gallery wall

I stressed over this gallery wall for weeks.  After I gathered all the pieces for it, I finally had it all laying out on the floor in the pattern I wanted it on the wall.  Matt walked by and said, "Hm...maybe you should take on longer and not go down as far on the wall." Fail. Long story short, I redid and rearranged this wall about a million times.  My indecisiveness is sickening.

Not only was I deathly afraid of putting a bunch of nail holes in our beautiful freshly fixed and painted walls (we patched up every single nail hole and blemish on the walls and painted before we moved in), but I am married to a wall-hanging perfectionist.  Who knew? I grew up in a house where we just picked where we wanted something and then nailed it on the wall.  My husband has a different story.  Any time we hang anything on our walls, the measuring tape, pencil, and levels come out (yes I said levelssss...one size just won't do).  Imagine my nerves when I looked at my abundant gallery wall draft on the floor and all of his tools I was going to have to use.  I will also add that while I got all the pieces on the wall, he laid on the couch and fell in and out of peaceful slumber while watching TV.  This was MY project and I made the mistake of saying I could do it all by myself.  Whoops.

First, Matt had to give me a tutorial on how to space every single piece.  I had to measure how far apart they were, then measure on the back how far down and far in the hanging hardware was on each frame before I could even get it on the wall. We had to mark on the walls how far up and how far across the whole thing would be.  I had to do this with every single piece.  Just thinking about me doing all that makes me cringe.  I am so glad it's done :).  You may not believe me, but it took me all of 2 hours to get this whole thing done (and leveled one last time).

Here is the only picture with the flash on...it shows off the glitter on the "D" quite nicely :)

Of course I used a lot of pictures from our wedding and engagement photos...I am so in love with all of those pictures.

The leaves are from our neighborhood when I took Jax on a walk one day when the leaves first started turning.  I ironed them into wax paper so they'd keep and then framed them.  I love Fall leaves.

An up-close shot of my prized "D".  I got the letter at Michael's and it was just plain white.  I bought a couple different glitter craft paints and some cheap brushes.  I thought it would go on and look like this in one coat...WRONG! I applied about 21 different coats (no joke) for a couple days until it got to this point.  Guess I learned my lesson on that one. 

Another leaf from our walk, family pictures (the one with the glare is of Matt and I, his mom, and his brother's family at our wedding and the one on the top is of Matt and I and my parents at our wedding), a box with the numbers "18" which I also painted, and the frame with side-by-side pictures is a picture of Matt's mom and dad at their wedding and a picture of us at our wedding.  We are doing a similar pose.  It's super cute and I love it.

projects

We are back at it with the projects.  Matt has been busy this past week and weekend doing some more upgrades at the house.  He installed the new fan in our master bedroom (which he had to get up into the attic and admitted to almost falling through the ceiling) and installed two new lights in the downstairs and upstairs hallways.  No more shiny gold and weird glass lights.  Now they look awesome! He also went to Lowe's and got a new light for the living room. We've been struggling with not having enough light in here, but with the addition of a light to the fan and a new lamp I think we've got it! I think he's most excited about the awesome dimmer switch you use to turn on the new lamp :).  Matt also took the ugly fan out of the kitchen and put up a new awesome looking light! The only lights left to fix are to install new ones in the spare bedroom and the office.  There are currently no lights in either room at all so this will make a huge difference.  Matt will have to run new wiring to each room to get a light in there.  We will see how that goes...

My current project is working on a photo collage for a wall in the living room. I've gathered up frames and pictures and they are currently laying on the floor while I blog...yeah I'm getting pretty far on it ha! I went to Michael's today looking for a cool looking "D" for the collage.  They only had wooden and white ones.  SO I bought a white one and some craft paint and I am going to either paint it: 1. Glitter 2. Purple 3. Turquoise.  I don't know what has gotten into me.  We will see how it turns out.

I taught BodyPump this morning and was joined by two special guests...Matt made it after he got off work and my friend Amber from the NICU came too! I think I've convinced her (or she's convinced herself) to get a membership at LFF :).  I made the mistake of waiting until last night after I got off work to learn the release I did today.  Let's just say "only EIGHT pushups" turned into like 15 pushups :). Whoops! 

My friend Abby is coming back to the Midwest from California on Friday! I pick up from the airport on Friday after work. I am excited to spend some time with her.  This whole distance thing is for the birds.

vanity before and after

We made a trip to Lowe's on Sunday.  Oh how I've missed that place.  We visited there at least once a week in the midst of moving/remodeling our home.  We've taken a much needed hiatus from Lowe's, but I was feeling the pull back there.  We decided to re-paint our awesome find of a vanity that has been sitting in our garage since the middle of summer.  It was back in July when we had been taking a drive in the neighborhood (mainly just to annoy my friend Abby who really wanted to just get back to the house, but when Matt is driving there is never a dull moment) and found the perfect piece.  

We had talked about buying a vanity for our bedroom for me to get ready.  I wanted a vanity with drawers all the way down the sides and a spot in the middle for me to sit.  On our casual cruise around the neighborhood, we passed a pile of furnuitre by the sidewalk in front of a neighbor's house with a "free" sign.  Amidst the rubble, I found my dream vanity.  It was perfect.  All it needed was some sanding and repainting and it would be my vanity.  We loaded it up into the back of Byron (Matt's buick) and brought it back to the house. We stuck it up against the wall and that is where is stayed...for months.

Riding home in the trunk with my beauty

Vanity before...

Matt actually brought it up this weekend.  He said we might as well wait until next Spring to re-paint it since it was starting to get cooler.    That was until Sunday rolled around and we couldn't be in the house any longer.  A trip to Lowe's and some new-found motivation brought us to this...

A little demolition to take out the middle shelf...more room for my legs

Before

We took all the shelves out, sanded them and the rest of the vanity, and then wrapped them in newspaper so we could get to work with the spray paint.

The pretty grey color

The master at work :)

he's so cute

And now for the finished product.  We carried the vanity upstairs after it dried.  We had talked about making the area an entire place for me to get ready.  Matt talked about getting a big mirror and some vanity lighting for the wall.  He even wanted to do a dimmer switch for the light so I could adjust it.  I thought it would be awhile before this all was completed.  Well, I came home from teaching my class on Monday afternoon to this...

ALL DONE!

Isn't he fantastic?! He had to get up in the attic to do some re-wiring for the light which involved disassembling the closet system (which was fixed when I got home too). All that is left to do is for me to fill the drawers, get my little mirror up on the top, hang hooks on the adjacent wall to hang my blow dryer and straightener, and get all my hairspray and other getting-ready goodies on the top.

I LOVE the way it turned out.  I spent some time looking on Pinterest (my new found obsession) searching for a good color for the vanity. It turned out exactly the way I wanted.  We may even go search for some cool knobs to put on the drawers.  Right now there is a little nook under each to open, but it will spruce it up a bit if we add knobs.  One man's trash is another's treasure!  

I am very proud that we got it done!  Go Team Dunn!

it's done!

Our kitchen that is! It's finally DONE! This has been such a long process and a lot of hard work, but I am so amazed and happy with the final product.  The original plan was to have the kitchen completely done by the time we moved in.  What were we thinking?!   

Please refer back to here for how the kitchen looked before our remodel and which products we chose :).

In a condensed story...

First we ripped everything out.

Then we installed the new cabinets.

And sanded, primed, and painted.

Next we had our new countertop and sink installed.

Then we installed all the trim molding, baseboards, soft close function, and door/drawer pulls.

This past weekend, Matt installed our new over-the-range microwave.

And now it's done!

And I LOVE it!!

LOVE

We added this entire section in. There used to be nothing in this corner. The previous owners put a table and chairs in this spot.

I love how this whole thing turned out.  We had to move up the top cabinets a bit to be able to fit in a microwave above the stove.  I guess the microwave installation was a pain (I conveniently had to work when he installed it). Matt had to rearrange siding on the outside of the house and rewire and do something with spray foam? to get everything to fit in and work.  Gotta love him.

Love having a window in the kitchen above the sink

Complimentary cutting board to match our counters.  We were so worried about these countertops.  We actually weren't even 100% sure that we even liked it when we picked it out.  It just matched everything best.  I absolutely love it though and think it was the best possible choice!

We got free special edging and chose the "large ogee" whatever that means...

My beloved pantry!!

SINK! LOVE this.  It's a 70/30 sink.  The right side is perfect for thawing stuff.  I've never had a sink this big or deep.  It's amazing.  The faucet on the left is filtered water!

Just a random picture of my favorite candle to put in the kitchen.  It makes it smell exactly like a fresh-baked donut in there! :)

Close-up on the Mocha Granite