Friday Link Love

Home Bunch

 

Yum! Warm & Gooey Deep Dish Chocolate Chip Cookies

DIY Patio Ideas & More Patio Ideas - On Our List of Things to Do

How to arrange Peonies, last week Roses, this week Peonies, my two favorite flowers.

Best Commercials Ever - Big Gas Savings & Ship Your Pants

Elon Friends Intro - Love Elon & Love Friends

Wedding Inspiration: Oheka Castle Wedding - Elizabeth Anne Designs

I just came across this beautiful wedding at Elizabeth Anne Designs.  It is a great piece of inspiration for my own wedding.  The colors, the ballroom, the flowers, use of their monogram, really everything about it is just so elegant and lovely. And of course the wedding was at Oheka Castle, which is such a beautiful venue.  I hope to be able to attend a wedding there one day.

 

To see more pictures, please check out the original post on Elizabeth Anne Designs and their gallery

Friday Link Love

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Amazing Summertime Tables… Dreaming about all of the entertaining we will do in our new house…

Love the artwork from Cozamia, Brittle Stars is my favorite…

I have an obsession with candlesticks, love these ones here from CB2…

How to arrange roses… Good to know...

To & From Gift Guide, could come in handy…

Sparkling Raspberry Lemonade, sounds delicioussss...

Really need to start getting in shape for the wedding, maybe this 7-minute workout will work...

House Demo – Weekend Two

 After the first weekend working in the house, we realized that we were not going to be able to get the entire house gutted by ourselves if we ever wanted to move in this Summer.  So, we asked for a little help from our family.  So, Saturday morning my cousins, Brendan & Brian, came by to help knock stuff down.  And you can see below how a few extra hands really makes a difference. (Thanks guys!) While the boys were in the house doing “demolition,” Brendan's wife, Colleen, and I started a new project, refinishing some furniture.  (Pics on that to come soon)

See below for progress from last weekend:

Kitchen & Dining Room (Before):

Kitchen & Dining Room & Bedroom (After):

Master Bedroom (Before):

Both Bedrooms & Closet (After):

Hallway (Before): 

Hallway (After):

Living Room (Before):

Living Room (After):

We had really wanted an entrance from the garage into the house, so we added one ourselves. LOL. No, but really it just made the most sense to open up the wall there so that we could easily put all of the garbage in the garage until we got a dumpster.  But, we are really going to miss that TV that you can see in the before picture of the living room.  We think it may have been the first flat screen tv, since the screen was flush with the wall and the back of it was sitting on a shelf sticking out the back of the wall into the garage.  CRAZY!!! 

So, lots to do still, but we are making progress.  Also, with most of the walls down we are starting to see how our "Open Floor Plan" is going to look and we cannot wait!

Wedding Update: 5 Months To Go!

The Big Day is only 5 months away and it seems that my To-Do List is getting longer instead of shorter.  The more I think about it the more it seems to grow. The good thing is that we have most of the big things completed and booked, so it really just comes down to the details now.

Here's the update on what we have done, what we are in the process of planning, and what we still need to do.  Hopefully, next month, we will be able to move a few more items to the "Done" category.  But, I am sure that I will have more things to add to the "Need To Do" category as well.

Done:

Booked the Church - Assumption Church, Emerson, NJ
Ceremony Officiant - My Uncle Al : )

Booked the Venue - The Estate at Florentine Gardens, RiverVale, NJ

Booked our Photographer - Milton Gil Photographers

Engagement Pictures (I will share these soon...)
Ordered my Wedding Gown - Shhh!

Ordered the Bridesmaid Dresses - Bill Levkoff

Ordered the Groomesmen Tuxedos - Men's Wearhouse

Booked our Videographer - Florentine Gardens In-House

Booked the DJ - Florentine Gardens In-House

Booked our Ceremony Musicians

Booked our Florist - Floral Expressions

Send out Save The Dates (See pic above)
Ordered Invitations

Hotel Room Block for Guests - Park Ridge Marriott

Reserve shuttle service between hotel and wedding site
Chosen our First Dance Song - Shhh!

Created our Wedding Website 

Created our Wedding Registries - Bed, Bath & Beyond, Crate & Barrell, Pottery Barm 

In Progress:

Booking Hair & Makeup Trials & Appointments

Honeymoon: Booked hotels, now just need to book flights

Location for Rehearsal Dinner

Bridesmaid gifts: Purchased part of their gifts! So excited to give these to them. 

Need to Do:

Pre-Cana - Scheduled for June 1st

Book Limos

Choose Menu - going to Florentine on June 15th to do this!

Cake Tasting

Menu Tasting

Choose Bridesmaid Accessories

Wedding Gown Alterations - Scheduled

Wedding Bands

Favors

Hotel Welcome Bags

Groomsmen Gifts

Gifts for Our Parents
Day-of Timelines

Ceremony Song List

Reception Song List

Seating Plans

Table Numbers

Guestbook

Ceremony Programs and Menu

Seating Cards

Marriage License

Renew Passport

If any of you have any advise, ideas or info to help us in our wedding planning, we would greatly appreciate it!

House Demo - Weekend One

 After weeks of driving by our soon-to-be house, there were a few changes that we knew we wanted to make right away.  So, Joel did not waste any time getting started. 

First thing to go were the weird, broken, folding doors on the front step, which were pretty much falling off anywyay.

Before (Or In Process)

After

The next thing to go were the yellow and brown awnings that were over every window.  We actually tried to rip them down right after we got the keys, but they were on there a little better than we thought.

Before

After

Picture Coming Soon...

After that my mom, sister and I started working on cleaning up the windows in the back room.  They were disgusting and we wanted to get some air ventilating in the house.  So, we removed the large glass panels and were thrilled to find dozens of dried up bee’s nests in the corners of the frames.  It took us all day to clean up the frames and panels.  But, honestly it made such a difference.

Before

After

While we were working on the back room, Joel decided that he was ready to start knocking down some walls.  Joel and Vinnie (my sister's fiance) started with the one between the kitchen and bedroom (soon to be Dining Room).  The first step was removing the make-shift closet/pantry that was created in the doorway between the two rooms.  Then, came the kitchen cabinets.  I made him take these down carefully and very slowly because we were thinking of reusing them for our laundry room, but after discussing further we decided to just get rid of them.  (He was not very happy with me about that because I made him waste so much time being careful with them.)  Then, finally, all that was left was the sledgehammer!  It was so much fun, we all got to take a few swings, but it was much heavier than I expected!

Before (from the bedroom side)

After (from the kitchen side)

Check out some of the beatiful wall paper that was revealed behind the cabinets:

We also removed all of the wallpaper in the living room, which just ripped right off of the walls to reveal more ugly plasterboard walls. Can't wait to knock them all down.

Before

After

And took down the beautifully patterned wall boards in the hallway.  Revealing some really nice holes in the walls.  So happy that we are replacing them all.

Before

After

So, after Weekend One, we were really able to see how much work actually needs to be done, before we can even start rebuilding the house we are planning, but we are loving every second of it (right now).

Until next weekend...

House Tour

Before we begin, let me tell you that our new house needs alot of work, but this is the reason why we chose it.  We love the potential of the house and the fact that we are going to be able to makeover the entire house just how we want to.

Throughout the entire house searching process, we came across so many houses that we really liked, but there was always one or two things that we did not want to settle for.  If you know me at all, you know that I can be extremely picky, and would probably never be happy living in a house that I wasn't able to change.  So after a little help from my family to see past the clutter and envisioning what the house could be one day, we decided to jump at the opportunity.

So, let's start...

(And by the way, alot of these pics are pre-closing and not our furniture or STUFF)

Here is the house from the street...

 The living room from the front entrance...

  Did I tell you how much clutter there was... Can you even tell that there is a fireplace?

The other half of the Living Room/Dining Room...

 

 The kitchen...

On the left, you can see the corner of the Washing Machine and when we pulled out the dishwasher, it is just a big empty whole! Lovelyyyy...

And the other wall of the kitchen...

  Refrigerator works!!! 

 

Now, here is the hallway...

Hardwood floor, not bad...

But, the beautifully panelled walls have got to go.

Here is the bathroom...

Two of my favorite colors, but this is a little much.

 

Sorry, the first one is a little blurry...

And yes, that is wallpaper on the back of the door.

Master Bedroom...

Has potential??
 



And the closet...

Hopefully we can make this work... 

 

Bedroom #2

 

I told you about the clutter right???



Bedroom #3

 

Maybe Dining Room or Eat-In-Kitchen?  Do you see that doorway on the left, well that is actually a small closet in the kitchen, veryyy interestinggg...

 



Now, for one of my favorite features of the house, the Three Season Room.

 

Yes, it needs some work, but I can really see us spending alot of time out here!



And, here is the back of the house and probably the most attractive quality of all, the hugeeee yard.  I mean the front is big, but we love this backyard.

So, there it is, Our First House. 

 

Not much to look at right now, but we have so many ideas and are soooo excited to get started!!!

 

We will keep you filled in on our progress, so stay tuned...