Christmas!

We had a great Christmas!  My parents, sister and brother-in-law came to South Carolina.  It was so nice to have them here.  And Ashlyn loved all of the attention she got from Grandmom, Granddad, Aunt Juls and Uncle Gene :)

And another fun side note: Casino Night New Years Eve party tonight!  I am so excited.  Christopher and Alex have been working on games...I hope it is as much fun as last year!  Can't wait.

  

The Gioscia Family

The Newman Family

Christmas present from my oh-so-sweet husband

I have been wanting to a butcher block top on the island for a while now.  We found one at IKEA for less than $100...but shipping cost $400!  I had kind of put the idea on the backburner since I figured it would be a while before we made a trip to Charlotte or Atlanta. 

Christopher asked our dearest friends, Ashley and Alex, to pick it up while they were in Charlotte.  I was TOTALLY surprised by this sweet Christmas gift.

Kitchen island before...

Removing the old countertop.

And after...He had to saw one end off (it was a little too long) and then sand the edges so it would match the other end.  It totally changed the look of our kitchen.

Yay!  Thank you sweetheart!  I love it!

It's Finished! - PART 3

Finally decided on a frame for our little art project for above the living room sofa...here is our blueprint (ha).

Click here for the first few steps...PART 1

And here for the middle few steps...PART 2

And the finished product...

A little Christmas Renovation

Christopher's mom and dad bought a condo at the lake last year. We thought it would be a neat Christmas present for them if we did a little kitchen makeover.

 Here is the kitchen before.  Our plan was to remove the three cabinets over the sink to open up the space between the kitchen and eating area.

After we took the three cabinets down, we ended up being able to use one of them on the blank spot of the wall.  It fit perfectly.  And they only lost storage space in two cabinets instead of three.

And here is the "finished" kitchen project.   Doesn't it look much more open now?

Merry Christmas, Lee and Heath!

Christmas Eve

Ashlyn's "Mimi" (Christopher's mom) bought her this adorable dress she wore on Christmas Eve.  I had to post a few pictures.

Mirror - PART 2

It's still not finished.  But we are getting closer.  We ended up using Elmer's Permanent Scrapbook tape to put the million little pieces of wood onto the mirror.  And it worked awesome to hold everything in place.  It has been hanging on the wall for several days now and nothing has fallen off yet.  If we start losing pieces, we may have to go to glue.  But this is working great so far.

We spray painted the wood white and then put the tape on the back side of each piece.

 

 And here is our little "puzzle-project" all put together.  We are still trying to decide on a frame for the border. Would love to hear any comments or suggestions. Christopher is off work for a couple of days this week so maybe we will have this little project finished in the couple of days!

  

Maybe this will work?? PART 1

I saw this picture online a few weeks ago from Sunset Magazine.  And fell in love with the headboard of the bed.  I thought, hey, maybe we could re-create this?  I have been wanting something to replace the canvas that Christopher and I painted in the living room for a while now (haha).  But art can be expensive.  So we thought we would give this little project a try.

We had a HUGE mirror left over from our master bathroom re-do a few weeks ago that has just been sitting in our closet.  Time to put it to use again.

 

Here is our "blueprint."  Honestly, getting the measurements even was probably the hardest part.  My husband majored in MATH in college.  And I am ok with numbers.  But it was still tricky trying to get everything to work out right.

Fortunately, we have a sweet baby girl who likes to help with all of our home projects.  Ashlyn is a genius with the calculator.  She helped us get all the measurements figured out in no time.

And here she is is "helping" again with her ruler and yardstick.

Once we got everything measured, we drew it on the mirror with a dry erase marker.  This actually turned out to be a good and bad idea at the same time.  Good because we had to erase and start over several times.  Bad because we have a 14 month old.  Who likes to walk around in socks.  You get the idea.

Once we finally got our design drawn on the mirror, it was time to start cutting the million pieces of

wood. 

And here it is laid out.  I think I like it so far. Stay tuned for part two...which will in involve some spray paint, adding a frame, and hanging it up.  We will see how this little project turns out...I will still post pictures even if it ends up not looking great.