Weekend Review: Getting our Move On

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that we were taking on a new home improvement at our house. After a wanting to do it for a while, we decided to refinish the hardwoods on our second floor. We've been wanting to redo our floors since this post about our tax refund from last year. After reflecting on that post, I think it is kind of interesting that we have now tackled two out of the three things on that list--the wrought iron fence and the floors. All that is left is the backyard, but hopefully that'll come soon. ;) I promise that I'll give you a full detailed post on the whole refinishing process (a process that I like to call "hardwood hell") but it'll have to wait since we aren't quite done and I want to give the whole process a full review...sorry! What a tease! In the meantime, I'll update you all on how we'd be living for the past few weeks.

 

Everything we couldn't pack, we had to move downstairs...

 

With us being exiled from the upstairs we set up camp in the living room with the aero mattress. After a couple days it was getting really uncomfortable. I apologize to any guests we have made sleep on it or any guests than may sleep on it in the future. I realize it sucks and we need to get a proper guest bed sometime soon...

 



 

Our clothes in suitcases and laundry hamper in the dining room. #hollalivinginsqualor

 

 

Despite all of the crap on the first floor, that didn't prevent us from doing stuff around the house. I spotted this mirror for under $30 at Homegoods. What a steal!

 

 

So of course I put Justin to working in hanging it since it's his most favorite thing to do. ;) 

  

 

I also thought I would be a good time to hang these wall sconces that we got for our wedding shower many years ago.

 

  

 

Voila! Again not properly styled, but deal with it. We got some cute candles to go with our sconces. I'll have to show you in a different post. :)

 

 

Justin replacing the ceiling fan light. The honey-do list never ends does it?

 

 

Random picture of Derby grinning ear to ear! #nobraces

 

  

We also helped our friends move into their new place. Will the couch fit?

  

 

The Sanchezes (Sancheeses? ;) taking a break!

 

 

 

All of us awaiting our reward for assisting in the move--Taylor Gourmet!

 

 

After moving, since we were in the neighborhood, we figured we might as well stop by Union Market. It has been open for about a year now and we hadn't checked it out yet.

 

 

One of the butchers was selling oxtail. I had never seen it in its whole form. Kinda weird but my mouth was still watering from the thought of kare kare (aka: Filipino oxtail stew in a peanut sauce)...

 

 

A shot of the inside. Definitely room for growth (I love me some Reading Terminal Market!) but still a good addition to the neighborhood and city!

 

 

I was in an ice cream kind of mood but a  cupcake from Curbside Cupcakes will suffice.

 

Our weekend was jam packed! That's a review of my busy weekend in a nutshell! Sorry for the lame-o conclusion...I figured I needed to say something in order to finish this old a$$ post!

Weekend Review: What's Hanging?

I think the theme of this blog post is "small victories." Although we have ton of stuff that we would like to do to our house (i.e.: kitchen backslash, refinish floors, etc.) sometimes you need some small victories in order to feel better about yourself/home accomplishments until you are ready to tackle the "big stuff." Justin and I spent the weekend hanging stuff up around the house. If you know Justin, he really hates hanging pictures, but he's a necessary part of the process, so there is no way for him to get out of it. Sorry babe!

One thing I realized that we needed was a key rack. Since we didn't have a key rack I made one out of the this University of Kentucky plaque that Justin got for Christmas. All we did was screw in a couple of hooks on the bottom.

Yes! It shows school spirit and is functional as well!

Hopefully, the key rack will prevent instances like this from happening!

LOL, Jo Koy cracks me up!

  

We also finally put up the Nate Berkus tortoise shell I got for Christmas in our bedroom. #goterps Excuse the improperly staged bookcase ;) House Beautiful or Elle Decor we are not at the moment, hahaha...

The major task of the weekend was actually putting a huge decal up. I ordered this huge decal from Fab.com probably a year ago but had put off putting it up. The cylindrical tube that it was in was literally collecting dust so I figured it was about time that we put the darn thing up on the wall. After I picked a location (the upstairs landing), it was time to get started.

A couple of before shots...sorry for the poor quality shots but you get the idea...Justin mentally preparing himself for the task ahead, LOL...

Neither one of us had put up a wall decal before so we pretty much had to learn on the spot. Trust me, this is nothing like a fathead where you just plop it on the wall and you're done. It literally had a million little pieces that we had to put in the perfect place.

Here's Justin making sure the decal was in the right place. We broke up the design into several different parts.

Next we had to rub the design onto the wall. This task was really tedious because you had to make sure you rubbed hard so it would stick.

Some shots of the almost completed design...almost done!

Justin and Derby showing off the finished product!

I don't know how the heck I did it, but I created a gif of the frenchies in front of the decal. How friggin' cool is that? Kinda looks like Louie is inspecting the work!

There you have it--fancy gif and all. We are still not done putting stuff up on our walls (still have a gallery wall on our to do list) but I'm glad we were able to cross off some "small victories" off of our list!

A Day in Del Rey and Some Finishing Touches

A couple of Saturdays ago we managed to take a little trip to the cozy and quaint neighborhood of Del Rey in Alexandria, VA. What brought us out the the suburbs you may ask? Burgers! Justin and I love a good burger and will travel in search of delicous ones. We were scanning Yelp one day and came across Holy Cow, so we decided to take a little day trip...

Justin got the Steak House burger topped with frizzled onions, creamed spinach, and bleu cheese crumbles. All the acoutrements you would get in a steak house, but in a burger. Clever! The fries were great too! Hand cut and not too greasy!

I got the Southern Burger which had a fried green tomato with pimento cheese sauce. It was really good too and tasted great with my sweet potato waffle fries! Aren't things the most fun when they are in waffle form? The waffle fries came with a marshmallow sauce.  Salty and sweet is always a great idea in my book!  Keep your burgers Good Stuff, I think we found a better option that isn't as overpriced without all the tourists.

Along the street that Holy Cow sits on, there are plenty of unique shops that offered a lot of things I don't even think you can get in Capitol Hill, Barrack's Row in particular.  For example, as soon as we stepped out of Holy Cow, we saw a little bakery somewhat tucked in this small alley.  It has been quite some time since I had a tart, and The Happy Tart seemed like the perfect remedy.

We picked up four different tarts: 1) key lime; 2) chocolate ganache; 3) pecan (we ate it before we could take a picture); and 4) lemon.  With the overabundance of cupcake shops in DC, The Happy Tart was an opportunity for us to try something different.  Despite the name, they also offered cupcakes, but we opted to pass on those.  They even have cookies, and appear to do customized cakes (they were in the midst of taking phone orders when we arrived).  With the way that the shop is set up, you can get a good glimpse of the back kitchen, where we saw all of the kitchen staff hard at work.  As Justin demonstrates with his smile, we truly left The Happy Tart happy.

On our way back to the car, we passed a specialty cheese shop called The Cheesetique.  Again, something we don't see in Capitol Hill, so we decided to check the place out.  As soon as you enter, there is a gigantic glass display case, which displays all of the types of cheeses they offer, along with some charcuterie.  The store floor was assorted with a variety of wines you could pair up with your cheese purchase.  Luckily, they also offered free samples, so Justin and I were 100% lost in navigating our way through the cheese selection.  Ultimately, we decided on this gouda cheese.  With the leftover ham that we have from the Super Bowl, we figured it would aid in making the best ham sandwich.

The Cheesetique also offered in store dining, along with a wine bar.  Because we were still stuffed from our trip to Holy Cow, we figured the gouda cheese was enough for now.  Dining in The Cheesetique would have to wait for our next trip out to Del Rey, along with a number of other stores and small shops we passed, but didn't visit.  Overall, Del Rey was fun, and I could easily see us and a group of friends spending a whole day checking out everything Mt. Vernon Avenue has to offer.  We still had lots to do at home prior to our Super Bowl party, so our Saturday was far from over.

When we arrived at home, I immediately put Justin to work (after he had watched the UK game).  With the work we had done to the ceiling in our kitchen, coupled with our recent TV installation, our kitchen was somewhat in a disarray.  In addition, there were a number of pictures I wanted hung up in time for our Super Bowl Party.  Who else to do it but Justin!  

Here he is hanging our wooden fork and spoon my Auntie brought back from the Philippines.  Growing up, these things were staples in our family kitchen, along with a picture of the Last Supper.  We're still in search of our Last Supper picture, but in the meantime, our wooden fork and spoon alone will have to do. 

The finished product above our French Bulldog calendar that I got from my cousin Ricky for Christmas.  If Louie was more buff, he'd look like the featured French Bulldog for the month of February.

When we installed the television the weekend before, we had to remove the three pictures that were hanging in its future spot on the wall.  After much deliberation, we chose to hang the pictures right above the TV.  This project was the thorn in Justin's side for the night.  The whole ordeal took about two hours, with us (actually Justin) repositioning the pictures over and over again.  Each time we repositioned the pictures, one of them would be lower than the other two, and vice versa each time we made adjustments.  Finally, we figured this placement was as good is it gets, and I think Justin officially retired from his career of hanging pictures on walls.  At this point, I think he stopped talking to me.

Last, but not least, I made him hang this wine rack.  As you saw in one of my last blog posts, I helped throw a baby shower for my friend Brandi.  As a token of gratitude, she gave me this wine rack, which I thought would look great in our kitchen.  Finding the perfect spot for it was another story, which we eventually hung behind our back door.  

I know some of you may be asking yourselves, "if you hang wine bottles on that rack, wouldn't the back door slam into it when opened, breaking said wine bottles?"  Well, I don't drink much wine, and we already have a bar, which has a built in wine rack.  I figured I'd use this wine rack for something else our kitchen was in dire need of...

Yup, I converted it into a coat rack, and it worked wonders during our Super Bowl Party.  Although we have a coat rack located towards our front door, it often gets overcrowded with coats and hats, especially when we have guests.  By using the wine rack as a coat rack, we can accommodate additional coats versus laying them on the couch, taking away valuable seating.  In addition, I can just grab my coat on my way out of the back door to the car, versus having to walk to the front door coat rack to grab my coat.  So ends one of the most productive Saturdays we've had in a very long time.  We love to lay around and do absolutely nothing on our weekends, but it's always a good thing to be a productive member of society, eat a good burger, and run a few errands.