And the winner is...

I know I said I would get right back to you about what house we chose. I am so sorry it has taken me forever to get back to you on this. I had a few people pick both houses actually! In the end we picked option number ….. 

Wait for it....

ONE!!!! 

We bought the first house! The deal is done! We could not be more excited to move into our cute new home with our dog and start making improvements!  

To give those of you who have never bought a house the break down here are the phases of the process we have gone though: 

1.       We put in an offer. First you sign a bunch of contracts with your agent and figure out what price you want to offer. In our case, there were three other offers coming on the house. So we knew offering less than asking was out of the question. To our REALTORS advice we also opted not to ask for concessions for closing costs. She thought this would give us more room for negotiations on the house for repairs after our inspection and she was right.

2.       You wait. You wait for the seller to get back to you. In our case they got back to us about 24 hours later. They countered with a few changes and after Mr. A got pissed off that we were not getting a deal (even though we were getting a house for WELL under our budget) we settled on the details. Sometimes you need to know when you have found a good deal for you.

3.       You wait some more. You wait while your realtor and their realtor drum up all the paperwork on the offer and you sign away again.

4.       Inspection. We have what in Texas is called an 7 day “option period”. Basically what this means is we give earnest money to the sellers of $100 so they will not sell the house to anyone else, while we got the inspection done. We had 7 days to get it done, and get cracking on asking for repairs. Two days after the offer was accepted we had our inspection done. (more on this later)

5.       Negotiations on repairs. After we tabulated all the repairs that the inspector suggested we had our REALTOR ask the sellers for about $2600 in repairs. They basically laughed at us and said they would do $750… they suck. We settled on $1000 in repairs with them also having an electrician come out and fix all of the issues with the electrical system. So with that it worked out to be about $1500 in repairs. So BAM done.

6.       Final Contract and amendments. We signed away on our final negotiations, including getting that totally bad ass picnic table you see in the listing, and signed the final contracts today! Woot Woot! 

So there you have it. We are now out of our 7 day option period and the house is ours (mostly). We still need to get to closing. We gave them an escrow check and are closing on April 25^th! In a month Mr. A, Harry and I will be closing on our first house! I am so pumped up right now! 

Now we get to the fun stuff… picking paint colors to cover up that horrible red wall and possibly paint the fireplace! Who’s with me!?

Cus where I sleep is the most important place in our home.

On our recent trip to Philly it was 10000 million degrees out. Mr. A and I were staying at Sarah's house and she of course had a fabulous guest bedroom for us.

On the bed she had a light cotton quilt that felt great to sleep with even though it was 10000 million outside. I loved it so much I decided right then and there I was going to but one for our bed in Texas. All we had was our down duvet that we would fold at the foot of the bed in the summer, but the bed just never looked finished. Plus it was always too hot! You can see a picture of what I am talking about here:

After some serious searching at Target, Crate and Barrel, Dillard's, Macy's and several other places we headed to Marshall's. First thing we found was what we bought. I was perfect! $40 king size quilt in our bedroom nutrual color pallet! Can't believe my luck on this bad boy!  We also spent $15 on a bed skirt and all of a sudden BAM bedroom makeover for $55 bucks!

What do you think?

How my garden grows!

So in my last post about gardening I mentioned I wanted to tackle something that scared the crap out of me. I always kill everything and that I had no idea what I was doing. Well... that is sill the case. But, and this is a big but (hehe I said big butt) things are not all the way dead and we have added even more things for me to kill!

Mr. A was so excited about the first plants we bought that he took me out and bought a whole herb garden set up! I know, so cute! We bought sweet basil, thyme, sage, and got fancy with some upside down tomatoes and peppers!

We were told to get organic planting soil because we would be ingesting the stuff. We also got liquid seaweed apparently a great organic plant food! It seems to be going fairly well so far. Things are dying but they are also growing. I am hoping they are just in shot and will come back to full health soon!
Here is how things look as of this morning:

My tomatoes are sprouting! We will be turning this pot upside down soon and then they should grow big awesome tomatoes! I can't wait to see if I kill these!

These little guys have actually got much bigger, and we have little guy to watch over them!

These are not dead just yet!

The peppers are coming along. I have had to fuss with them a bit though. Who knows, I may just kill them anyway. I am so good at that.

And my herbs. I am going to be cooking with them tonight!

I am a master florist...

Or maybe I am in my head... but whatever. I decided to try somthing that scares the crap out of me this weekend. I planted live flowers!

After an hour or so at Home Depot and many phone calls to my mom, here is the before and after. Everything lived through the night so I take that as a huge accomplishment. Don't judge me please. I kill everything in my house other than Mr. A and our dog.

Shopping Retail is for the Birds

I recently competed my first grown up house project and really loved it. I was inspired by this project to try to complete the look in the rest of our bedroom. Mr. A and I plan to buy a new bed at some point so we refuse to buy new bedding. Still the miss-matched look we had going on before was a bit, well, ugly and not complete.

In comes my coworker, Devon, who is decorating her whole home and knows quite a bit about where to get good deals on home goods. I knew I wanted something to bring in a pop of color on the bed without clashing with the rest of the bedroom. She suggested we check out the Dillard's in Highland mall. I was all, gee thanks but I don't shop there. She then informed me that this was no ordinary Dillard's, no no. Everything in that bitch is 70% off! What!?

We headed over there on our lunch break to see what we could find. Well I think we did pretty freaking awesome!!!

The whole look I got for about $60

This pillow was about $40 and I got it for $10

This one was about $40 and I got it for about $6

This one was like $70 and I got it for $12

This one was $50 and I got it for $9

This one was ridiculous! This one was $135 and I got it for $25!

You much check this place out. Word on the street is it is closing and these deals are not going to last forever!

Home decor is hard. That's all.

And now for the update I know you all have been waiting for... my shelving unit project! I will start with this, I have discovered I am in no way creative. I have no skill for home decorating and I think I will have to work for years to get to a level where I can actually blog about my house and how pretty it is. For now let's pretend I am Young House Love and I totally know what I am doing.

I first started by clearing my unit completely. I then laid it all out next to the unit and started to take inventory of what I actually wanted to have out and what I just had out because I had to stick things on shelves. As you can see there was no theme whatsoever, and there was no rhyme or reason to what I had on there.

Next I knew I wanted to make the shelves more practical, and I needed to be able to cover up some of the ugly old albums and such I have collected over the years. I found the PERFECT solution! These brown and cream canvas bins from Target! They are the absolute perfect fit! I like the simplicity of them. I Love Love Love these less than $10 bins!!!!

Here is the brand and packaging. They apparently are part of a big shelving system for your closets and can be found at most Targets in lots of colors and patterns!

 Next, I read that organizing books by color can really give an organized look. I totally was not sure about using all the colors I had but I thought I would give it a try. I thought they came out cute! I moved them around from cube to cube until I found a good balance.

 I then stored all of my old miss matched albums in the bins, and then hid them away forever!

 Here is the whole thing mid way through, I changed out all my picture frames to be the same family and look. I think that finally brought everything together. I moved things from other parts of the house to bring in more color and "casual elegance" that I am so desperate to have! I still don't know what I am doing at this point.

 SIX HOURS LATER.... This was the final result. I am really happy with the way things turned out. I am sure I will keep moving things around. I for sure did not want to go out and buy more stuff to go in these shelves so for working with what I have in the house. So with that I don't think I did too bad for only spending $40 on the bins and nothing else!

Inspiration Needed!

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What do you think of this? Is it too much? I don't think I want all that clutter. So let me try for something else! 

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I like the feel of this one even though this is a little different set up than my unit. I like that it is still practical. 

I am taking advice from Young House Love on how to decorate shelves. Today I am heading out to look for bins and storage for my unit. I will let you know what I find! 

Bedroom Bookshelf Project

Mr. A and I are going to be signing another year lease on our apartment. I say this with a heavy heart because I so desperately want a home of our own. In the end this was all my choice, I want to be able to buy the right house not just a house because it is works for right now. So we are waiting for now.

So in order to satiate some of my nesting appetite I am going to try and begin re-organizing and decorating things in our apartment. I guess if I live here for another year I have to love it. So my first project is our bedroom shelving unit.

It is a huge wall unit from Ikea. In case you can't tell in the pictures it is a dark brown unit not black. Mr. A and I want to keep some of these items on display but I hate dust collectors, just hate them! So I am researching ideas and inspiration this week. I need some storage and I want to have an organize theme in the unit. Now that I see pictures of this thing I can see how bad I need to work on this.

*UPDATE: My pictures did not load correctly so for now a generic image will have to do. Let me know what you would do here!  The second image is as close as I could get to what we have right now!

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Right now we have a small TV on top of it and two small black and white framed photos on either side. I would like to keep the general feel of this area, but I just think it can "flow" more. 

Let me know your thoughts and ideas, I will post inspiration photos later this week and I will complete this project this weekend (I hope)! 

Confession - I'm Like a Bird

I need to nest.

Lately I have been fighting off the uncontrollable urge to nest. It first started with a project of organizing our photo albums. I really wanted to pair them down and get them organized more. My mom recently sent me a bunch for stuff and I wanted to make room for some of it and then get rid of some of it. I don't need all of my report cards from my childhood that remind me of how horrible of a speller I am, I have this blog.

Anyway, from there it blossomed into me reading new decorating blogs my favorite is Young House Love, I want their whole house, no joke. I have now thinking about making some changes to the house. I desperatly want to do our porch and buy some outdoor furniture maybe even do some plants and stuff. But then I realize I live in an apartment and it might not be wise to buy all that stuff if this is a teporary location.

I then decided I wanted a new bed and bedroom fruiniture. I looked into the prices of new matress sets and thought I would take advantage of the recent Presitdent's Day sales. Well turns out a lot of those are a crock of you know what and I decided against this. Although I am stilly dying for a new bed.

So we wind up at this conclusion, I want to nest. I desperately want to buy a house to nest in. I am in love with a house and it is perfect in every way. I want to buy it and nest in it and do all of the above projects mentioned in it. So without further waiting I give you the house I secretly (not so secretly) love but know I will never be able to buy right now due to many reasons.

 

Can you believe this baby's room? I am dying.

 This house even has a  totally adorable "project" room. COME ON! If you want to see the full thing go here. Mr. A and I drove by it this weekend. I was hoping the neighborhood would be bad and I would hate it, but NOOOO it was cute and up and coming. Dammit.

So you ask why can't we buy this house? Well that can of worms is for another day. I am hoping putting this out there in the universe will help me process it and let it go. I. WANT. THIS. HOUSE. I will one day have a house just like this one. Right? NBD and I should just let it go. Right? No need to go get pre-qualified for a mortgage Right? No need to call a REALTOR . Right?

My Week in Cleaning

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As I look at my calendar of the next two weeks I get chest palpitations thinking about all the stuff I have to do. As a way to help with stress I break down my week by days and hours and plan out everything I have to do to prep for all that is going on. So that this post is not too overwhelming I will only tell you about this week. Take note and let me know if you like any of my ideas. I know I am anal but maybe I am helpful too!

Cleaning the house:
I plan the cleaning of my house by least used to most because chances of stuff getting messed up over five days in my guest room are much lower than in one hour in my living room. So this why I break things down as follows.

MONDAY - Clean guest room. Wash sheets, fluff pillows, vacuum, wash curtains, dust, clean spot in closet for guests stuff, put away any random stuff that is out.
                   - Clean laundry room. I recently bought a gift wrap organizer to help keep track of what I already have throughout the holidays. You can buy these at container store. They cost like 20 to 30 bucks and are totally worth it. I will be cleaning the tops of the washing machine and dryer, dusting anything and reorganizing shelving.
TUESDAY - Clean dining room. I will be putting together the table and decor for the dining room. Dusting bookshelves and light fixtures. Vacuuming and dusting the window treatments. Washing windows.
                   - Figure out layout for buffet for WF's birthday party and lay out all serving trays.
WEDNESDAY - Clean guest bathroom and kitchen. Deep clean oven and microwave, clean out pantry and check list off of anything I need for party and Thanksgiving. Cleaning out fridge and freezer, make sure nothing is old and outdated. Organize cabinets and make sure all serving items are prepped for Thanksgiving.
THURSDAY - Clean master bedroom and bathroom. Wash sheets, dust, wash window treatments, clean floors and vacuum, clean toilet and vanity, empty garbage and replace toiletries. Prep both bathrooms for guests adding extra toilet paper, hand towels and soap.
                      - Clean living room. Dust and vacuum and put out linens for party.
FRIDAY - Wipe down kitchen and cook for party. Party starts at 730 so I will be prepping pizzas and appetizers right after work and then have them in the oven when guests get there. Will be putting out pitcher of water and bowl of beer and drinks. Napkins and paper plates will be put out at this time as well. I am also going to be baking cupcakes one of the nights and refrigerating them to make a cupcake bar for WF. I think it is a fun activity. I will be putting it out like a buffet. I will provide pictures for you all to check out.

Saturday I am going to be cleaning from the party and changing out decor for Thanksgiving. Also doing laundry and prepping house for guests. More on that next week. Sunday are the e-pics! Super excited.

GOD I am seriously obsessive aren't I?