Mission: Furnish and Decorate a Home On the Cheap

As we inch ever so slowly closer to home ownership (a process plagued with hurdles and numerous hoops through which we’ve had to jump), I’ve taken to stalking Craigslist like it’s my job. A couple of weeks ago I scored this pair of solid oak end tables for $50. I basically stole them they were so cheap. Eventually they’ll be painted and get new drawer pulls, but for now they’re languishing away in our den waiting to be moved to the new house. Once they’re all gussied up, they’re going into the master bedroom where we’ve always been sadly lacking nice bedside tables.

Once I had acquired the tables, I couldn’t get lamps out of my brain. I fell in love with these jade colored glass lamps from Pottery Barn when Ashley of Ashley Brooke Designs posted a photo of her bedroom (and subsequently, the lamps) on Twitter. I was even tempted to get them when I wandered into Marshalls on a whim. Low and behold, they had two gorgeous turquoise lamps, perfect for the bedroom. They were $29.99 each, but only set me back $45 after using a merchandise credit from a return. The much pricier Pottery Barn lamps, at $99 each, were momentarily forgotten, but I think I have a plan for them in our living room down the line.

So I got home last night from shopping and running errands. Mike is out of town for a few days so I decided to watch Julie & Julia and bake cookies. I got dinner on the stove and was trolling around Craigslist, yet again, when I happened upon a table with four chairs for $150. The table in our house currently is our landlord’s so I’ve been keeping an eye open for a decent set that wouldn’t set us back thousands of dollars. With Mike out of town, I impulsively decided to call up the guy who had listed the table and chairs to explain that I wasn’t sure they’d fit in my Volkswagen Rabbit. He graciously offered to deliver them and an hour later I had a table and four chairs showed up at the front door. For $150. The chairs are my favorite part – they’ve got great Quaker lines, which I adore.

So there you have it, my recent cheap finds as I attempt to block out the stress of actually buying the house itself by dreaming up lots of renovation and decorating ideas. And stalking Craigslist on a very regular basis.

And the Saga Continues…

Ok, so I am going to come right out and admit that buying a house is no walk in the park. In fact, if I’m honest, it’s a complete pain in the ass. From the initial price negotiations to the dreaded home inspection that didn’t pan out as we had hoped, things haven’t exactly been smooth sailing. Following our inspection, we got hung up for over 10 days haggling back and forth to try and reach a consensus on a credit to be issued at closing. (I’m not sure how it works outside of New York so for those out of state and those who haven’t been through the process, getting a credit at closing essentially means you get part of the price you’re paying for the house back in a check along with the keys to your new house to put toward any repairs you might need to complete.) It was estimated that the house needed approximately $2000 – 3000 in repairs so we asked for what we thought was a very fair $2000 credit. The sellers wouldn’t budge and required multiple copies of our inspection, brought in their own inspector to try and refute the results and on and on and on.

Several times we discussed walking away. I went back to the drawing board and started researching other properties and finally it looked as though we’d probably be spending the weekend house hunting again. We were completely bummed. But the reality of the situation was – we’d already gone higher on price than we had hoped and we had already committed to a house that required us to buy all brand new appliances upon moving in and we felt very strongly that even if we could afford another $2000 – 3000 in repairs we didn’t want to do so. It was that simple. Why should we pay for an issue the current homeowner ignored? It was a classic case of “not my problem” and we decided to put our collective foot down. Pay up the $2000 or we’re moving on and seeing other properties. They called our bluff. We walked. And not an hour later I got a phone call back that all of a sudden they were ready to play nice. Less than twenty four hours later we had a signed contingency release in hand stating that they were committed to issuing a $2000 credit at closing. Woohoo! And onward we go.

Ok, so let’s get onto the good stuff for a moment, shall we? A couple of weekends ago we went out appliance window-shopping so we could scope out ideas, finalize a budget and chat with our friendly neighborhood Lowes and Home Depot guys about delivery times and charges, etc. While we’re still debating a dishwasher, we have our stove and fridge fairly well picked out.

This range is Frigidaire Gallery from Lowe’s. (I’d link to the exact model, but their site appears to be down at the moment.) It’s definitely not a real high-end unit (ohhh how I would love me some Viking in my house), but it has a few extra features I like. It’s stainless steel, it’s gas, it has a self-cleaning oven and it has five burners with a power burner for boiling big pots of water quickly and a simmer burner for delicate sauces. Love that!

The refrigerator is also by Frigidaire and despite my love for bottom-freezer French door models, we decided that the traditional side-by-side style will suit us just fine. We have a very similar Frigidaire fridge in our current rental and it more than gets the job done for us. I have a lifetime to be snooty about appliances, I’m not going to start now. Even though I really wish I could fork up the dough for a gorgeous Sub-Zero, it’s just not going to happen.

This week is all about the mortgage application now that we are finally wrapped up with negotiations. We don’t foresee any issues on that front, but I’m not holding my breath until the coast is completely clear. There have been too many bumps in the road so far from me to rest easy just yet! After that we’ll be onto the appraisal phase and assuming we make it that far, we should be homeowners in the next month to six weeks. I am scared, excited, nervous and absolutely ready to get this home-owning show on the road. Stay tuned!

Dinner – Red Lentil Dahl

We spent today doing typical Sunday things. We slept in. We wondered around the Syracuse Antiques Exchange. We went grocery shopping. And while grocery shopping, we visited all the lovely ladies who stand around Wegmans on Sunday afternoons handing out samples. One of those ladies had samples of Orgain, an organic meal replacement shake. (The Creamy Chocolate Fudge is smooth and pleasantly bittersweet like a nice dark chocolate. I immediately carted a few home.) While chatting with her, she gave us a copy of the Nature’s Marketplace flyer from Wegman’s organic section, which is filled with coupons and healthy living tips. Inside was a recipe for red lentil dahl, a recipe taken from The Modern Vegetarian by Maria Elia.

I rounded up the ingredients and put this on the menu for tonight’s dinner. It is rich and layered in flavor and boasts seven grams of fiber per serving. It is warm and spicy and the perfect one-pot dinner for wannabe vegetarians such as myself on a cold winter’s night. At the last minute I actually added about a cup of frozen green peas and let them cook in the dahl just long enough to be warmed through. I loved the extra addition of something bright and fresh along with the lemon juice amidst all the spices.

Red Lentil Dahl

1-3/4 c red lentils
2 Tbsp oil
3 tsp cumin seeds
2 tsp black or yellow mustard seeds
1 white onion, finely chopped
1-1/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped or grated
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped or grated
1 red chili, seeded, finely chopped
3 tsp curry powder
4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp tumeric
Pinch of chili powder
1 Tbsp tomato puree
2 cinnamon sticks
2 c low-sodium vegetable stock or water
Sea salt
Juice of 1 lemon
Bunch of mint, chopped
Bunch of cilantro, chopped

1. Rinse lentils. Place in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and then drain in a fine sieve, rinse with cold water and drain again.

2. Heat oil in a large pan. Add cumin and mustard seeds. (Stand back – as they hit the hot oil they will sputter and spit.) Cook for 30 seconds. Add onion. (This will reduce the temperature in the pan immediately; be careful not to burn the seeds or the dahl will be bitter.) Cook over medium heat until softened. Add ginger, garlic, chili, curry powder, cumin, tumeric, and chili powder and fry for 3 minutes. Add tomato puree and fry for 1 minute.

3. Add lentils, cinnamon sticks, and stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer and cook for 15 minutes, or until lentils are tender and dahl has thickened. (Add a little water if too thick.) Remove from heat, season with salt and add lemon juice to taste.

4. Let cool a little bit before adding mint and cilantro (otherwise they will discolor). Serve warm.

{Photo from Edible Aria.}

Touching Up

I have so much to fill you in on regarding this house buying process. But can I just say – it is incredibly stressful! Far more so than I had expected even though I was fully prepared for this process to be anything but a cake walk. With that said, I’m planning to write about the craziness of the last couple of weeks in the next day or so, but in the meantime I just wanted to share my undying love and affection for Glidden. See, because we’re slowly realizing we can probably start doing things like packing and getting organized for the upcoming move. And we needed some touch up paint for one of the bedrooms, but I really wasn’t all that interested in spending $10+ on a quart of paint when I am still debating paint colors for the new abode and we really only needed a dab or two. Well low and behold, Home Depot carries these sweet little Glidden paint testers that cost about $3. They come in tiny little bottles with a screw top that has a mini paint brush attached to the underside. Yup. Pure genius. So for $3 we touched up the areas in need and have plenty of dabs leftover in case we scuff anything as we move our furniture out next month. Like I said – genius! And for the record, yes, simple things really do amuse this simple mind.

Jessica Hische Drop Cap Prints

It’s really no secret at this point that I love just about everything that Jessica Hische creates. When she launched her Daily Drop Cap project, I blogged about it almost immediately. So I was pretty damn excited yesterday when Jessica announced she is now selling Daily Drop Cap prints in her online shop. I think I am probably going to need this one to hang above my desk…

{Photo from Jessica Hische.}

DIY Clipboards

This post all about clipboards on Desire to Inspire made me really happy this morning. I love clipboards and now I have all kinds of fun ideas on how I can incorporate even more into our house and possibly in my workspace at the office. I have a cluster of six that hang over my desk in our little home office currently. I used scrapbook paper and decoupage glue to give them a little personality. This photo was taken when I first made them about a year and a half ago. They are now covered in all kinds of goodies I can’t part with – photographs, movie stubs, greeting cards, scraps of ribbon and paper that have inspired projects and so much more. Clipboards are really quite handy and they’re super inexpensive – I think this was about a $15 project, including the paper and glue.

{Photo by Cyd Converse for A Year of Marriage.}

Favorite Home Renovation Blogs

For as long as I’ve been around the blogworld, I’ve got to admit to being completely unschooled when it comes to the best home renovation blogs. I’ve long kept an extensive list of favorite home design blogs written by what I’d deem to be professional bloggers, but I’ve sadly been missing out on some great blogs where some truly inspiring people are transforming lackluster houses into style havens worthy of the most fabulous shelter magazines. Or perhaps there really was nothing to miss out on until the prospect of a home of my own to renovate loomed in the future. Either way, I’m working on getting an education and getting up to speed just as quickly as I can. I’m going to share a few favorites and, in turn, I’m hoping you might have one or two to share with me. Pretty please?

Young House Love

Brooklyn Limestone

The Lettered Cottage

1110 Watauga Street

Remodelista

Kitchen Daydreams

As promised, I’m going to keep my posts more up to date as we push through this house-buying process so in light of that, I’ll let you know right up front that the house inspection did not go as well as we had hoped yesterday. There were a few minor issues that surfaced, none of which are deal breakers and one fairly significant issue we’re in the thick of handling right now. Long story short, the attic crawlspace isn’t properly vented so there is a mold problem on the underside of the roof deck. It’s a fairly easily fixed problem, but it’s a significant enough problem that it has landed us back in negotiations, the end of which we might not see for a few days. So while all of that is going on, I’m distracting myself by digging up inspiration for renovating that kitchen we’re inheriting with more late 70s/early 80s charm than I can stomach.

To remind you, here is the kitchen we will be working with:

And here are a few that I’m loving…

{Photo from Apartment Therapy.}

While I can’t forsee myself ever going with something this bright, I love the idea of introducing color on cabinetry. Why is it that we always feel so compelled to stick with neutrals anyway? And I love the combination of the bold modern color with the classic white farmhouse sink. That is just the sort of juxtaposition of which I can’t get enough. (Breathe, Mike, breathe. I am not proposing a kelly green kitchen.)

{Photo via Becoming Home.}

Ok, somewhat on the complete end of the spectrum, this all-white kitchen with it’s pretty sky blue subway tile backsplash feels delightfully “me.”  It has to be noted that I am a sucker for subway tile and lately I’ve been falling in love with colored subway tile in addition to traditional white. This kitchen has just officially made me a believer.

{Photo from pointclickhome.}

While this kitchen is definitely a bit of a departure from my personal style, I love the warm mix of materials. I love black cabinetry and find it really cozy here when paired with the granite countertops, hardwood floors and wood beam ceilings.

{Photo via At Home in KC.}

Ok, so clearly a bubble gum pink kitchen might be a bit much for most people, but I can’t help but love the playfulness of this room. The glass-fronted ceiling height cabinets on the back wall offer an envious amount of storage and the chandelier adds a touch of glamor that I find rather charming. I’m decidedly an advocate of bringing some fun and personality to the kitchen.

{Photo from Sunset via Apartment Therapy.}

This might be more along the lines of what I’m after. Classic and timeless white cabinetry, countertops, and backsplash (again, loving the subway tile) paired with sleek stainless steel appliances and little touches of color and vintage charm. While I love the schoolhouse pendant over the table, I think I’d prefer one with an all-white globe like this favorite of mine from Schoolhouse Electric. And for the dinging area, maybe something a bit more streamlined like a Scandinavian-inspired blonde wood table and chairs.

So while we’re on the topic of kitchens – does anyone have a favorite resource for kitchen inspiration? I have a feeling my daydreams are long from over at this point.

101 in 1001

I spent some time over the week pulling together a 101 in 1001 list and decided to share it here for the sake of accountability. These goals are presented in no particular order and I decided to lump them all together in one post (even though it’s a bit lengthy) so I can update as I tick things off the list. I found that my goals are a combination of personal, professional and blog-related and I look forward to the great things the next 1001 days will bring even if I accomplish only half of these tasks. After a long, quiet, lazy weekend, generating this list was just the ticket to getting me fired up and motivated for the new year.

The following guidelines are borrowed from Brooke’s 101 in 1001 list at Claremont Road:

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past – frequently simple goals such as New Year’s resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Start Date: January 1, 2010
End Date: September 28, 2012

1. Reach my goal weight (a work in progress since 1/16/2006 – currently down 110 lbs)
2. Take a photography course
3. Transition to being completely vegetarian (my current pseudo-vegetarian status does not count)
4. Run a 5k (no walking allowed)
5. Learn how to knit
6. See Trans-Siberian Orchestra live
7. Visit NYC for pleasure (business trips, which I take regularly, do not count)
8. Take a floral design workshop
9. Travel to California for the first time
10. Buy a house
11. Adopt another doggie
12. Increase The Sweetest Occasion blog traffic by at least 10x
13. Write my first book
14. Get all of my belongings in one house (currently strewn between our rental and my parents’ homes)
15. Spend a week in a cabin in the Adirondacks
16. Start and complete Project 365
17. Meet the one and only Darcy Miller
18. Renovate a kitchen
19. Build a brick fire pit
20. Buy a pair of Christian Louboutin pumps
21. Take my husband to Lake Placid for a weekend
22. Pay off my last credit card (a hangover from my grad school days when Citibank occasionally had to buy the groceries)
23. Establish a regular yoga practice
24. Clean up my potty mouth
25. Take a weekend trip with my mom
26. Quit chewing my fingers
27. Ice skate at least once per winter
28. Go snowshoeing
29. Buy a pair of kayaks
30. Take another trip to Maine
31. Successfully cook lobster (must be not only edible, but also tasty)
32. Go Christmas caroling
33. See my brother and his family at least twice a year
34. Book 15+ weddings between the 2010 and 2011 seasons (not sure I could handle more with everything else going on…but it’d be fun to try!)
35. See a musical at my high school alma mater for the first time in years
36. Feel and look hot at my 10 year high school reunion
37. Fly to visit Cheyanne and Eric in Washington
38. Submit weight loss before/after photos to People’s Half Their Size issue
39. Get a blog mention in a major print publication
40. Write a business plan
41. Block out a five year plan
42. Take an Adobe Illustrator class
43. Volunteer at the SPCA
44. Have a wedding album made
45. Establish an LLC
46. Watch Mike coach a game (sadly I’m always too busy to make this a priority)
47. Play golf with my dad
48. Babysit for little Madelyn
49. Plant flowers in memory of my grandmother
50. Host a Thanksgiving dinner
51. Go to a taping of Martha Stewart
52. Go the the NYS Fair
53. Successfully get Bella Figura and/or Smock featured in Martha Stewart Weddings
54. Establish a meaningful freelance career
55. Develop better flossing habits
56. Write all of my best friends a random letter for no good reason and mail it
57. Eat vegan for a month
58. Watch a Syracuse basketball game at the dome
59. Foster a greyhound
60. Learn how to make a margarita as good as my  mom’s
61. Print our wedding photos; hang them in our house
62. Get anniversary photos taken with Mike
63. Blog about my true feelings regarding children and marriage
64. Work another wedding with Megan Dailor (because it’s always the shit)
65. Spend time in the print shop learning how to print on a windmill
66. Blog for Elizabeth Anne Designs Living weekly for a year
67. Build a snowman
68. Eat at a Bobby Flay restaurant
69. Install a toilet (nothing sounds quite as independent as installing a toilet, don’t you agree?)
70. Buy and keep a Five Year Diary
71. Get a buyer to pick up Smock for a major national chain (I have a specific one in mind…)
72. Donate blood (my first and only experience was years ago and it sucked so I’ve been avoiding it ever since)
73. Start an IRA
74. Hike Whiteface Mountain
75. Go to the ballet
76. Host a board game party
77. Buy crayons and a coloring book; spend an afternoon doing nothing but coloring
78. Take a sewing class
79. Organize a family photo with entire family for my grandmother’s birthday
80. Take a cooking class with Mike
81. Have a yard sale
82. Start sending birthday cards to all close friends and all family
83. Get life insurance
84. Cancel all extraneous credit accounts that are inactive but show up on credit report
85. Go to a taping of Oprah
86. Buy a good lens (or two) for my DSLR
87. Art direct a photo shoot
88. Prepare a Barefoot Contessa recipe without feeling guilty for how bad it is for me
89. Stop using paper towels (undoubtedly my worst earth-unfriendly habit)
90. Cut out 100% of processed sugar and artificial sweeteners from my diet
91. Teach a workshop
92. Improve my credit; achieve a FICO score of 760+
93. Update my voter registration
94. Visit Christina in Kansas
95. Submit photos of renovated house to design*sponge
96. Complete “All About Us” with Mike
97. Make a meaningful charitable donation
98. Watch the sunrise over the ocean
99. Make The Sweetest Occasion a profitable blog
100. Get my husband to take me to see a musical
101. Put $5 in savings for every completed goal

It’s 2010. And We’re Buying A House.

I’ve been hesitant to talk too much about our house buying adventures thus far, lest I should jinx us and end up still renting and full of longing for a little place to call our own, but the part of me clamoring to share the process might officially be winning out. I figure I’m not much of a believer in jinxes anyway and what will come will come regardless, so I might as well spill the beans if my little heart so desires. So here goes.

Somewhere around Thanksgiving we started mulling over the possibility of shopping for a house. This was not in our original plan. When we moved into the home we currently rent last March, we signed a two-year lease and intended to stay here happily that whole time. And truthfully, we are happy here. We rent a lakefront home with four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a huge kitchen, an amazing back yard, and lake views that go for days. There is absolutely nothing not to love about this place. With the exception, that is, of the rather large chunk of money we’re throwing out the window in rent every month. Long story short, when we started evaluating current real estate prices combined with incredibly low interest rates and the extension of the appealing first-time home buyer tax credit, we decided it would be silly not to at least see what was out there in our price range in our area.

Almost immediately we found a place we adored. It was a fully renovated home built in 1910 with deeded lake rights, original hardwood floors, a wood-burning fireplace, an incredibly deep and private backyard and all of the charm I was after. We viewed it two times in a three-day span and almost as quickly as we had decided we’d like to put in an offer, the sellers had received and accepted another offer. We were bummed, but by that time we had decided that home ownership seemed like a decent option for us so we decided to push on. Over the next couple of weeks I spent hours scouring local listings and then I emailed our agent with a list of properties we wanted to see. The morning after Mike’s surprise birthday party, we met up with our agent and viewed another five or six properties. Some we liked, some we hated, one we loved.

Over the course of the next week, I thought long and hard about that one house we loved. Like my formerly enthusiastic self in the beginning days of architecture school, I busted out a sketchpad and started blocking out ideas. We made arrangements to see it again the following weekend. Then, somewhere along the way late that week, I started to stress out. The house was adorable and it felt perfect for our lifestyle and the layout and style felt like “me”, something that came to feel really important for the girl who has spent her entire life obsessed with buildings and interiors and design of all mediums. But. The yard was tiny. And it wasn’t even close to private. The more I thought about it, the more I felt sure the only reason the house was still on the market was because of the yard. So the architecture-obsessed part of my brain started fighting with the MBA part of my brain, the part that knew the house probably wasn’t a good investment from a practicality standpoint and I started researching the neighborhood more so I could get better feel for where we’d be buying and what the long term appreciation potential seemed to be for the area.

Armed with that research, we showed up for our appointment that weekend with my father in tow. (My father is an environmental engineer and he spent years as a contractor so he’s the best resource for quickly identifying issues or putting fears at ease with his wealth of knowledge.) Before heading over, we stopped at another house around the corner, a house I had decided to view essentially just to get a feel for comparable properties in the area. It needed more work cosmetically, but it was 150 square feet larger and had a yard to die for. Tree-lined, fully fenced and boasting a heated inground pool. Oh and it was $13,000 more expensive than the house we loved and a whopping $30,000 more than the first house we loved and lost to another offer. So there was no way in hell I thought we’d end up wanting that house. Especially considering the kitchen, which is dated and laid out poorly so there’s virtually no workspace despite decent square footage and therefore really isn’t cooking-enthusiast friendly.

So, naturally, we view that house (and I might have even wrinkled my nose in disgust over the kitchen and the cigarette smoke stench that seemed to waft up out from every surface) and then head over to the other place we’d seen before and already loved….and as soon as I saw the yard again I knew it was over. There was just no way we could buy that house with it’s tiny little yard overlooked by no fewer than four other houses. It just wasn’t going to happen. And, all of a sudden, standing in the house I loved overlooking the yard I loathed, I knew I was going to do something I never imagined myself doing – I was going to buy a house for a yard and compromise a kitchen for a pool. Incredible. I never dreamed it would happen, but all of a sudden I knew it was going to be how it played out.

After a few days of crunching numbers, we decided to see the house with the pool (and the cigarette smell) again on December 23rd, Mike’s 30th birthday. We wrote an offer that night, a fairly aggressive offer that I felt was fair given comps in the area, $15,000 below asking price. They counter-offered the next morning, Christmas Eve, at $6,000 below asking price. We thought it was still too high, but agreed that $10,000 below asking seemed fair. We didn’t respond for two days and then after the holiday we countered at $10,000 below asking. They wouldn’t budge. And for a minute, we thought we were going to walk away. Then about thirty minutes later, I started to panic. Was I really going to let someone else buy “our” house over $4000? Because, see, I had already spent days sketching and researching and dreaming about colors and I already knew how I was going to fix the kitchen (shit, I even had the project broken up into two phases – phase I being a short term fix and phase II being a complete renovation after we’d been there a year or two) and I already had plans for a first anniversary party by the pool, damnit, and I was not going to let someone else buy “our” house.

So last Monday morning we did what any self-respecting would-be home buyers would do and called up the mortgage lender we were working with to discuss monthly payments for this hypothetical new price, $23,000 above what we thought we’d pay for the first house we’d loved and wanted to put an offer on. The difference between what we wanted to pay and what the seller wanted us to pay amounted to about $20 a month. And furthermore, that payment was estimated at $114 a month less than what we currently pay in rent. So after a week of haggling, we called right up and accepted the seller’s offer of $6000 below asking and called it a day. Then I freaked out, had a nervous breakdown that lasted about 39 seconds at my desk and then got really really excited.

This week, the lawyers will receive the contract signed by both parties, my dad will conduct our home inspection on Tuesday and then we’ll follow up mid-week with the official mortgage application. Provided all of those hurdles are smoothly navigated, we’ll essentially be in the clear. Barring any complications, our tentative closing is scheduled for February 15, a date that seems impossibly soon. To think that we might actually own a house a month and a half from now is really incredibly unreal to me. We’re excited, nervous, anxious and overall feeling incredibly ready to take this next step. If I’m honest, in some ways buying a house is proving more of an emotional journey for me than getting married. Maybe it’s because at this stage in the game it is still possible for someone to say “no” for one reason or another even though we want it so very much and it’s scary how emotionally invested I already feel. A large part of me still expects something to happen to prevent things from working out…I’m not entirely accustomed to things working out the way I plan for them, too, so it’s likely to be a first if this goes smoothly. So fingers crossed.

I’ll be posting regularly from this point forward and, provided all goes as planned, I can see A Year of Marriage evolving into a bit of a home renovation blog. Hopefully it doesn’t bore anyone too much. In the meantime, here’s a glimpse of the kitchen I can’t wait to demo. Please note the brick “cooking arch” with curiously applied wood molding, yellow countertops and outdated cabinetry. Like I said, it’s a thing of beauty.