Tapping my heels together...

...and thinking to myself - there's no place like home.  Like Glenda the Good Witch said in the Wizard of Oz, there really is no place like home and this weekend that fact really hit home (literally).  

On Saturday afternoon between 3:30 and 4:00, *it* happened.  A tornado came through our neighborhood damaging trees and houses.  Thankfully, no one was injured but it was a tense, indescribable few hours.


Our day was progressing much like any Saturday...cleaning, spending time with the family, and working on a few house projects.  In fact, we were finally getting around to installing the upholstered headboard in our master bedroom.  I was so excited to finally have a weekend at home to get the project completed!  We were working our way through the installation, doing the measurements and dreaded math, and taking photos to document the process...  Here's a picture of us putting the anchors into the wall for the headboard Saturday afternoon around 2:45.

Photo taken around 2:45 Saturday afternoon

We knew storms were headed our way with the potential for tornadoes, BUT the likelihood of one actually hitting us...easily shrugged off, of course.  I mean, really, what are the chances a tornado will actually hit our home??!?

Mr. Man decided we should head downstairs to watch the news, just in case.  I really thought he was just tired of working on the headboard and was looking for any excuse to quit, but I eventually stopped and headed downstairs with him anyway.

When we turned on the news, we heard about tornadoes entering Southwestern Wake County and that caught our attention.  I started taking the cushions off my beloved couch and stacking them in our tiny bathroom downstairs under the steps (the thought of my precious cushions in the bathroom really grossed me out though!) to create a safe room.  We also gathered up a flashlight and tried to lay over any heavy furniture that could hurt us.  


Less than 10 minutes after I got the bathroom all prepped as our "safe place", we saw on a map that a tornado was on the ground less than a 1/4 mile from our house.  At that point, we looked outside and saw that everything was a funky shade of green.  ODD.  Then, the cable went out.  Our link to the outside world was gone.  Where was the tornado?!?!  How in the world are we supposed to know where the tornado is when the cable goes out??  


Then, we heard it.  I still can't quite describe it.  Certainly not the freight train you always hear about on the news, but it was loud.  The sound was more like a crazy, loud whoooshing sound, but super deep.  I can still hear it in my mind as I type this, but I can't describe it with justice.  I yelled for Mr. Man to get in the bathroom.  I just kept repeating over and over that I could hear it coming.  


Within seconds, I realized it was actually going to happen.  We were about to get hit by a tornado.  The crazy childhood nightmares I had when I was young were about to actually come true.  


I crouched in our tiny bathroom holding our precious baby under my couch cushions.  I no longer cared about how gross it was that my cushions were in there...what mattered most was that they were a physical and even greater psychological barrier between my family and the raging storm outside.  Mr. Man rushed into the room, pulled our kitchen table in front of the door, and we all huddled together.  I asked Mr. Man if we were going to be okay.  He nervously replied that he didn't know (how reassuring!).  The house shook, the baby cried, we said a prayer, and then it was over.  


We were okay.  Scared but okay.  Nervously, Mr. Man peered out of the bathroom and saw the bright sunlight streaming through the windows.  I crawled out with the babe and immediately saw pine needles in all of our windows facing southwest.  The smell of fresh pine was overwhelming.  We heard neighbors yelling and sirens so we went outside to survey the damage.  Lots of trees down, but everyone was accounted for and safe.  Thank God.  


All-in-all, we were fortunate.  Our house sustained exterior damage due to trees falling on it, but the inside only has minor damage in a few rooms.  We weren't able to stay in our home Saturday night because we didn't have electricity for awhile and wanted to take the babe somewhere else, but we're back.  We're back home, and there truly is no place like it.  We have repairs to do, but we are healthy, happy and alive.  And like one of our friends said, "Mary loves a project!".  So, here we go...  Time to fix up the house and move on!  And just in case we ever have to crouch in that tiny bathroom again, I'm going to be giving it a new paint job!  Weirdly enough that's one of the things that crossed my mind while we were huddled in there...  I was upset that I haven't been able to paint it yet!  :)  Ahhh, I'm crazy.

Photos taken around 4:15 Saturday afternoon

I can't promise when my next blog update will be since we're going to be focusing on family and getting the repairs organized, but I'll be sure to keep you updated.  There will certainly be plenty to blog about.  Never a dull moment around here.

PS - Sorry for all the weird spacing between paragraphs and pictures. Something weird going on with blogger when I migrated everything over onto the new laptop. No time to fix it now, but I'll figure it out later!

Whew.... a week off from blogging!?!?

I just took an unintentional week off from blogging....oopsy!  

Things sure have been busy around the house, though.  I've been hauling mulch for the flower beds, tending our growing vegetable plants, and chasing the babe through the house.  We also got a new computer this week, so we've been migrating files over and things are finally starting to shape up.  

I'm hoping to get back to blogging next week, but for now just wanted to give you a little update and a promise that I'll be back at it soon!  Everyone needs a break every now and then anyway, right?  :)

Hope everyone is having a great week!  

Sneak Peek! Upholstered Headboard Update

In March, I posted all about our master bedroom makeover project.  If you didn't get to read that post, you can check it out here!

Anyway....I'm happy to report that I've finally made some more progress!  Tonight, I started working on the upholstered headboard and was able to knock it out in under three hours.  That includes a couple of breaks, too, so all-in-all not that long!  There were definitely some frustrating moments, particularly because I'm too much of a prefectionist, but thanks to Mr. Man we sorted it out and got it finished.

We still have to mount it on the wall and then I'll show you some pictures of it actually in the room with the new wall color.  Lots more to do in the master bedroom, though, but we'll get to it!  Now that the babe is crawling, she's getting into everything and it has really cut down on the time I have to get these projects knocked out on my own during the day! 

Here's a sneak peek for you!  Check out how those medallions line up across the top!  That took math and patience!  Two things I'm not particularly good with....  :)

Kitchen Remodel - Update

If you missed my post on our kitchen renovation, please start by checking out all the progress we made here!  If you're up to speed, then you already know about the painting and lighting projects we completed.  Once that was all wrapped up, we moved on to the major task of changing out the countertops and sink.

This was by the far the most stressful part of the project from a mental standpoint.  In terms of the countertop material we wanted, it was easy.  We had granite in our last house, and I knew that's what we would go with again.  The main issue was selecting the right color.  I just felt like there was so much pressure to get it right.  I doubt we'll be in this house forever so I wanted to go with something I would love, but that would also be neutral enough for resale.  

To help refresh your memory, our cabinets are a creamy white color and the floor is a light gray ceramic tile.  Because of this color combination, my initial thought was to do a lighter color granite like these two samples.

Bianco Sardo - White/Cream Background with Gray Specks

New Venetian Gold - Creamy with lots of brown tones

I really liked the Bianco Sardo, but it seemed like a safe choice.  Plus, I was really worried that it would just blend in too much.  If we're paying for granite, I wanted it to stand out a bit.  As for the New Venetian Gold, there was just no way it was going to work.  There was far too much brown going on to blend in with all of the gray colors in our open floor plan.  End of story on that one.

Since I was really looking for something that was going to stand out, I started looking for inspiration images online for darker countertops with white cabinets.  It's a very traditional combination, and I found these two inspiration images online and immediately fell in love.  Please note that this first image is by one of my favorite designers of all time, Candice Olson!  Love her and love that she's also a tall chick!

From fellow tall chick designer, Candice Olson

I don't know the designer's name on this one, but LOVE IT!

After drooling over these images for a few days, I mustered up the courage to go with a darker color.  I viewed samples from our supplier and decided on Steel Gray.  I really love that the major color is black, but it perfectly incorporates some lighter grays, too.  It also matches the Elephant Skin paint on the back wall, and it's going to look great with those stainless appliances I'm (still) campaigning for!  

Steel Gray - The Winner!!

Once the color was chosen, it was smooth sailing from there.  We let the supplier take out the old countertops and sink...with a little supervision of course.

We also had a beautiful new 40/60 undermount sink installed with a new (non-wiggly) faucet from Lowe's.  It has the fancy pull down sprayer I've missed so much, and the undermount lets me wipe debris directly into the sink for easy garbage disposal!  

Soooo, that's our kitchen remodel so far.  I still have a few more finishing touches to do, but I'm really loving where it's headed.  To help get a good gauge on the progress so far, here's our before and after!

Please let me know what you think, and I'll be sure to keep you posted as I finish up some of the final details!!

Someday...Even My Pantry Will Be Pretty

I just had to share these amazing before and after pictures from House of Smith's.  They revamped their pantry and it looks amazingly organized and stylish.  Check it out!  

And here's a closer view of the wonderful graphic vinyl print they used on the back walls!  I'm in love.  I'm also digging all of the different types of storage containers utilized to help keep the space organized.  They're functional, but they are also super attractive (and pretty darn cheap!).

Don't go feeling all bad if your pantry or cabinets don't look this amazing.  My pantry looks atrocious!  But someday when I've finished up all of my other house projects (ahahah), maybe I'll get around to fixing mine up to be this lovely!  I can dream, right?  But in the meantime, I'm going to live vicariously through House Of Smith's and envision this every time I open up my disastrous pantry. 

Have you found any inspiring makeovers lately?  Please share!!

Stuck In The Great Outdoors

Today was a fabulous day in North Carolina! In fact, it is still 77F degrees at almost 10 PM! I spent the day cleaning up from our camping adventure, doing laundry, and enjoying some outside time with the babe. It was nice to take a little break from blogging to do housework...Ummm, totally kidding on that one.

Anyway, I know everyone's been waiting on pins and needles for the camping trip update, and I'm here to tell you the wait is over (total sarcasm here folks!).

So, let's see. We departed the house after lunch on Saturday and this is what the car looked like for our overnight camping trip....in a camper with a microwave, stove/oven, refrigerator, freezer, toilet, and a shower.  Boy, we were sure roughing it weren't we?  By the looks of things, we were ready to tackle the craziest of adventures.  Sigh.

Now, for the best part!  We drove 25 minutes (this makes me laugh, too) from the house to the campground at a local lake.  Once we got there, we proceeded to wait in line to enter for 20 minutes or so.  At this point, I casually pointed out to Mr. Man that it was going to take us longer at the guard gate than it actually took us to drive from home.  He wasn't amused, but the kiddos look like they're having a blast, eh?  Please note that we let the Alfster (our pup!) ride shotgun.  That always gets us some funny looks from cars passing by.

Once we arrived at the gatehouse, they politely informed us that the gates were locked at 8:00 PM.  My ears perked up at that one, and I'm pretty sure I let out an audible gasp.  What if the babe lost her marbles and we needed a quick exit?  Her bedtime is 8:00 PM!!!  We won't know if we need to get out of dodge until 8:00?!?!  I didn't take a picture of my face at this point, but this is how I felt (see the babe's smooshed face pic below).  No fear, though, if we need to get out after 8:00, it's as easy as calling 911.  No joke, this is what they said.  Once I realized that calling 911 was my only way out, I sucked it up and prepared to enjoy myself. 

Once we arrived at the camper, we met up with the rest of the fam, and I'll admit we all started to relax a bit (dare I admit to enjoying myself??).  Things were going well until we decided to pose for group family pictures and a giant (maybe an overstatement) limb fell out of a nearby tree.  Another close call, shew, but definitely not 911 worthy.  Stuck again.

All kidding aside, though, we had a great time.  We cooked dinner outside, put the babe down to sleep at 8:00 and she actually went right to sleep, and then the adults hung out by the campfire.  It really was a great time....and the babe did really well!  So all of that overdramatic worrying I did was totally not warranted in the end. 

After several weeks of stress, getting out of town (even if it was only 25 minutes away) was exactly what we needed.  See, look how happy we are!  Please note that I made this picture black and white to disguise the fact that I'm not wearing makeup.  Not sure it helped.  

So, that was the great camping adventure!  Since the babe did so well, I'm sure Mr. Man will be asking to go on another trip soon.  Until then, it's back to house projects.  We bought the plywood for the upholstered headboard I hope to make this week, and we also bought a new storm door for the front of the house!  I'm super excited about this one, too!  So, stay tuned and I'll get back to regular house updates soon!

Fleas!

Ahhhh, the weekend is here and I have the pleasure of laying in bed sitting down to type a blog post in peace without the babe swatting at the keyboard like King Kong.  It's gonna be a good day!

The major plan for this weekend is our inaugural camping trip with the babe.  Now, with that said, don't think we're going to be majorly roughing it here.  We're going with family and taking a small camper with us, so it's not like we're going to be tent camping ten miles from the nearest toilet.  That doesn't mean I'm not scared, though.  What if she gets too cold?  What if she sleeps like crap and keeps everyone awake all night?  Blah, blah, blah...  We're going to do it, though, and I'm going to do my best to stay positive and stop dreading what could happen.  It will be fine, and I'll have pictures to show her someday when she's older about how brave mommy was by taking her camping when she was 8 months old.  Yes, we'll survive and I know I'm totally being a wuss.  More to come on this one, though.

Because of our little camping trip, I have to miss another weekend of the Raleigh Flea Market.  Since we moved here, I have not had a chance to go, but I've heard from several locals that it is a fabulous place to find furniture (and other stuff!) for reasonable prices.  In my head when I envision the flea market, I hear angels singing and I see glorious pieces of cheap furniture in need of a fresh coat of paint and maybe some reupholstering.  Ohhh happy day!  Back to reality, though....  I haven't been yet so who knows what I will actually find, but the idea of it has me super excited.  Maybe I can go next weekend...  Until then, here are some other DIY projects that have me dreaming up ideas for what I can do with one of my very own flea market finds.

Love this chalkboard dresser from Isabella and Max Rooms

Armchair Redo By That's My Letter

Damask Dresser by Twice Lovely

A lamp base turned table by Richmond Thrifter

Dorothy Draper knockoff by Centsational Girl

Any yard sale, thrift store, craigslist or flea market finds caught your eye lately?  I would love to see them!  And hopefully you'll be seeing some from me soon!!