"So fascinating...."

We are knee-deep in paint at this time. Sooo....here is a new pic of the cats!=)

Den Update and Kitchen "Before"

Here is the new paint color for our den! We chose Ralph Lauren "Old Violin" because it was dark enough for J but was also neutral for me! Again, please pardon the mess. We ARE renovating!=) We are very pleased with the color. We are looking for furniture for this room. We hope to find cream colored (or something lighter than the carpet) sofa and chair & 1/2 for the room. We'll use an existing chair currently in the living room as an accent chair as well. We still have to correct the trim where paint got around the painters tape. We are looking forward to decorating this space!

***Next...the kitchen! We will also begin painting the kitchen later this week. We will continue the chocolate color on the bottom half of the wall. We'll then paint a lighter color on top. I hope to have pictures soon!

This is the the wall that connects the kitchen to the dining room. We are probably going to paint the color currently in the dining room on the top portion of the walls in the kitchen. You can see we went ahead and painted a section of the wall in the chocolate color.

Mirrored Napping Courtesy of Vit and Sophia

Sauna Room & Den Renovations - "Before" Pictures

J's brother, A, and J have recently began renovations in our sauna room. We will also be painting our den as well! Here are some of the before pictures. I will also say that J and A did all of this! I told my hubby, J, that I will help anyway that I can at this stage in the process...without hurting the progress of the project. He knows I'll help any way I can at this point. I'm fortunate that J and his brother are so skilled in doing all of this. They have certainly done a great job so far!
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Sauna Room (Located on the 1st floor of our house) before renovations. You'll notice the sauna blocks a door to the back of our house.



In progress: Sauna was removed. Bro-in-law, A, will be taking it to his house. The wood paneling was also torn down and the carpet was ripped up. Dry wall was put up and they have begun putting the "mud" over the dry wall. You'll also notice a nice new door was installed so we now have an entrance to the back yard from the first floor of our house! Thank you guys!!!

We aren't sure what color we will paint this room. J and I are talking about using a lighter color since it is a smaller area. We'll probably continue that color into the adjacent laundry room too. The beige color that is currently in the laundry room makes it look dingy.

We are planning on putting tile here in place of the carpet. I wish the guys had me take a picture of them working in the room!

Here is a picture of the den with the paint color originally on the walls when we bought it. We normally have a white couch cover over the couch, but it was removed so we could paint in here. One of our cats, Vit, has apparently decided to help model our couch! PLEASE pardon the mess! Renovation is soon to begin!

You can see where we started taping. This is the view from the couch towards the french doors that open to the deck on the back of the house. Those white cabinets connect the den to the kitchen.

View of the fireplace from the kitchen next to the den. As you can see, the guys rocked out to some Rock Band. I shyly attempted two songs and didn't do too bad....LOL

I can't wait to decorate this space after we paint!!

***I will post more pictures as we go along. We got some work to do in both rooms for sure, but I know we will have fun!

Valentine's Day 2009!

This was our first year getting to celebrate Valentine's Day as a married couple. Our first Valentine's Day was last year before we got married. It's my favorite holiday so I always look forward to it!

I had an appointment downtown that morning, but I left him a trail of Hershey kisses.....




.....that led to his first Valentine's Day card. I found two that I loved: one card that was sweet and one HILARIOUS card that matched us perfectly. I had to get both!



Jonathan opened his gift after I got back from my appointment. He really liked the Hershey kiss trail I had left for him! We actually left it up for a few days! I got him some Valentine's Day goodies, a picture of me from the wedding he had asked for (He really liked the one I got my parents for Christmas) along with a picture that had both of us in it.




Jonathan gave me PRETTY daisies that I ooohed and awwed over! That cats liked them too!



We went to dinner that night at the Aquarium and ate some wonderful food! Happy 1st Valentine's Day!

The beat goes on...

I competed in the Nashville Starz dance competition this past weekend. Thank you to J and my parents for your love and support!

I did not dance as well as I would have liked, but it was a WONDERFUL learning experience! I know I have a lot to work on and I look forward to becoming a better dancer and competitor!

Yes!