Charleston Points of Interest

One of my favorite things to do in preparation for a vacation is to scour the web to see what other people like doing in the area that I am going to be visiting. This is especially true of a place like Charleston, SC where I've been multiple times. Of course no matter how many times I've been, I always seem to find more to do there. I think if I could live there, I would.

Here are a few of my favorite spots:

1. the rooftop of Vendue Inn over the marketplace. I love going there in the evening as the sun is going down. Of course you have to get there early, because people will crowd in the back making it difficult to take pictures of the sunset going down over the Charleston skyline.

Also, if you decide you actually want to stay at Vendue Inn, do not expect to be able to get to the rooftop during the winter months. My (now) husband, his friends, and I attempted to go watch the sunrise when we stayed there way back when, and the doors were locked. I'm not sure what it is like during the summer.

2. Kiawah Beach. I once read that if you go to the right when you get to Kiawah, you will find fewer people and more scenery. Granted this also means you aren't allowed to actually swim in the ocean due to strong currents and rip tides. It is beautiful and serene though especially when you find yourself sick of crowded beaches (like Folly and Isle of Palms).

I suppose I should also mention that unless you are staying at a hotel on Kiawah Island, you do have to pay to park in the state park. From what I've heard, you also have to make sure you leave before they close. They will close the park locking you and your car in if you aren't careful.

3. SNOB or Slightly North of Broad is by far one of our favorite restaurants whenever we go to Charleston. We've tried a few of the other ones up and down the street, but we consistently go back to this one. The first meal we had here was a steak. Last year we had a vegetable plate. The menu constantly changes, but the food is always good.

4. If you need a place to stay, I highly recommend Charleston Harbor Resort & Marina. It is by no means cheap, but it is nice to be within walking distance of the marina, Yorktown, and the Cooper Bridge. I've never actually used it, but I've heard they have a water taxi that will take you to Charleston. They also provide bikes you can rent and s'mores on the weekends during the summer out on their beach area. The pool and jacuzzi are always clean. If you can't afford a hotel on the beach, this is my second favorite most affordable alternative. It is also nicer than any beach hotel I have stayed in yet!

5. Finally if you want a truly amazing dessert, you must stop by Peninsula Grill and get the coconut cake. While slightly expensive, you will never taste anything more amazing (and Southern AND full of calories) than that. Hint: Bring a friend. One piece is at least 1000 calories. You cannot finish it alone. And if you can, you probably shouldn't. :)

I have a few places I have yet to go that I think would be interesting. For instance, I would love to take a walk through Cypress Gardens where supposedly they filmed some of The Notebook (specifically the canoe ride with all of the geese!). I also recently discovered the Charles Pickney National Historic Site and the Charleston Tea Plantation as alternative free places to visit while in Charleston.

Google has been quite useful as well.

While reading The Charleston Daily Photo, I have come across quite a bit of useful information as the blogger works her way around her home town sharing photos, history, and images. Specifically I found her post on brunch options interesting as well as the post she shared from National Geographic and The Charleston City Newspaper useful. All of her beautiful images make me want to visit Magnolia Plantation in the spring, and I loved seeing her Halloween photos as a side of Charleston I have never seen before. I will definitely be following her blog from this point forward!

I love looking at discussion boards both travel and local. It is amazing the kind of insight you get when reading what other people have done.

So how do you prepare for a vacation? Have you ever been to Charleston? And if so, do you have any "insights" for me?

Price Matching & Best Rates Guarantees

As most of you are aware, I have been in the throes of planning not one vacation -- but TWO! Both of which will be happening within the next month. (And both of which were planned in the last month! Talk about stress!)

Anyway, I think I've already mentioned how happy I was to find some good deals when booking a hotel through Travelocity. I failed to mention, however, that I was head-over-heels in love with their pro-consumer terms. Not only was I able to book the hotel using discounts specific to Travelocity, but they also guarantee that you are booking the lowest available rate up to one day before your trip AND allow you to cancel up to (I think it is) three days prior to your trip. Heck yeah!

I actually missed my first planned hotel stay near Charleston that would have cost a mere $60 a night due to miscommunication and indecisiveness, but I am quite happy with the new $90 rate (received after price matching) that is at an ideal location and comes with a free buffet style breakfast (including waffles, eggs, coffee, juice, etc...). With breakfast costing approximately $20 for two anyway, I'm "seeing" the hotel rate in the $70 range making it far more worthwhile and cost effective than previously expected.

As I mentioned, after booking on Travelocity, I immediately went on a search for a lower rate. Guess what? I found one!! So Travelocity gave me the difference back on the credit card as well as an additional $50 travel credit to use on our next Travelocity booked vacation!!! (Granted our next booked vacation was through Airbnb, but I am sure we can find some way to use the extra 50 Travelocity dollars in the near future.)

If you have had the opportunity to use any of Travelocity's recent deals or are considering booking a hotel for vacation in the near future, this is a good listing of how to get the most for your hard earned travel money. Whether you are booking through the hotel, Travelocity, or another travel site (orbitz, hotels.com, etc...), you can find the perfect website to either book your travel for the cheapest price OR get your travel price matched.

Weekend Recap

I hope all of my readers had a fantastic weekend spending time with their fathers and what not. :)

Justin and I spent the majority of Saturday with his father followed by some time with cute little Charlie, his buddy Teddy, and Charlie's older brother Ben.

On Sunday, Justin and I went to visit with my family after attempting to make some Julia Child something or other (dessert) that didn't turn out. I'm guessing it might have helped if we actually looked at and/or followed the recipe. Seeing a picture of a recipe in a book probably doesn't produce the best results. (Or at least that is the excuse I'm sticking with!)

Over the weekend, Justin and I got to enjoy the fruits of our budgeting. We were able to pay for the entire meal when we went out with Justin's family still managing to fit it under the umbrella of our food budget. We were also able to bring food to my family's get together despite not being asked to. And guess what? We still have money left over in our food budget and a FULL fridge. Do you know what I mean when I say FULL? ... I mean to the brim. We couldn't fit anything else in there if we tried! We have at least 4 different types of meals frozen, some fresh vegetables, and some meal "parts" that we can combine to make different, fresh meals. Plus, we have at least 3 gift cards to different restaurants if for whatever reason we just cannot eat at home.

Check out how well our budget is doing:

With two weeks to go, I'm optimistic. The best part about being on budget in so many areas is that we are able to experiment a little.

On Friday night Justin and I pulled out all of our cookbooks and went through them until we had decided on a recipe we were interested in cooking. (We settled on chicken pot pie and cream puffs.) Justin pulled up Alton Brown's recipe for the chicken and he used Julia Child's recipe for the cream puffs. Dinner was absolutely amazing, and it was fun eating something different. It's definitely nice having the money and time to experiment. (Justin is on summer hours at his office, and he gets half of Friday off!)

We also managed to call up AT&T and get a cheaper price on our internet, call our car insurance company to get a cheaper price on that, call around to different car rental companies about our upcoming vacation, and start up a savings account for our trip to Germany! (Until this point, we had just been saving for NYC and developing our emergency fund.)

I was also really excited to get a picture of my brother printed for my father and grandfather. My brother has been impatiently begging for a new profile picture for his facebook, and it's taken me a good two weeks to get it to an acceptable quality (for me). My parents kiddingly asked if I had used Photoshop on the image when I gave them the photo last night. They seemed a bit shocked and surprised that the camera doesn't perform miracles. (Why no, the camera itself will not take 20 pounds off of you and get rid of your pimples. My apologies.)

Unfortunately, with regards to iphoto, I have no idea when it will be fixed. :( Justin mentioned it may be running badly since my new camera takes larger images than my old one. (18mp vs. 8mp.) So I'm thinking I may have to give up my image library with iphoto and consider using either Lightroom or Aperture. Hmm ... Decisions, decisions.

Did you all do anything fun this holiday weekend? Do you have any suggestions/recommendations for me regarding replacing Iphoto?

Bird Watching & Travel Planning

While I was up in North Georgia two weekends ago I got to sit on my grandparent's front porch and bird watch. Actually, Justin, my brother, and I fought over who got to use my camera with the telephoto lens to capture the birds. I have to say it takes a lot of patience, holding your breath, and a tripod (or deck railing in this case) to get good still life images of birds. (And perhaps praying that the birds actually stay still long enough to get the shot.)

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I've been busy planning and thinking about the two (possibly three) upcoming trips that will be happening over the next few weeks (year). I've spent a crazy amount of time looking at airbnb for accommodations for six at the last minute for a great price. And of course my idea of a good price is not quite the same as the people we are staying with. Unfortunately good prices at the last minute, in my opinion, are quite a bit harder to come by. Of course I've also looked at hotels in the Hilton HHonors program since Justin and I have a few points and are looking at matching our gold status from another program to them. However no matter how much I research hotel award points, it always seems to confuse and frustrate me. (So I get how many points for how long of a stay? And those points are worth what?!)

Then yesterday I checked in on rental car prices. I checked at Priceline, vroomvroomvroom, and Costco to come up with a general price range. I'm thinking either myself or Justin will take that knowledge to call the rental car companies see what their best offer is for us for that week, provide them with the best quote we've received and see if they can beat it, and finally call the company with the best price offer and accept. Then we will have a rental car ... Yay! (You know you don't envy us.)

To top it all off, I've now got to start looking into travel insurance. I'm a bit worried about taking my new camera to NYC (and even moreso taking it overseas to Germany when we go next year). So I get to research all of that. Woo.

Of course I'm complaining about all of this research, price matching/beating, and finding the best opportunities for us, but I'm certain it will all be worth it when we finally go on vacation. Money will have been saved, and I will get to focus on having fun, which is always a positive.

Do any of my readers have suggestions/recommendations on saving money while traveling?

2 Days and Counting

Remember how I said I wanted our spare bed to look like one from at a store?

I think we succeeded! Yay!

Don't you just love the Ralph Lauren Cream Lace bedskirt we bought from Macy's? I think it just adds that little bit of extra oomph! :)

image of bed skirt courtesy of Macy's

In case you are wondering, what I have discovered is that if you are going to make a bed up like they do in stores, you must start with a bed skirt, fitted sheet, flat sheet, blanket, duvet/comforter, and LOTS of pillows in different sizes.

Here's how you do it:

1. After putting on the bed skirt and fitted sheet, you tuck the flat sheet and blanket in using "hospital corners". (I'm not sure why since you can't see it?) Make sure the blanket is pulled down a good distance from the headboard, but the flat sheet is pulled all the way up to the headboard/top edge of the mattress. Before tucking the sheets and blanket in, you pull the flat sheet back so that it covers the top of the blanket. Then you can tuck it all in. 

2. The comforter/duvet is folded over itself at the bottom of the bed. (I just used the picture that came with my duvet as a guide.) 

3. Then you pile on all of the pillows on the bed adjusting as necessary until it looks awesome! :) 

4. I added a blanket at the bottom, because I had it. Other bloggers have recommended doing this for the "added interest" it provides. *shrugs*

Backing up just a bit, this is what is on the bed:
- duvet cover, pillow shams including the bright pink ones are Raymond Waites from Bloomingdales $130
- blanket at the foot of the bed is no longer sold from Pottery Barn bought for us as a wedding gift $80
- bed blanket that you can't see but I highly recommend is Ralph Lauren also bought as a wedding gift but currently being sold as closeout at Macy's and also found at Marshall's $30
- sheets are Ralph Lauren sateen 300 thread count from Marshall's $40
- king pillow cases are also Ralph Lauren 600 thread count from Home Goods $13
- feather and fiber fill pillows are a mix from Costco, my parents house, and Amazon $200
- feather mattress pad from Marshall's $50
- duvet feathers from Bed, Bath, and Beyond bought with gift cards from our wedding last year $100
- mattress protector from Macy's $50
- pillow covers from Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and Macy's $80
- headboard borrowed from my parents (and not going to stay permanently) $?
- mattress borrowed from my parents $?
- Ralph Lauren bed skirt from Macy's $70

Total cost: $843

It makes you sick how much can be spent on a bed, but I am excited that our guests should be super comfortable staying with us! Justin even went the extra mile last night and steamed the bed skirt and duvet cover. I think our guests possibly have a more comfortable bed then Justin and I do!

In other news, Justin worked on the bathroom last night bleaching all of the crevices and everything in between, so it looks nice and white. Tonight he said he will clean the kitchen, which is already pretty clean. We're just going to go over the floors, finish cleaning out the fridge, and make sure the cupboards are as clean as possible. (I can't stand going to other people's houses and letting them cook for me in their dirty kitchens. I'm much more content when the kitchen is clean, so why would I expect any different of my guests?)

We got rid of approximately 6 boxes of recycling this morning, and we have one final box of things to be stored at my parent's house. Before our guests arrive tomorrow, Justin and I anticipate going to my parent's house to retrieve extra wine, beer, and soda that was leftover from our wedding last year along with some lawn chairs so that tomorrow night we can have a bon fire. Justin's parents have some wood they are going to let us use, since our guests wanted to have a small get-together at our house.

Yes, you heard me correct. Along with having guests over and getting ready for a Saturday wedding soiree, Justin and I are also getting ready for our first house party. We decided a bonfire with s'mores and/or marshmallows, and beer might be the most appropriate way to spend our night, since I'm trying to keep people out of the house and away from my beautiful new (expensive) rug that I am not wanting to ruin too quickly.

So what do you think? Did we spend too much on that bed? (Yes.) Do we make having extras from a  wedding a year ago sound awesome? (It is.) Are you ready for a summer of warm days and cool nights when bon fires are appropriate and a fun way to spend an evening with friends? (I know I am!)

Spring Cleaning & Guest Prep

Yesterday I shared how our guest bedroom is coming together.

One thing I'm wanting to do is make the bed look like what you see in stores.

I found this website that recommends using a few things Justin and I don't have and cannot afford to buy in the next month, including a coverlet. Plus, this design doesn't really work when the duvet has a pattern. Perhaps more searching is needed. Any ideas?

Justin also did a number on the kitchen last night cleaning counters and most especially attacking the fridge.

I continued going through things (paperwork, coupons, mail) and installed one of my newest favorite organizers.

You see I was quite spoiled before getting married. When I lived with my family, I had 2 closets for clothes, a dresser, a bedside table, a desk, and drawers in my own personal bathroom. In Justin's and my shared rental house, I have 2/3 of the closet (dresses take up a lot of room!), half of the dresser, and a bedside table. Overall I am doing pretty good since I still have more space then Justin has, but unfortunately a side effect of living in a smaller space is that I have less room to store things. I've gotten rid of quite a bit, but there are some things you just can't get rid of. When we moved into this house I decided that my underwear, sleepwear, hair, and make-up products all had to fit comfortably in one large drawer. Obviously I got rid of a lot in order to make everything fit, but despite the fact that I would organize, and it would all be perfectly positioned in my drawer, inevitably, a few days later, everything would be tossed out of the drawer in a desperate search for one thing in particular, leading to more time needed for organization when I went to put everything back up. It was very annoying and frustrating. With the drawer organizers you see above, my drawer is now neatly separated into 3 different compartments. Everything has it's place, and the likelihood of my crazy haphazard take-everything-out-of-the-drawer approach to finding something is much reduced.

We still have quite a few things that need to get done before our guests arrive, but we are glad the visit has encouraged us to deeply clean our entire house. Aren't you glad you aren't us? ;)

As an aside, people who plan major events on holidays really aggravate me.

Hope you all are having a fantastic week so far!

Life Update

Yesterday and Tuesday I shared a financial update, so today I am going to share a life update.

First of all, I would like to encourage all of my female readers to start taking some sort of calcium vitamin. I actually just started this past week after a trip to Costco in which we picked up something ridiculous like 200 vitamins. (Justin is taking them too.) My grandmother recently fell and broke her hip which seemed like a good reason for me to start being more concerned about my own health. Osteoporoses can find anyone at any time, and I can say with almost absolute certainty that I do not get nearly the calcium my bones deserve. Luckily for me (and my inability to swallow "horse" pills) VitaFusion offers a gummy calcium vitamin making it easy to take. Unfortunately, gummy vitamins don't exactly taste like candy, but sometimes you just take what you can get. :)

In other news, Justin and I are both tracking our weight (and food) using a program called MyFitnessPal. Justin has already lost 10 pounds! I saw a sign yesterday that read "Never trust a skinny cook"; I think I may have to buy it. ;) We are both trying to find ways to eat healthier. I'm loving that Justin knows how to cook, because I feel like I am eating more fruits and vegetables and less over processed food including fewer preservatives. Our garden has already produced a number of tomatoes, and I am impatiently waiting for the other fruits to start growing.

Considering Justin and I have a lot of traveling coming up, I decided to check into Travel Hacking Cartel. All of the reviews I read were amazing; people really seemed to love the product. Unfortunately, I think I may be canceling before the free trial ends. I know there are ways to travel cheaply, but signing up for tons of credit cards when you have credit card debt seems like a bad plan. For one, I don't think Justin's credit is good enough (and I don't have credit). Secondly, if Justin's credit isn't good enough, signing up for credit cards will only make it worse! :( So now I am researching all that I can in the hopes of finding ways to reduce the cost of traveling.

Last but not least, Justin and I will be attacking our spare bedroom in full force this weekend. He already has plans to build our Ikea dresser tonight. Along with building the dresser, we are also planning on sifting through more of our junk, working on curtains for the spare bedroom, and who knows what else? Once we get started going through stuff, I never know exactly what will happen.

Are you making any life improvements this spring? Or what I would really love to hear: do you have any cheap travel tips that don't require credit card sign ups?

Hope you all have a fantastic and successful weekend!

Life With Furniture

When Justin and I got up on Saturday morning, we headed off to Dalton, GA to pick up the Karastan carpet we had bought and bound into a beautifully soft, turquoise rug. It was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the 70s, and as we drove further and further north, Justin got the great idea to just go on to Chattanooga, TN. What the heck? Why not?

That's what we did. And actually, that's what I thought today's post was going to be about. I was going to tell you about all of the great things we did in Chattanooga.

Luckily, or unluckily, we found ourselves roaming through a few thrift and antique stores emerging with nothing to show for it. We considered visiting an arts festival, but we decided the cost outweighed our interest. Plus, we knew a large furniture purchase loomed ahead. Eek!

So, hesitantly, we turned back toward GA and returned to Dalton just in time to pick up our beautiful new rug and head home.

On the way home, I was quite excited to pick up an 8x12 version of this:

image by Darwin Young; cropped & edited by me

I had actually ordered it via Costco's website on my phone while we were driving up to TN. I'm quite happy with the image since it was initially a pretty dark muted picture before I took the time to edit it. I wish I could get it printed larger than 8x12, but considering I began with a jpg, I'm afraid this may be the largest size I can get.

This leads us to Sunday... a very rainy, oh-shoot-we-have-guests-coming-over-and-we're-washing-the-sheets-and-moving-furniture-into-the-house Sunday! Yes, we moved furniture into the house on Sunday, because... we went out Sunday morning and bought furniture!

We may be $1000 or more broker this month than we were last month, but we now officially have a a dining room console (as opposed to a dining room server or china cabinet) and an Ikea dresser for the spare bedroom. (Ok, so maybe we only have the parts for the dresser. The spare bedroom is a mess right now, and we bought the dresser at 7PM on Sunday night which is a bit too late to ask someone to build it for you.) We also have a really pretty stand-alone mirror for our master bedroom. (It needs to be painted to match the room, but, right now, who's looking?!)

Because of all of the furniture purchases yesterday and the heavy lifting involved, Justin was in a pretty bad mood. Luckily, before going to bed, he cheered up quite nicely and commented to me that, with all of the new furniture in the house, he finally feels like he's at home. He said he had never prioritized buying furniture before, but he is glad we did.

We have already noticed a huge difference in the kitchen. We've been able to store a complete set of China, our nice steak knives (given to us for our anniversary from Justin's parents), our "nice" Oneida silverware, and even serving platters given to us for our wedding in our new dining room console. (I guess I should explain that it was originally sold as a living room console for the tv and such, but we thought it would make a great dining room piece.) The amount of space this adds to our usable kitchen area is astounding! It makes me all the more excited to put together our spare bedroom dresser with new hideaways for craft and sewing supplies as well as spare sheets, blankets, and towels for when we have guests. We are (or at least I am) so looking forward to having a guest-friendly house!

This is the point where I tell you that new furniture, when you don't have any furniture, is amazing. Now Justin and I must get back to saving, saving, saving... :)

Weekend Recap + Gardening

Don't you just love the spring?! The lovely weather, the beautiful flowers...

Justin and I had a pretty awesome weekend. We spent a great deal of time in Dalton, the carpet capital of Georgia (or so they say) picking out the carpet we will make into a rug. Then, on the way home, we stopped in Marietta and walked around the square shopping in antique and thrift stores. It's definitely one of my favorite places to roam.

The following day, before starting work on our garden, we went to one of my favorite places for breakfast and ate the most delicious peach pancakes with homemade whipped cream. Yum!

Our garden came together pretty quickly. We focused on planting just a few vegetables (fruits?) that we frequently consume, specifically tomatoes, okra, zucchini, squash, and basil. I can't actually say I helped much with the planting, but I did have a lot of fun taking pictures at the local Home Depot in the garden section. (Poor Justin had to garden shop alone as I was a bit distracted.) Plants were on sale for $2 a pot, so we quickly filled our buggy with approximately 3 of each type we wanted. (Apparently it's best to plant in 3s?) 

Of course, we also bought a few other things while we were there including mats for the front and back doors. It gets pretty tiresome sweeping and vacuuming up all of the dirt, grass, etc... that gets brought in on our shoes. Hopefully the mats will prevent that from being such a problem in the future.

By the end of the weekend, our garden was completed and we were quite happy although somewhat tired. We are now impatiently waiting for the vegetables to grow, so that we can start saving money at the grocery store and enjoying delicious homegrown vegetables. I'm not sure there is anything better. :)

Making the Rounds...

As I was making the rounds on google (and twitter and facebook), I stumbled across this awesome site for purchasing wedding (and home) accessories: Luna Bazaar. They have awesome accessories, including vases that I am in love with! The best part? The prices!

This vase, for example, is only $2.95!

I  absolutely adore vases and glassware, especially in mass quantities. Don't tell Justin, but I want one of each. ;)

They also have a variety of paper lanterns, candle holders, napkin rings, perfume bottles, etc, etc... It would be the perfect one-stop shop for wedding or event decorating or a great place to buy things to decorate your home on the cheap. To make your shopping experience even better, they also let you shop by color! What better way to find exactly what you are looking for! :)

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In other news, Justin and I are gearing up for the summer as well as continuing in our spring cleaning and organizing.

Last night we bought 6 tomato plants from Costco. We thought we were only buying 2. Oops! It's a good thing I like tomatoes! (But do I like them that much?!)

Justin also worked on cleaning out from under the stove, while I got creative with our sewing supplies. (Apparently spools of thread belong next to the cookbooks. Don't ask why. They just do.)

Over the weekend, Justin and I are planning on spending some time at a carpet outlet store. (I'm planning on spending some time in the Pottery Barn outlet store as well!) We're still looking to buy enough carpet for a rug. We may buy the Ikea dresser this weekend. We'll see how much time we have.

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend! :)

Cookbooks, Easter, and Fridays . . . Oh my!

This morning I woke up and decided to make a Pinterest cookbook. Why? Because. (Doesn't that provide you with lots of incite into my personal life?)

I have sooooo many things bookmarked on Pinterest that never get made, because Justin is the cook/chef/baker in this household. (I pretend to know what I'm doing, but I just don't.) The likelihood of me pulling up a recipe on my laptop for Justin to use while in the kitchen is just not that likely. (Plus, wouldn't it be fun if a lot of the recipes worked out and we could print some fun pinterest cookbooks for the family for Christmas?)

I'm trying out Blurb, in case you are wondering. Blurb allows you to be able to put together a book online, through a program you download, or, if you are super awesome, in InDesign. While I do consider myself super awesome and thought for about 10 seconds about using InDesign, I ultimately decided I wanted this cookbook to be quick and easy. I'm currently using the "cookbook" templates found in Blurb's downloadable program.

Aren't the page styles simply gorgeous?

Plus, they are sooo easy to make! I believe you can even make a book for your ipad, if you own one.

Anyway, Justin and I are in charge of bringing dessert to Easter lunch/dinner on Sunday, and we still don't know what we are bringing. Justin has mentioned making tiffany blue meringues in honor of me. (Awww!!) Other things we have talked about include a French dessert I had a German friend help me decipher and (assuming we have no time) a chocolate mousse cake from Costco. We also have to bring (homemade) French bread, field greens and spinach leaves for salad, and a homemade vinaigrette. (We have a hard time buying food from the store since Justin's homemade food is so much better!)

Perhaps over the weekend I will get Justin to write out his French bread recipe and photograph it. Justin has been working on it and modifying it from Julia Child's original recipe. Every time he makes it, it gets even more delicious!

Do you have any exciting plans for the Easter holiday? I'd love to hear them! :)

Curtains & Housewares

I think I had mentioned last week that Justin was going to go back up to Ocho during their 42nd Anniversary sale to buy fabric for curtains. At $1.99 per pound, I assumed we would be getting the most fabric for our money. Justin came back with lots of fabric (approximately 4 bolts) for approximately the price I was expecting to pay for two curtain panels at Wal Mart (which I assume is the cheapest place to buy panels). Considering we were going to need enough panels to cover at least 4 windows (that needed to match) in our living room/dining room area and 2 windows (that did not need to match) in our master and spare bedrooms, we were looking at a lot of money being spend on curtains! Obviously when I received the e-mail from Ocho saying they were having a sale, I jumped at it!

While Justin didn't find a lot of fabric that would be very useful to us, he did return with a bolt of organza which we will be cutting into panels for all of the windows in our house. I like the prospect of doing two layers for the windows. (I never claimed to have cheap taste!) We are looking at doing a top layer of some sort of thick(er) fabric and a bottom layer of organza.

Slate Blue Curtains

Something like this awesome set of turquoise curtains found at World Market except with our white organza covering the little bit of window you still see. Speaking of turquoise, we are actually going to be using turquoise in our living/dining area! Justin wasn't able to find any awesome fabric at Ocho on sale, but they have had some in the past. We may have to go back this weekend to get the fabric at a per yard price rather than the cheaper per pound price (or we may just purchase these awesome panels from World Market that, in my opinion, are reasonably priced!). Justin did find a pink fabric and a cream fabric with leaves that we might could use for the curtains in our spare bedroom. We aren't quite sure which yet, since we haven't bought a bedspread for the room. For the master bedroom, we may just stick with the organza, because I'm not in love with our royal blue Anthropologie bedspread. I can't see us keeping it forever, and I don't intend on spending a lot of money on curtains that won't match our bedspread or look good in the bedroom years down the road.

Even though Justin and I were babysitting most of the weekend, we did find some time to go check out a few home improvement stores for ideas and to make a few purchases. We ended up returning home with some Martha Stewart curtain rods to encourage Justin to complete the curtain-making process prior to the arrival of our May guests.

Martha Stewart Living Egg Telescoping Curtain Rod Set

Justin and I disagreed on whether to use these oval shaped rods or to use more circular shaped rods. We ended up going with the ovular, because that's what I liked. We decided to bring them home and test them out. Justin was afraid with the small space between two of the living room windows that the rods would look too wide. When we brought them home, he quickly changed his mind. However, we have not yet put the curtain rods up to determine if they are in fact our ideal curtain rods for that space.

DesignView Maple Providence Bamboo Roman Shade

We also got a roman shade for our kitchen window. Right now the kitchen has some white shutters that always get splattered with food. (I think that is one of the downsides to marrying a cook.) Anyway, I thought it would be awesome to have a shade we could pull down when we wanted privacy and lift up when cooking. Justin isn't sure if he can secure the shade the way the window was made, but we bought it anyway, so that he could try.

Hemnes Dresser

A trip to Ikea showed us that we were both interested in getting a Hemnes dresser for our spare bedroom. The roof slants and considering we already have a wardrobe in there, neither of us thought a tall dresser would be ideal for the space.  Considering our wardrobe is the Birkeland, we considered the Birkeland dresser for a moment (so that the handles would match), but inevitably Justin and I both liked the structure of the Hemnes better. We've decided that while this month would be a bad month for making another purchase, when we buy it next month to finish the spare bedroom, we will buy the Birkeland spare knobs and dresser handles to complete the dresser's look and make both the Birkeland and Hemnes go together more seamlessly.

Our final stop this weekend was at a thrift shop in town called Last Chance. They donate their proceeds to the care and protection of animals, so you don't feel too badly about the money you spend there (or the donations you give). While we were initially just browsing for anything cheap that interested us, we found a full set of China. I began the process of buying this particular set before getting married when I ran across it at an estate sale. It was missing a bunch of pieces, but it was such a good deal that, despite not having the cash on me, I convinced my parents to pay for it (with me paying them back after a visit to the bank). Then they decided to finish purchasing the set for Justin and I for our wedding by paying astronomical prices for pieces at antique stores when really the china wasn't worth that much to me (or in general). After finally convincing them to save their money and quit buying crazy expensive dishes that weren't worth it, two years later... I found a complete set of that same china for a crazy price that I wasn't willing to pay. The caveat was that the store was having a sale this weekend where anything that had come to the store prior to February 1st was half off. At half off, Justin and I were willing to pay for a complete set of china.

We're actually pretty excited about this china. We currently have approximately 20 place settings, so our intention is to use it as normal day-to-day china. (Is there such a thing?) Knowing that we have so many place settings, we aren't very worried about it breaking. Plus, it will be fun to serve friends and family on fancy matching plates! :)

With new silverware, China, and placemats, I will have to set up a display to show you how our diningware is looking! :) Dinner party in our near future, yes?

Need a Wine Rack?

Branch Wall Mount Wine Rack

I saw this today on Pottery Barn and I thought it was the cutest wine holder! I've never seen anything like it. What do you think? Awesome? (Plus, it's on sale right now!)

Busy, Busy Weekend (Cleaning & Organizing)

First of all, let me talk to you all about Justin's and my budget for February. Despite our best efforts, we were unable to stay on budget in all areas. (Unfortunately, one cannot control variances in utility bills for broken appliances.) We did handle our food budget better though despite still being over. We were able to put more money toward our credit card payments than originally expected, so YAY!!! (I consider that a success, even in the smallest sense of the word!)

And while it seems counterproductive, Justin and I went to Ocho, a fabric store in Atlanta to take advantage of their 42nd anniversary sale. We looked at rugs that were being sold for a quarter of their usual price. We also looked at fabric that we were considering for homemade curtains. We're going to have aqua curtains with liners! (Justin is going to get the fabric today. We were a few days early for the sale this weekend.) Yay! I'm so excited Justin agreed to let me decorate the house with my favorite color!

Don't you love our new rug? ;) Actually, I read about designing a paper rug (typically done with newspaper) to determine exactly how big you want/need your rug to be. Justin and I have decided on purchasing carpet and getting it sized to 7 x 11.3 feet. Justin decided our rug, when we get it, should be the golden ratio. It sounded awesome to me. :)

While we were too early to buy the designer fabric, we weren't too early to get some placemats on sale for $.50 a piece. (Forgive the awful phone photography.) I thought these placemats would be nice when I eventually get the beautiful aqua china I want and decorate. In the meantime, these will be stored away. (Despite not needing them, we couldn't refuse $.50 placemats. That just seems unheard of!)

Justin's parents gave us a straw holder with the most ugly green top. I immediately pulled out my paints and got busy altering it to my taste. What you are looking at is the straw top with a fresh coat of turquoise (plus white) paint on it. I'm hoping a coat of a gloss paint will bring it around and make it look better, but we will see. For now, it is a work in progress. It is definitely a step up from what we were using to hold straws.

We also started working in our spare bedroom to get ready for our May guests. Justin put a peg board on the back of the spare bedroom door to hang sewing stuff. It makes it easier for him to get to and use. While he was doing that, I was sorting through sewing stuff (and some craft supplies) to organize one of our drawers. Considering what a mess it was, I thought I did a pretty good job. In this picture, it is currently missing a tupperware that I will use to store more things. (The tupperware needed to be cleaned.) Plus, I'm certain more sewing supplies will find their way on to the peg board. We will need more room in the drawer for craft supplies I'm sure. Most of my arts and craft supplies are still at my parents house, so it was really a big deal to get the sewing stuff organized.

Next up we will get to go through Justin's electronics and decide which pictures to hang. We're getting through it though! I can't wait to show you all the end results of our efforts before our friends come to visit. I'm certain it will look amazing! :)

By the way, anybody have any awesome ideas for storing cds and/or patterns? I'm looking for a way to store them on a bookshelf or the like without leaving it looking like a mess. Something that is easy to do (cheap) and easy to keep up. Ideas?