The Plan

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Dan and I have been meeting with contractors!! We have one more meeting on Thursday and then hope to move forward. We’re planning on gutting the kitchen and moving a couple of walls to make it more open/functional/have matching cabinet doors. We’d (mostly me) also really love to be able to have more than 1 one person comfortably cooking at a time. Dan says it’s totally fine for 2! I strongly disagree. And you know how at parties everyone wants to be in the kitchen? Still true in ours. At a whopping 2 feet wide, which may be generous.

We’re also planning on making our garage a bedroom/bathroom/laundry room. Mostly just an all purpose room that will result in us having a 2nd bathroom and a washer/dryer that isn’t in the garage. Since I do *almost* all the laundry, I’d really love for it to be air conditioned and to not have my clean clothes fall onto a filthy garage floor. Plus, our only existing bathroom has a shower, but no tub. It’s worked out just fine for the 2 of us, but we are trying to get ahead of the game and make sure there’s a tub to bathe our future children, because I hear they outgrow the sink pretty quickly 🙂 [Side note to family- the children time line has not changed]. Dan will then have an long term project of building a detached garage so we don’t lose the storage space. Or maybe we will use it to actually park our cars? Doubtful, but hey! I can put in on a goals list.

So that’s our grand plan! Meeting with contractors has been intimidating. Even more intimidating- the thought of having to pick out every. single. thing. that will go into the spaces. I know what I like, but question how everything will go together and I’m worried I’ll second guess all my choices. Choices that will be PERMANENTLY affixed to the house. Scary. Oh and since we are using Ikea cabinets to save money- planning all of that. That’s a whole big thing and the kitchen planning website is already driving me crazy.

Still, I’m insanely excited to the make the house even more our own and to have a real life kitchen to fill with all of my Pinterest dreams. Will keep you updated as the project moves along!! Hoping I don’t drive Dan too crazy throughout the process.

Memorial Day Weekend in the Hill Country

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After a bridal shower in Houston, we were off for Memorial Day weekend! Barley was clearly stoked.


We got in fairly late Saturday night and met up with Dan’s parents at Cultures Bar. Pretty typical bar/grill with a good beer selection and ice cold mugs. Bonus points for icy mugs. Dan needed a cold one after how intensely he had to concentrate, driving through all the rain! Dan’s mom had made dinner reservations at The Nest, which was just divine. It’s in an adorable old home, a few blocks off Main Street with the perfect amount of lighting and the most affable servers. We had a French grandma who was a hoot! Not to mention the quality of the food, which all of us agreed was top notch. Dan and I both had seafood (scallops and shrimp) while his Dad had the filet and his mom tried the quail. We finished the night with a chocolate martini, because when you’re with Ann, chocolate is a requirement 🙂

We stopped by House Wine on the way back to the hotel and they let Barley come in and hang out. He loved it, of course.

  

Sunday morning, the sun came out and we were all surprised at what a beautiful day it was! Luckily, El Milagro has a charming patio with a fountain where we ate breakfast and enjoyed the weather. Note: only 1 breakfast taco is necessary. Barley mostly enjoyed chasing the birds and debating drinking the fountain water.

Later on, we met up with some of my best friends from home for lunch at Fredericksburg Herb Farm in their Farm Haus Bistro. The cutest, with a big garden in front! I was also shocked at how affordable it was too! The weekend was definitely full of good food at new places. You can stay in the most precious cottages on the farm too. Maybe next time 🙂

      

Afterwards, we just had to hit up some wineries… because when in Fredericksburg this is a must. First up was Hilmy Cellars. I had been wanting to go back because of the good wine, but mostly for the cute wine dogs 🙂 No sighting of them that day, but JB made friends with the rooster out on their gorgeous patio and we had a guinea sighting! A view of vineyards makes for excellent scenery.


    

Then we were on to Grape Creek to meet back up with Dan’s rents. They have been wine club members there for a while and I have to agree that it’s the most beautiful winery in Fredericksburg. Best to just buy a bottle (or 2) and sit and enjoy. The live music wasn’t too shabby either!

Barley’s face!! Derp.

        

We headed on to Johnson City that evening and had dinner at Pecan Street Brewing. Not that there are many other options in the small town, birthplace of LBJ with a population of 1,700. We were seated in the front and scarfed down our brick oven pizza. Then, I saw a sign in the back pointing to games & dancing! Through the door it was a totally different restaurant. Garage doors pulled up to let in the warm air, a big band playing country classics, and locals two-stepping across the dance floor. They also had a huge loft with pool tables, shuffleboard, and folding chairs galore. Even though the boys got fairly competitive at the shuffleboard table, it was a blast. Dan even swept me around the room while they played the last song of the night and it was the best. Just have to get a few beers in him to get him dancing 😉


The next morning we visited some re-sale/vintage shops where Joanna Gaines gets some of the things she uses on Fixer Upper! They were pretty awesome and I could definitely see the potential  of a lot of the pieces. My favorite was a wooden trough, but it was $300, which was a little expensive for a centerpiece. Dan’s mom was able to find some awesome doors to use as a countertop on their kitchen island, and gorgeous sliding barn doors! Successful trip for them!


Washed Away in Houston

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Thanks to all who messaged us with concern about the flooding! I know my mom was having a mini panic attack when she found out we hadn’t made it back to the house.

Story time: After spending the weekend in Fredericksburg (and hitting a LOT of rain while driving out there), we safely made it back to Houston Monday evening. Since Barley had been out all day, we figured we could sneak off to a movie that night. We ended up choosing Mad Max in 3D, which was really awesome. The effects were unreal and I enjoyed the story line. It was action from the very beginning until the very end and the whole movie was essentially one long chase scene. I’m not usually a big action fan, but for some reason I loved it.

Moving on… We left the theater to employees warning us of heavy rain and flooding. Great. Everyone on the highway had their flashers turned on and were driving very slowly. It’s pretty terrifying to drive in heavy rain, especially at night. We finally made it to our exit and rain straight into deep water. No matter where we turned, we kept hitting flooding. Eventually, we gave up, found a little bit of higher ground, and waited it out. For 4 hours. In a not great part of town. Luckily, my car wasn’t damaged from all the water, even though my brakes were making some scary sounds! We saw one car goes nose first into a ditch, but the occupants were okay. Just wet! The rain finally lightened up a bit around 2 AM and somehow we found drive-able roads that led us home. Even our street, with the big, deep ditches, was flooding! Still low enough to drive through, thank goodness.  Poor, poor Barley. Alone in the house with all the loud thunder! He didn’t damage a thing and I’m so proud 🙂 The Houston Chronicle has some pictures that capture how bad it got here.


Seeing the damage the next morning was very sad. My heart goes out to those all over Texas who lost priceless items, their homes, and worst of all, family members.

Dan still went into work yesterday, but the roads around downtown were pretty bad, so I stayed home. Perfect for many loads of laundry and cleaning. Our internet was out all day, so I was actually very productive! Plus, we enjoyed a quiet evening at home with an early bed time. Hope everyone stays safe and dry! Looks like we’re in for many more days of rain.

Here’s some photos of Barley enjoying a break from the rain last night to cheer you up 🙂

The Middle Sister Comes to Town

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Tara came to visit this weekend! I love spoiling her when she’s in town since that isn’t super often, and because she’s still in grad school. It’s fun to be the big sister! Plus, sisters are great because you don’t feel the need to constantly entertain or try to impress. We hung on the couch and went grocery shopping and just enjoyed time together. Very nice. I’m sure Dan felt right at home since he grew up with 2 sisters too 😀

Don’t worry- we still did lots of fun things! Friday, we checked out Dolce Vita, which I’ve been meaning to try forever. Can’t go wrong with Tara and Italian. Our pizza was piled high with arugula and fantastic and the old house it was in was charming. We even sat right next to the open kitchen and could watch them whip everything up. Then we bar hopped along Westheimer- pinball at Poison Girl and Margaritas at the new El Tiempo. (Sidenote: Add pinball to the list of things I can beat Dan at. I’ve found #2!!! Shuffleboard is the other, in case you were curious.)

Saturday morning we went down to Market Square Park to attend “Puppies for Breakfast”- the title of this event is confusing, as we didn’t actually eat the dogs… They just had a lot of vendors set up as well as rescue groups. The breakfast part consisted of food trucks! And they had a puppy bowl in right in the middle. Barley pranced around and got his typical insane amount of attention. One guy even strapped a go-pro onto him. Hoping to see that video because he completely face planted while wearing it- he’s not the most coordinated pup. I’m a mean dog mom, finding amusement in his falls. I’m expecting that to be the case with real human children too. Hopefully they’ll all forgive me.

That night, Dan’s company hosted a family night at the Dynamo’s game. We gorged ourselves on corn dogs, sliders, and ice cream sandwiches at the tailgate, then headed over for the game. They won! 3-1! It was an exciting game.

Looking like 2 dads.

  

Sunday morning the skies opened up and it poured. We somehow made it church, but that’s about it. Dan and I didn’t even watch the Rockets game. But they made it to the semi-finals! Guess I can be a bandwagon fan.

Come back soon, Tara! Our guest room is always open 🙂

Pizza, Pizza

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Dan has a slight food obsession with pizza. It ranks close to beer, which really says something. So since we got married, we’ve started a superrr healthy tradition of Sunday night pizza. Usually from Pink’s Pizza. We even walk to get it on occasion. And have only had it delivered once… maybe twice. Which I hate to even admit because it is exactly 0.4 miles from our house. Yes, that was ZERO.4. Sometimes even that is too far, apparently, to pick it up yourself. Sad.

But sometimes! We make our own pizza and it’s really fun. We pick out our favorite toppings at an actual grocery store and bake our own (store bought) dough and everything. Just scrumptious. Dan has been researching how to make our own wood-fire pizza oven. I say there are other, higher priority, projects that beat that out. And our oven works just fine. We even use a fancy pizza stone (when we remember that it needs to be pre-heated) that my sisters gave Dan a few Christmas’ ago, which totally ups our pizza game.

And we all lived happily ever after in a pizza coma.

**Coincidentally, Tay posted a delicious looking home-made pizza on IG last night, about the same time I was typing this post. Besties think alike. And you can’t go wrong with pizza.

Things I’m Loving Lately

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This river dancing baby 

Electric Love by the Borns

The New York Times Home & Garden section… too bad there are only 10 free NYT articles a month 😦 and they recently cancelled this section 😦

The Yoga Farmer

Swedish Dads

Treehouse Masters on Animal Planet

How cool! Never knew this tiny apartment existed.

Which led me to another French find. I clearly love a good tree house.

And then another airbnb treehouse in ATL.

30 Clips You Can’t Help But Watch Over and Over again. Dan and I were crying laughing at some of these. Mostly #3.

This Vanity Fair article on Sophia Loren.

I found this baby name popularity by decade so amusing. My name today would be Arielle.

The Wardrobe Capsule– my style is already fairly simple/ the same so I’d like to at least think about this as clean out my closet and shop (which doesn’t happen often… the shopping part, actually). One more reason to wear my chambray button down and over-priced white tee from Madewell every other day 😉

The dancing in this Toro Y Moi music video.

Trim = Devil

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I found my new worst enemy last weekend. The trim. I had multiple mini meltdowns over the course of the weekend. Preparing trim to be painted is just SO incredibly unenjoyable in the most extreme sense of the word. To start, my arms were jello from a challenging yoga class. Then I had to sand and I felt like my arms were actually going to fall off. Luckily, I had to pick up a bit more paint (for the backs of the bookshelves) and the paint guy sold me on this product, which cut out the sanding. Sanding might done a better job, but I couldn’t sand any longer.

Much relieved, I wiped it on everything and Dan even helped with the crown molding, so I didn’t have to move the ladder around. Then came caulking. Which is actually not that bad… there is something soothing about filling in gaps that makes you feel good. I became a pro caulker, even though I used a whole roll of paper towels on my journey. Finally, taping. Which takes forever. Cue Sunday at 8 pm and I STILL hadn’t painted any of the trim. Which is disheartening when you’ve spent the majority of your weekend “painting” (prepping) the trim.

Then Dan swooped in, grabbed a paint brush and just went for it, even on parts I hadn’t taped. It made me both incredibly grateful, but also, WHAT at the same time. Why had I spent so much time taping?!?! Word of advice- just learn how to paint without having to tape. It’s all in the brush angle. It also helped that the trim and walls are 2 very similar shades of white… 🙂 We went with White Dove by Benjamin Moore in semi-gloss for the trim and Hale Navy in eggshell for the backs of the bookshelves.

You know you’ve got a keeper when he spends all day building a beautiful fence, braving poison oak, and still maintaining a positive attitude AND THEN comes in and helps with your project too, making you feel 100x times happier. And just to brag a little bit more on him- one of the dogs (we puppy-sat this weekend also) chewed through a lamp cord, but we needed that light to help see where we had missed while painting. So he just sat down and fixed it in a total of 3 minutes. And then went back to work, like no big deal. *swoon* Even though I hated painting the trim, I love having a home to paint and I love the husband I get to share it with. Life is good.

Yellowing trim vs. shiny, new trim color

So fresh and so clean, clean

So friends who foresee trim painting in their future…

Callie’s tips for painting trim if you’re okay with it not being 100% perfect, but close:

1. Use Krud Kutter and don’t waste endless hours on sanding.
2. Do use caulk- I ran out before I finished and was too lazy to go back to Home Depot. The parts with caulk look much, much better. Hoping to caulk the parts I missed later, when I find some more enthusiasm.
3. If you do decide to tape, LET THE CAULK DRY. In the places I didn’t wait long enough, I ended up ripping paint off the wall when I pulled the tape up. Whoops.
3. Learn how to paint without taping. It’s really not super hard, just meticulous. All in the angle and making sure you have the right amount paint on the brush. *Do tape the floors, unless you’re a really big pro* We used frog tape because everyone said it was the best.
4. Make sure you have several rolls of paper towels on hand.
5. Buy quality paint brushes!! And wash them out well after using. Hang bristles down to dry.
6. Feel super relieved that it’s over.

OR

1. Hire a professional.
2. Enjoy.

We finally finished last night and I couldn’t be more pleased. We still have to do the bedrooms & bathroom and this time we are hoping it will be much less time consuming. Yay for learning curves.

Lord Huron

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After a fun crawfish boil hosted by my manager up in Spring, Dan and I headed to House of Blues for the Lord Huron concert. Leon Bridges kicked it off and killed it. His group has the biggest 60’s soul throw back sound. From his suit & hat, swaying with his hands behind his back, and 2 awesome back up vocalists, you wouldn’t have believed it was 2015. He’s just real, real good and everyone should go listen to Coming Home ASAP. He also had a song about how his grandparents met and a special one for his mom, who was at the show. He’s from Ft. Worth too! What’s kind of amazing is that he doesn’t even have an album yet and he’s already played at SXSW and is slotted for ACL this fall. He rocks and I can’t wait to hear the entire album!


Next up- the actual headliner. Dan and I saw Lord Huron last year when they were the opener for Young the Giant (I think?) and really liked them. They are pretty easy listening and came out with their new album last month. Listen to Fool for Love from the new album and Ends of the Earth, which I sometimes play on repeat. It was a great show but we had been working on the fence/trim all day and were feeling pretty dang tired by the end. Glad we managed to stay since they played a couple of our favorites very last, even if we were leaning against a rail in the back. Ha. Maybe it’s time to buy actual seats instead of standing room only? Eek.

^^ I really liked the color changes, apparently.

Funny tidbit:: Lately, Katie & I have been buying tickets to the same shows and later find out we are both going. This happened for Lord Huron, so I texted her before we left to see when they were getting there. She had forgotten about the concert… and this is the second time that’s happened this year 🙂 Gave me a laugh. Thanks Katie! Glad y’all were able to make it, even if you were just as tired as we were.

What We’re Watching

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true-detective

Fun fact: Dan and I toured the plantation this tree is at- Oak Alley.

Dan and I finished the first season of HBO’s True Detective this week. I know, I know, we are late to the game. We watched the whole season in a week, which I guess isn’t that terrible since it’s only 8 episodes. I didn’t understand the hype after the first episode, but it quickly drew me in. It was SO creepy but incredibly addicting and I’m really glad Dan isn’t out of town at all this week (hallelujah) because I would be scared of the dark if he was gone. GAH. Casting was perfect and of course I love Matthew McConaughey, because Texas. And just everything he’s been in lately.  I’m curious what spurred him to start taking more serious roles. He’s fantastic. Also- is the Louisiana bayou really that dangerous compared to the rest of the US?

And the casting for season 2?! Rachel McAdams?! Hooray 🙂 The teaser trailer doesn’t give much away, but I’m excited. Fingers crossed it’s just as good.

We also watched Somm this week! It’s a documentary on the process of becoming a master sommelier and follows a few guys studying for, and taking, the exam. We learned how to properly pronounce sommelier and can now sound that much fancier at nice restaurants 🙂 You actually get really nervous for the candidates, knowing how much time they’ve spent preparing! Dan has been studying to take the cicerone exam, which is similar to being a sommelier, but for beer instead of wine. He has passed the first level and has 2 to go. And is now wanting to become a sommelier as well. I’m hoping this doesn’t happen as it seems to take over your life, according to the documentary, and also seems incredibly expensive as you’re tasting expensive bottles of wine on a regular basis. Then spitting them out. Dan’s actual words: “I want to become the first master sommelier to study for the exam without a spit cup.” He’s weird. And has 1,000,000 interests. I like him.

FYI- we didn’t JUST watch HBO/ Netflix all week and the fence is coming along nicely 🙂

The Super Hero In-Laws

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Friday was a blast! Dan’s boss gave us tickets to the Houston Dynamo suite, which was great (even though we lost to FC Dallas) and then we met his parents for drinks at D&T Drive-In, which I personally think is one of the cooler places to drink a beer in Houston. I love that they still have the old sign in front. I’m assuming new ownership as it’s part of Treadsack now (as is Downhouse, yum), so it’s neat that they chose to keep the sign.

So as mentioned above, Dan’s parents came to stay with us this past weekend! We always have a great time with them and this weekend was no exception… although it was a little bit different type of fun! Ha. Dan’s dad helped him put in all the fence posts around the back yard and his mom helped me paint the dining, living, and sun rooms. It was a productive weekend to say the least. They are amazing motivators to get things done and have more energy than we do. It’s impressive and so appreciated.

Having a fresh coat of paint on the walls has REALLY brightened it up. One of the biggest things I would change about the house (if it wasn’t prohibitively expensive) are how low the ceilings are, so having white walls make them feel just a bit taller 🙂 I ended up choosing Benjamin Moore White Linen and love that it’s warm without feeling yellow. We also tested out Frostine and Simply White. Dan is still complaining that it feels like an insane asylum, but I think he’s mostly kidding 😉 But I am in love and can’t wait to do the trim next weekend (because right now it just looks dirty :/). The furniture is still pushed in the middle of the living room at the moment so the house feels like a wreck, but sitting in the midst of white is quite dreamy. I’ll post better pictures once everything is back in place.

Testing out colors

The cutest little helper. Who was more in the way than anything.

We also decided on a horizontal fence and Dan will start putting on the planks this week!!! It’s going to look amazing. And he gets to buy a new toy- a nail gun. Because apparently the one we already have isn’t strong enough. I swear, the amount of tools we have… Yay for house projects!!

So funny that prior to painting I was finally starting to feel like the house was really coming together. Felt homey, (most) things had a place, and I just generally liked it but still knew what had to be done. Then everything came off the walls for paint and I’m starting fresh again. Ha. Hoping we get to the kitchen soon!!!

Relaxing at Cottonwood and home after a hard weekend