Friend Makin' Mondays: Inside Your Home

Ah Monday...it came way too quickly this week!  I felt like I was barely home this weekend...maybe because I wasn't.  Mike and I went downtown for ArtPrize on Friday after he got out of work.  Then Saturday I spent the day shopping in Michigan City with our cousins and aunts.  Saturday night we went to a late dinner at my parents because my Aunt and Uncle were visiting.  Then Sunday consisted of church, family lunch, a small amount of relaxation, and then youth group.  Busy busy busy!  Hopefully this coming weekend will be a little slower!

But, Mondays mean it's time for Friend Makin' Monday.  It's been a while since I linked up...I hope you'll play along too!

From Kenlie's blog: If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

Inside Your Home

1. Do you live in an apartment/condo, townhouse or house? A house

 

2. What is your home’s coolest feature? I love the bay window in our dining room.

 3. Do you enjoy DIY projects? If so, what are you working on now? I do enjoy DIY projects.  However, I've been so busy that I haven't had much time to do much.  The last thing I did was paint some wine glasses for my friend who got married on Saturday.

 4. When using the dishwasher do you use powder detergent or liquid?  Neither...we use the powerballs, which might be powder, but they're hard.

 5. Do you have a TV in your bedroom?  No we don't.  We only have 1 TV in our house and that's in the living room.

6. Is your range gas or electric? Electric. I grew up using gas and the transition was difficult...we had a few burned dinners...

 

7. How often do you sweep/mop/vacuum?  We try to vacuum every Monday night.  If the dog hair gets overwhelming, we vacuum as needed.

 8. What is your favorite place to shop for home furniture and accents?  I haven't done much of that type of shopping since we moved in 2 years ago.  Then we hit up Art Van and Bed Bath & Beyond.

 9. Do you decorate for holidays?  I love decorating for Christmas and I put a few things out for fall.  I have a spring wreath but that's about it.

 10. If you could have HGTV come in and redo one room in your home which room would you choose?  Good question...I'd love to have my kitchen redone, except I just want it bigger, everything is only 2 years old.  I think it would be fun to have them decorate our master bedroom!

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions! Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments. Happy Monday, friends!

Making Improvements

When we bought our house, we had an enormous deck that covered the majority of our back yard.  The raised part of the deck was actually built over an above-ground pool.  Kind of ridiculous, right?  The plywood you see is a covering a big hole in the deck--our realtor had to cover it so our house would pass inspection.   

This is what Mike and I have seen every day in our backyard since buying our house in 2010.  Really pretty, huh?

This spring we decide that enough was enough and the pool and deck were coming down!  I don't know where my pool demolition pictures are, but here you can see that the pool is gone.

Champ wishes he could go out and play on the deck, but I was too afraid he would fall/jump off!

One of Mike's former co-workers  has started a handyman business, so we hired him to finish our deck for us.

In progress...

The finished product!!!!  Champ loves being able to play outside!

Our next project is to get the big sandbox filled in, we're hoping to have that done this fall.

Our other backyard addition is our new firepit.  I built it on Memorial Day and we've enjoyed a few bonfires with our friends!

We are loving having a great deck and firepit for entertaining!!!

Christmas Around Our House

Merry Christmas and welcome to my house! C'mon in and I'll show you around!

Here you can see my Christmas card display.  I made it myself--a piece of festive ribbon with a bow on top.  Then I bought some tiny clothespins to attach the cards to the ribbon.  We don't have too many cards, but I wanted a fun way to display them!

I love this Christmas puppy--he looks a lot like Champ did when he was younger!

Here's my little Christmas centerpiece for our dining room table.  Feel free to grab some candies as I show you to the living room.

Come with me to our living room, I'd love to show you our tree! We have lots of ornaments on it that have special meanings for us.  And of course, under the tree you can see presents for our family members!

Here's a fun ornament to celebrate of first Christmas together as a married couple!

I wish you could see it better in this picture, but because of the flash, you can't see the words. It says "New Home 2010"

We started a tradition last year that Mike and I buy each other a Christmas ornament.  This is the one he got me last Christmas.

My SEM student made me this ornament this year!

This is the ornament I bought Mike last year

Mike and I both got one of these for Christmas last year from the SEM leaders.

This is an ornament that I have had for as long as I can remember!  When you push it, it plays We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Of course, I can't forget to introduce you to Tyler, our talking snowman.  He always has a friendly greeting as you enter our living room!

I love this little Christmas tree--it looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss movie! 

Mike's favorite artist is Thomas Kinkade.  For his birthday this year, my parents gave him this fiber optic wall hanging.  You can't see it in the picture, but the lights on the house and the Christmas tree change colors.  It's beautiful in the dark!

Let's head into the kitchen and we can enjoy some cookies and hot chocolate!  I'm so glad you stopped by!

Working around the house

When we moved into our house, the only lighting in the kitchen was a set of 3 tracklights (and a dim little light over the sink).  I was constantly frustrated by the poor lighting because it made for really bad food pictures, and it was difficult to see anything in the evenings because the lights created so many shadows in the kitchen--I could barely read a recipe!  About a month into our marriage, Mike's dad rigged up the little contraption you see on the far left light bulb.  Have a bare bulb helped the light situation a little bit, but it certainly wasn't a good long-term solution!

Can you guess what my amazing husband and awesome father-in-law are planning to do?  Oh yes...I know they love me!  (Or they got sick of me complaining about the lack of lighting in our kitchen!)

After a few hours of hard work (I did help!), this was the result...

Beautiful can lights in my kitchen!  It really is incredible what a difference these lights make!  My kitchen is nice and bright now, I can take decent food pictures inside, and I can read recipes without turning every light in the vicinity on!  Thank you Mike and Pops! :)

Today, I'm thankful for...

1.  A quiet and productive evening at home.
2.  An awesome spin class, with an instructor who knows how to kick my butt!
3.  My nice warm house!

4.  My husband and father-in-law who make a great fix-it team!

Working Hard...or Hardly Working?

The weather was quite nice last Saturday afternoon.  I had to make a dessert for Easter dinner, so Mike decided to do some work in our yard.  See that tree stump?  Really, how random is that?  Anyway, it had to go!

The original plan was to pull the stump with Brett's truck, but they decided to chop it down instead. 

Yay, no more stump!

The next project was to get rid of the overgrown bushes.  We liked them, but they were planted to close to the sidewalk, so if we wanted to walk on the sidewalk, we'd have to prune the bushes back so far they wouldn't even look like bushes.  We decided to pull them up and we'll plant new ones later this spring.  This time, the guys got to use the truck :)

Winter Wonderland

This is what I woke up to on Saturday morning!!! Absolutely stunning!