Proud Owner

Well, as I said on Friday, I *need* a good camera......

well I no longer need it! I am a proud owner of a Nikon D80!!!!! prepare yourself to see prettier pictures posted here!!!

Jump on over and follow me at JJ Horton Photography!!! It's a little bare right now, but that will change soon!!!! :-)

The Only Good Thing About Working In Statesville...

The ride to and from work consists of hot air balloons regularly! This weekend is the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Statesville.....

This is why I *need* a good camera!

5 Obsessions....

Melanie tagged me.... so here we go!

1. Any and all things orange. This includes pumpkins, orange sweaters, orange scarfs, orange furniture, you get it.... all things orange :-)

like.... this chair at Target.com



2. Getting organized. I love buying new containers, and notebooks, boxes, ect. But once organized, I'm not so good at staying that way!

like.... these from Ikea.... which leads me to my next obsession.....



3. Ikea. I love Ikea, like, if I could marry it, I would.



4. Getting my house "all cute" . We've been in the house well over a year, we did a lot when we moved in.... but their are so many more projects to complete! See sidebar for our list!



5. Packages. I think the whole reason I order stuff online, is to come home and find a package on my doorstep! Like yesterday, I found a Crate and Barrel box waiting for me- it was our new duvet and shams we ordered last week! It's like a Christmas present in the middle of the year!

The Married Couple Saturday

We had the stereotypical married couple Saturday- We went to Home Depot. Sigh....


We have several house projects that we are working on accomplishing soon (see list in sidebar).
So we made a trek to the Home Depot with a gift card we received as a wedding gift! Jeremy has been wanting to install shelving in our outdoor storage closet for a while now. He finally got to work on it Saturday!

We still need another shelf, so he'll be making another HD run this week sometime- but here's a picture of our disastrous back yard while Jeremy was working!

De-Virgin-izing the Coveted Kitchen-aid Mixer

Jeremy's parents were so wonderful to buy us our Kitchen-aid Mixer a couple of months ago, and since then, it's been sitting in our kitchen, pristine, and unused. ( I tried REALLY hard to not use any wedding or shower gifts till this week!)

Last night, the glory of the beautiful, red, metal machine got to me. I had to use it. I didn't care what I made, but I had to use it. After determining that I was one ingredient short of making sugar cookies, I headed to the grocery store. I asked Jeremy before I left what he wanted me to make, since I had to go to the store, why just settle for sugar cookies? He requested chocolate chip.

Well, I bought chocolate chips, and white chocolate chips. Then the de-virgin-izing began.

I ended up with chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips. I followed the recipe on the back of the Nestle bag.







We also hung one of the wonderful wedding gifts we received in the dining room :-)

Organizing and Cleaning

All those wonderful new gifts we received from our showers and wedding has been a serious chore. We decided after I took everything out of the packaging that we would rearrange our kitchen cabinets. Fun. Fun. NOT!

We also decided that the old desk (that was my sister's) that was in our office would be good to move down into our kitchen and put it over the dog crate (I'll sew curtains to put around the desk to hide the dog crate). We'll also have to attach blocks of some kind to raise the desk several inches to be tall enough to go over the dog crate. I also wanted some floating shelves from IKEA to display some of our pretty, new things! I bought 2, but am still debating if we should put them both up.

Here's our house clean, so you'll have a better idea of how it will look-






Our house is still a disaster, but I'm working on it!

Welcome!

I really liked documenting planning our wedding- but now it's over, and new things are happening, not wedding related.

So here we go, we're in a new chapter, we have new roles, we are now Husband and Wife.

Cost Breakdown

I've decided to do a cost breakdown for as much as I can in our home.... here we go:

New Flooring for our whole house:
Lumber Liquidators, Nirvana Royal Mahogany: $2800

Living Room:
Sofa & Loveseat: Craigslist: $800
End Tables: Homegoods: $40 each
Coffee Table: Sertoma 4-H Center: Free
Rug: Pottery Barn Outlet: $77
Bench: From my childhood home, it's the base to an old wood stove, plywood and foam
Curtains: Ikea: $15 a pair
TV Console: Ikea, Liatorp: $325
Brown Pillow: TJMaxx
Orange Pillow: Target
Stripe Pillow: Pier 1
Gray Pillows (covers): Ikea: Monogramming: Poppies
Lamps: TJMaxx: $30 each
Orange & Burgundy Frames: Target: $5 each
Orange Vase: TJMaxx: $7
Yellow Vase: TJMaxx $9
Silver Dish on Coffee Table: Wedding Gift
Orange Candle Sticks: Pottery Barn: $9 & $7
Clear Jar: Ikea
Cornice Boxes: Handmade, foam core board, batting, gray sheet from Ikea
Paint: Valspar, Urban Sunrise

Kitchen & Dining:
Stainless Desk: Ikea: Top: $129 Legs: $30 each
Desk Skirt: Ikea Gray sheet, orange ribbon from Michaels
Orange, Black & White boxes: Ikea
White Frame: Ikea $10
Black Leather Carryall: TJMaxx: $20
Cutting Board: Wedding Gift
White Shelf: Ikea
Orange Bar stool: CB2: $159
Orange Mat: Pottery Barn Outlet: $24
Cruise Fund Jar: TJMaxx
Orange Fruit Bowl: Wedding Gift
Clear Canisters: Ikea
Utensil Set: Wedding Gift
Red Bread Box: Target: $15
Kitchenaid Mixer: Wedding Gift
NCSU Dishes: Wedding Gift
Rolling, Stainless Cooler: TJMaxx: $150
China Cabinet: Pottery Barn Outlet: $800
Table & Chairs: Garden Ridge: $350
Wine Holders: Ikea: $10 each
Letteres: Michaels: $3 each
Sign over door: Wedding Gift
Corinthians Sign: Wedding Gift
Curtains: Ikea, $15 a pair
Cornice Boxes: Handmade, foam core board, batting, gray sheet from Ikea
Paint: Top: Sherwin Williams, custom tint, Bottom: Valspar Muted Ebony

Master Bedroom:
Bed: Potter Barn, Statton, Queen,
Nightstands: Handmade
Basket in nightstand: Homegoods
Curtains: Ikea, $15 a pair
Cornice boxes: Handmade, foam core board, batting, canvas from lowes
Silver Candle Sticks: TJMaxx, $3 each
Silver Frames: Target
Tall Vase & Filler: TJMaxx
TV: Insignia, Best Buy
Hamper: Target, Wedding Gift
Dresser, from Jeremys Parents
Duvet: Crate & Barrel, Abigail Paisley 
Frames over bed: Ikea
Wall Sconces: Pottery Barn: $129 for 2

Guest Room:
Bed: From my childhood home
Cedar Chest: From my childhood home
Dresser: From Jeremys Parents
Nightstand: From Jeremys Parents
Duvet Cover: Ikea
TV: Insignia, Best Buy
Buoy: From an old job
Orange Mirror: Yard Sale
Sewing Machine: Moms
Lamps: TJMaxx: $11 each
Round Frame: TJMaxx: $6