12.16.2010

Adding some furniture and a whole lotta color...

I apologize if the vast majority of you have already seen the pics of our house finished on Facebook.  I figured my work on the house warranted a blog post.  It kind of consumed my life for 4 feverish days as I hussled to get things settled before the family's decent upon KC.

Here's the front of the house.  It hasn't really hasn't changed much at all aside from the mountains of leaves from the sourrounding trees, and the slightly less vibrant shade of green of the grass (think instead...brown)
The only other major differences are that we now have a mailbox and the windows are actually covered.  Here's to not living in a fishbowl! 

I'll try to lay this out in terms of before and after photos.  I'm not sure how well that's going to work, but we'll see.

Foyer Before:
Note that the color of the walls is kind of a khaki color.  Also note that the light fixtures are reminiscent of breasts.  I always wonder why it's okay to have a light fixture that clearly looks like a boob.  You don't see light fixtures all over the place that look like testicles.  Seems unfair...but I digress.  I also didn't particularly dig the fact that the light fixture was an opaque amber color.  This picture has freakish amounts of light in it, but in reality, the house doesn't have a ton of natural light.  Seemed like problem.

Foyer After: 
So you can see that we drastically lightened the color of the room.  In addition, we've added light fixtures that don't really resemble any male or female naughty parts.  I painted some craziness on the curved wall and added greenery and art.  (Don't be fooled by the greenery, though...it's totally fake.  Chai would destroy any real plant we brought into our home within a matter of minutes.) 

Hearth Room Before:
Okay, so it's going to become abundantly clear by looking at all the before pictures, that these were professionally taken, and with a wide angle.  So here's the hearth room.  The light fixture has those lame tulip light globes, the metal is oil rubbed bronze, and again, the light globes are opaque amber colored.  Against the brownish khaki walls, there wasn't a ton of light.

Hearth Room After: 
Okay, so here, you'll see that we changed the color of the walls to a lighter color, painted some crazyness on the wall, mounted a tv, added some furniture, some art, and changed the light fixture.  Out of all the rooms in the house, I think this one is the least done.  The walls that are straight ahead and to the right are pretty white.  I'm waiting on a friend of mine to paint some wicked art for me to brighten up the walls.

Kitchen Before:
The Kitchen was pretty okay...well, for most people. Since I'm what one would call "particular", I had a lot of beef with it. I hated the doors of the cabinets because of the country looking arch at the top. I hated the pulls on the doors. I hated the light fixture, the backsplash, and the fact that the appliances were black and not stainless. Don't worry, folks...I took care of business!


Kitchen After:
I made this photo obnoxiously large for several reasons:
1) A small photo doesn't do it justice because the new backsplash is amazeballs and needs to be seen larger.
2) It's my favorite part of the house
3) In it's small size you can't see all the differences.

Speaking of differences, the most obvious are the paint colors, the addition of the fridge, swapping the appliances out for stainless, the light fixtures, the cabinet doors, and the cabinet door pulls.  This is pretty much my ideal, aside from the faucet.  It's the last bit of oil rubbed broze to banish from our place.

Dining Room Before:

The dining area is right off the kitchen.  Really, aside from the paint color, all this room needed was a different light fixture, some furniture, and some color.

Dining Room After:
Blam.  Added some furniture, some window treatments, some art, and a bookshelf of knick knacks.  Oh, and we changed the paint color and light fixture.

Master Bedroom Before:
All this room really needed was some furniture and color.

Master Bedroom After:
 

Upstairs Guest Bedroom Before:


















Upstairs Guest Bedroom After:

Great Room Before:

Great Room After:



















Downstairs Guest Bedroom Before:


















Downstairs Guest Bedroom After:





12.02.2010

The Anniversary Edition:



In honor of our 4th Indian wedding anniversary, I thought it would be nice to do a post dedicated to Sudhir.  (He's the cute one on the left, btw)  I'm not an overly emotional or gushy kinda gal, but once a year, I like to make it abundantly clear just how lucky I feel to have him in my life.  So babe, here ya go: The top 25 reasons I love being married to you (in no particular order)

  1. You're tall, dark and handsome.  Awesome? Yes. The only reason?  Hellz no...there are 24 more to go.
  2. You are adorable while you sleep (even when you're wheezing like crazy because you won't listen to me and just take a claritin)
  3. You don't judge me when I eat an entire box of Weight Watchers Sundae Cones (or if you do, you hide it pretty well)
  4. You smell fantastic
  5. You understand that sometimes, when I've had a terrible day, I don't want to talk about it...even a little.  Instead, you try to cheer me up by recounting Chai's antics throughout the day.
  6. You loved me enough to leave the only place you knew for your whole life just to make me happy.  Not many people would leave the glitz and glamour of NYC for the midwest.  I appreciate you doing this every single day.
  7. You keep my feet warm when they're cold at night.
  8. You always tell me I'm crazy when I try something on and ask you if I look chubby.
  9. You didn't eat in front of me during my starvation diet because you thought it would make me cry.  You basically had sympathy anorexia.
  10. You humor my crazy OCD tendencies (i.e. symmetry, cleanliness, etc etc. etc.)
  11. You don't even get mad that I'm basically right all the time.  Okay, not all the time:  You were right.  You can only fit one king size blanket into our washer.
  12. You love Chai.
  13. You love my friends.
  14. You love my family.
  15. You're hilarious unintentionally.
  16. You're kindness exceeds any expectation I could have set.
  17. You're patient beyond belief (which is necessary to put up with me, ask MG)
  18. I get to claim all your awesome friends and family as my own now.
  19. You'll watch a Golden Girls marathon with me and not even complain.
  20. You're not mad that I pretended to like baseball while we were dating.
  21. You dislike nature and water almost as much as I do. 
  22. You make me the best breakfasts every day before work.  Seriously, those waffles are amazeballs.
  23. You love me more than ice cream (trust me people, that's serious.)
  24. You always try to make me take medicine when I'm not feeling good but then always end with "So you want to let your body's natural defenses fight it off?  Okay."
  25. You went with me at midnight  to see the Twilight Movies, even though you hate them, and you're pretty sure they stripped you of your man card for doing it.
Obviously this doesn't even scratch the surface, but this is what came out when I started typing, so I guess I'll just go with it.  Anyway, happy anniversary, babe!  Love ya! <3

12.01.2010

Updates after a long hiatus...

I apologize for my lack of blogging as of late.  I wish I had some really great excuse, but the fact is, I was busy moving into our new house, and I have had a woeful lack of material to write about.  Instead of waiting for something epic to discuss, I've opted instead to give you a manic and detached update of random things that have happened in the last month or so.

Thing #1: I met my new niece, Ada.
I flew to NYC the week after returning from Mexico and met my BFF's new baby, Ada.  She is, of course, perfect in every way.  In the process, I taught my awesome godson, Dylan, how to say my name.  Okay, so it sounded a lot like Affie, but cut him a break: he's not even 2 yet.  Turns out, he actually remembers me and can point to a picture of me and say my name!  SUCCESS!!!  I got to see my bro and sis-in-law's new home, spend some time at my parent's in law, and meet up with an old coworker.  Not bad for a weekend.  The only downer was that there were a few people who I would have LOVED to have seen.  Sadly, it wasn't in the cards because there simply wasn't enough time and I'm an a-hole who didn't give them much notice.  By this, I mean that I sent a text when I landed at LGA.  I honestly had forgotten I was going to NYC in the process of closing on the house, going to Mexico, and packing up the apartment. 

Thing #2: Moving into our new home at record speeds.
Many people will tell you that I have a passion for decorating.  Many people will also tell you that I'm kind of a crazy person who likes to have pictures on the wall the day I move in because I want it to feel like home, and I want it NOW.  Yes, these things are all true.  This, however, was a lot of house, and it's hard to settle and make everything perfect so fast.  The thing that sped it all up (probably for the better) is that my brother and sister-in-law and my cousin (okay, Sudhir's cousin, but I stole her) were coming to visit 5 days after the move in day.  In that amount of time, we got all our funiture, appliances, the house painted, our kitchen backsplash replaced, all the pictures hung, all the knick knacks placed, and all the beds made.  I consider this a win.  At some point, when I remember to actually bring my camera home from work, I will take some after pics and post them.  I'm pretty happy with the way everything turned out.

Thing #3: Turning in the keys to the penthouse.
It may seem kind of trivial, but it was really sentimental to me.  That was a killer place.  It provided many a friend refuge from driving intoxicated.  It was a great central location, I could walk to work, and most importantly: It was our first place together in Kansas City.  *tear*

Thing #4: Our first Thanksgiving not traveling.
This was our first Thanksgiving not going to either NJ or MI for the holiday.  I thought it would be really sad and depressing, but honestly, it was kind of awesome not having to travel on the busiest travel days of the year.  We saved a ton of money that was put to good use (like buying a fridge) and we spent the holidays with great friends.  I kind of like this new tradition of doing our own thing for Thanksgiving.  We can have a big meal with family at a time that the airlines aren't trying price gouge us.  The good news is that both our families are coming to visit us next week... Score!

Thing #5: Chai got sick. Again.
It turns out that once a quarter, Chai is going to get sick and we're going to have to take him to the Animal ER. The good news is that our new house is really close to one.  Also good news, the cost was about 1/6th of what it usually was.  The bad news is that there are few sounds that are more haunting and terrible than your cat wailing as it receives an enema and IV.  Seriously, no wonder the kitty hates going in the car.  Everytime he does so, someone sticks a first up his bum.