Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

So if this blog was a child, CPS certainly would have been called by now. Talk about neglect! Let the record reflect, however, that this is why I do not have kids. (YET...calm down, Mom, I'll get there).

ANYWAY.

Part of the reason I haven't been around these parts is because I've been getting settled in my new home! And by settled I mean, turning a pretty nice bachelor pad into a chic new home for the both of us, while not making anything too girly, too foofy, or high maintenance. Oh, and did I mention on a budget? This is tougher than it sounds, yo.

So last weekend I did some major overhauling while Garrett was out of town and coincidentally my mom and aunt were in town. And the fact that I don't have any before pictures for comparison is honestly a travesty. I seem to keep doing this (especially with recipes that I have cooked lately like this and this, or this and this ). I take all sorts of pics so I can blog them and then begin eating before I take a picture of the final product (FAIL) -- so following suit, I could hardly wait to get at the boxes and piles of crap overflowing in the extra bedroom that I just left it completely undocumented. You will just have to take my word that parts of our house were a mess! But really, aren't the after pictures always more fun anyway? So allow me to show you this...the finished Guest Room:



I particularly love that I had enough space to make a mini-library (which has totally been a fantasy fulfilled after all these years!) Let's just keep it between you and me that said library is filled with such masterpieces as the Twilight Saga and old Cliffs Notes though, mmmmkay? (For the record those Cliffs Notes do not belong to me!)



Also, I made a little reading nook out of Garrett's old twin bed that we were going to rid of. And can I just tell you -- I am so happy that our absolute procrastination kept us from Craigslisting this bed because seriously, I have already spent hours reading in this little area and just LOVE it! Also, it gives us another bed in case we have extra folks over, which is nice.



And since I was working on the Guest Bedroom I figured that I might as well finish sprucing up our Master Bedroom, which ended with this as the final product:



Green seemed to be the most gender neutral color and I know Garrett was relieved come home and not have his man-chamber all shabby chic'd out.



My favorite things are the prints above the bed and finally finding a home for the large silver framed black and white photo. Can you believe I bought that like 5 or 6 years ago from Ikea for $9.99? It's gone with me everywhere.



Fret not though, I left the rest of the house alone as it looks acceptable for the most part:



Anyway, with all the settling and redecorating I've been flying under the radar here in blogland, but I promise that our trip to Maui (in T-minus 8 days...SQUEE) will provide plenty of update worthy fodder. I'm also hoping it will help me chill out a bit because this morning on the way to work I honked at the guy in front of me, who was blocking my ability to get through a green light FOR NO REASON, about 11 times and perhaps inserted a hand gesture or two before I realized that it was not his left turn signal that was flashing but his hazard lights. Yikes! In my defense though, it was a BRAND. NEW. MERCEDES. without license plates. This is not exactly the car you assume is breaking down in the middle of the road and really more often it's the car that is doing whatever-the-eff-it-wants in the middle of the road, AM I RIGHT?

I swear as I finally drove around him he looked at me and mouthed "Someone here clearly needs a vacation."

(You know, or something else similarly pleasant, I'm sure.)

Either way I got the message loud and clear.

Alooooooooha!