Red




Option 4-Light grey (almost cream), dark grey and blue.




Option 5- More khakis and a green accent



Option 6- Dark slate grey/blue, light grey and a bold yellow.  Note I like the tone of this door but yellow will be no where in the landscape if I have my way. 

Option 7- grey blue and an orangey/yellow accent.



First a wall...now a charming built in

Scott and I decided to take down a wall that was right in front of our front door to open our entryway.  I waffled...but he pushed and I am so glad he did.  Taking down the wall made a big difference but the built in that we created had me at "hello."  Here is a reminder of the wall removal project:
The wall that was

Here are some process shots of how it looks now.  I am in the process of unpacking kitchen boxes and should have some solid afters within a week or two.

The view from the front door.  This is also a sneak peak of the grey we chose for our main neutral.

The view down the hallway with the new built in on the right side.

A close up of the beauty that is added storage!!!

NAILED!!

Scott and I have been looking for a big/industrial piece that we can use in our "under renovation" home once its all finished.  I wanted something with size that would be unusual.  We had gone back and forth on lockers, library card catalogs and things of that nature.  This piece from Restoration Hardware is my inspiration.

Inspiration Piece

The end of June we stumbled upon the "NAIL BIN."  It was on craigslist and we both instantly liked it.  We liked the price...it wasn't crazy far away so we called.  We went back and forth with the owner of said nail bin and came to a fair price.  We went to Sevierville to pick it up the Saturday of July 4th weekend.  At 8am.   Like vintage furniture marines.  We were home by 10am with this guy (after breakfast in a place that looked like our current basement, which was odd):

All nine feet of the nail bin glory.

Its HUGE...this picture doesn't even do it justice.  It's HEAVY and the top has considerable rust.  Each of the bins is heavy metal and they slide out...not on a track.  They stay open like you see above.  Some of them have considerable rust.

After letting it sit for a couple of months I am trying to come up with a firm plan.  I know it needs to be refinished in some way.  Likely sanded down.  Maybe sandblasted?  And probably refinished in some way.  All these details are up in the air.  Also-I know I want to remove some of the bins for open shelve storage.  Since it will be in the dining room I imagine we could put platters on it and such.  The bins I keep could be used for napkins. 

I have showed many people and I think most think I am nuts.  Maybe?  We'll see.

Kitchen- In Progress..

The hardest part of the entire remodel project, for me, has been the lack of a kitchen.  We moved in on 4/23 and have basically not had a kitchen since.  Yes-its a long time.  But-we are starting to put the old girl back together.  Here is a pictorial of the progress we have made.

The BEFORE view of the kitchen from the dining room.  Prior to us pulling down the wall to open the whole space.

The kitchen BEFORE..in all its 1970's glory.



The kitchen after the demo.




The IN PROCESS view of the kitchen from the dining room.


  

The kitchen BEFORE.  The view from the kitchen into the dining room.



The IN PROCESS view of the dining room from the kitchen.  Note our new island is installed-sans counter tops.


 I will post more detailed shots as we move along but the progress is extraordinary.

Dark wood is good wood

In the midst of the the wedding whirlwind we are also finishing the house.  We have allot going on.  Over our honeymoon our brilliant carpenter installed our hardwood floors.  Scott and I went back and forth on what to go with in this house.  I leaned toward dark chocolate and he wanted something lighter.  I wanted to take the house in a more modern direction...since that is something I had not done in the past.

While this picture does not do them justice-since they are dirty -you can see who won:)

The return trip, our time at the Treasure Cay airport, Day 7

We flew home on Saturday our of Treasure Cay-across the bay from our island.  We had to take a ferry and because of our flight times we arrived at the airport about 2.5 hours prior to our flight.  It was a small airport-think Wings small.  There were about 7 people working and when we showed we were 1 &2 of 7 customers.  We checked in and took a seat.  To wait.  And wait.  Luckily 45 minutes before our flight the entertainment began. 
1.  About 30 more people showed up for both two other flights leaving out.  So the small airport got crowded, fast.
2.  They cancelled our flight and rescheduled us for another flight that left 2.5 hours later.  Which meant we had to wait in the crowded airport for an additional 3 hours.  YAY!

Scott looked at me and said "could be worse, we could not have air conditioning."  I knew it was a sign of bad things and chastised him for even saying it.

About 20 minutes later the lights started to flicker.  Then they went out.  Shortly after the generator kicked on-and we were back in air conditioned business.  Note-small airport, gazillion people and it was very hot outside.  No air conditioning was the worse case scenario from my perspective.

About 2 hours prior to our flight leaving we heard a crackling noise.  The lights flickered again.  Then we lost power for the second time.  Scott went out to investigate.  The airport fire truck was shooting water on the small out building next to the terminal.  When I say next to the terminal-think 10 feet. 

To recap-the generator which was housed 10 feet away had caught on fire.  That was the crackling noise.  The fire truck was dousing the shooting flames with water.  And we officially had no air conditioning for the last 2 hours of our wait.

IT. WAS. FANTASTIC.

We got home around 2:30 am.  It was a long day but at least we had Sunday to recover:)

Wedding/Honeymoon Trip Day 4-6

The day after our wedding it rained.  Not a little shower.  A downpour. 

The view from our honeymoon suite on day 4. 

At least we had tv, the ipad, and each other!!!

On day 5 the rain let up.  It was still a bit overcast but we could venture out-which was good because we were a bit stir crazy.  We took our boat over to some other island, the name of which escapes me.  We had lunch right on the ocean and than the unthinkable happened.  I convinced Scott to GET IN THE OCEAN.  Neither of us are big beach people, but this water and beach were too lovely to avoid.

The view at lunch in Treasure Cay

Us on the boat on the way back to our island.

Our last full day was the most beautiful day of all.  The sun was shining.  No threat of rain.  We decided to venture out to Guana Cay, home of the world famous Nippers Bar.  There is a pool at the bar and a rum drink that should be illegal.  We boated over and spent the day at the bar more or less.  It was heaven,  It was perfect.

Scott and I at Nippers....

The bartender took some pity on us for all our self portraits so she took a photo for us.  That drink in front of me-the NIPPER.  That far away look in my eyes-officially "NIPPED."

Scott in front of the tractor/art on the walk to Nippers.

One of my favorite photos from our honeymoon.  Us both on the way back to Green Turtle Cay.

Our wedding day-Day 3

A couple of things about eloping, from my experience:
1.  It really is no stress if its just you and the future husband.  Even with the comedy of errors we went through to get out license-it was never really stressfull-just kinda funny.
2.  Without a bunch of people around you can take the day and do what you want.  We chose to sleep in, eat breakfast and then meander on our boat and then on to the pool. I think it was 4:30 when I figured I needed to go back to the room and shower.
3.  Getting ready without the fanfare is a bit odd.  You get ready-and then you sit and wait in your room until its time to go.
4.  I highly reccomend it.  HIGHLY!!

On our wedding day we decided to do what we wanted to do.  Period.  It was weird telling each other, this is our last single breakfast, our last single lunch etc.

We got ready for the wedding and were about 20 minutes from leaving when there was a knock on our door.  It was the man we rented our boat from telling us a big storm was coming in.  He wanted us to move our boat somewhere safer.  Scott said he was a little busy, about to get married and all, so he handed over the keys.  Storm?  What storm?

We get in our golf cart on the way to our ceremony site-a previously selected beach.  On the way there our preacher pulled us over to tell us the "storm" was blowing a hard wind.  The ceremony site we had selected was across from the island dump and since the dump was burning the beach was essentially smoked out.  Um?  Ok-new location.  We followed him.

We got there and you could tell he was concerned about the weather.  He had the witnesses sign the papers before the ceremony which i guess is unusual?  He put us in place with our backs to the water and he started the ceremony.  He kept glancing over our heads to watch/worry about the storm rolling in.  Favorite parts of the ceremony:
1.  When Scott said his full name in his vows there was a HUGE clap of thunder.  Like a sound effect.  We laughed.
2.  Right as he pronounced us man and wife it started to sprinkle.

They say that rain on your wedding day is lucky.  I say a wet knot is much harder to untie.  Either way it was wonderful!!

Scott and I smirking after a well placed thunder clap interrupted our vows.

Note how excited Scott's face appears as he receives his wedding band.

Sealed with a kiss!!

Our first official photo as man and wife.  Big kudos to our witnesses, who were both our something borrowed and our photographers!!

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The sun came out after the ceremony so we had drinks on our dock.  A very relaxed cocktail party for two.

Wedding/ Honeymoon Trip Day 1 &2

Scott and I ran away to Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos to get married.  The story of our trip is fairly entertaining, at least to us, so I am going to share it in small chunks.

We went down to Atlanta on Saturday night and flew out of there Sunday morning to Fort Lauderdale.  We got into Green Turtle Sunday late afternoon after two plane rides, one airport shuttle, one airport tram, a cab and a water ferry.  It was a long day.  Our hotel was lovely and Sunday night we stayed at the resort to eat dinner and unwind.

The completely safe and reliable plane we took from Fort Lauderdale to Treasure Cay.  That is what I chanted to myself the entire flight:)

The Green Turtle Club-our honeymoon home base

Monday morning we went to the little town on our island to apply for a marriage license.  We go to the administrators office and there is a "we will be back later" note on the door.  No worries-we are on island time we thought.  She returns some 30 minutes later only to tell us the only person who can sign our papers in on vacation, I guess with no confirmed return date.  Um?  She said we could go across the bay to the bigger town and try there.  We called-that administrator was in, so we decided to take our rental boat the 12 nautical miles to get our paperwork sorted.  The trip was uneventful until we pulled within a mile of our location and saw a fairly ominous storm blowing ashore.  Um?  OK-we waited for 20 minutes and it passed.  We arrive, dock, and step onto the face of the sun it felt like.  The recent heavy rain has steam rising from the sidewalks.  YAY!!  We walk two blocks to the "other" administrators office only to be told he was "out to lunch."  We said fine-we will wait-here, in this air conditioned office.

Mr. Cox arrived and filled out our papers, no muss no fuss.  I would like to point out that Scott had three options to choose from- bachelor, divorcee or widower.  I had three options as well- divorcee, widower or SPINSTER??  Um????  Whatever-we got out forms and proceeded to eat lunch in a place the administrator recommended.  It looked like someones living room.  It wasn't air conditioned-see above on what the temp felt like.  The food was divine and we took it outside and ate at a table overlooking the ocean.  It was divine!!

We got back and met with the bishop who was doing our ceremony.  Scott liked him immediately be cause we was wearing a jesus hat that was camo.  Not something you see everyday.  We arranged to get married on Tuesday.

The storm blowing on to the island we were planning to visit.  It was gone in 20 minutes and was pretty impressive to watch from our spot in the middle of the bay.

Engagement shots

August FLEW BY!!!  We have had allot going on..so it was to be expected.  I am going to try to go back in time and recreate the crazy.

Scott and I had out engagment photos taken and we were so pleased with the results.  We decided to do half of them at the Bearden Antique Mall, which his grandparents used to own and now his Aunt Ann owns.  Not only did it have sentimental value to him it had a million cool backdrops for me.  Win, win.  We then decided to take some pics with the dogs on our boat.  It was hot-HOT-but so worth it.  I loved what our photographer, Ben Finch, was able to capture.