Tuesday, July 1, 2014

craigslist: love/hate

It's been awhile since I've tackled a Craigslist furniture re-do. I'm not even sure what our last project was at this point, it's been so long. I'm a big advocate for finding something old (and cheap) and making it yours through sweat equity. Our front porch furniture, dining room table, dining room chairs and buffet table are all courtesy of Craigslist, some supplies from our local Home Depot, and a hell of a lot of hard work and I am thrilled with how each of them turned out. I do; however, always forget what a bitch it always is to pick each piece of furniture up and how much longer than planned each project ends up taking.

So when the urge to take on a new project hit me (exactly one month post-wedding... guess it's time to start nesting), I jumped in head first, not thinking about the irritations at all. Today after work, my amazing friend, Jen & I set out to quickly toss a dresser in the back of my spacious, brand new SUV. It's only 3 miles from work, it looks pretty light... we should be able to get in and out in no time at all, right? No, not at all. Instead a truck flipped and caught on fire right at rush hour, creating crazy traffic on the normally empty back streets we needed to take to get to this house. Jen beat me there by several minutes and had to sit outside waiting for me, in 94 degree heat... and yes, her air conditioning is broken. Ouch. I owe you, Jen!!!! We finally get back to see the dresser, behind this house with a million cars separating us from my car and realize its heavy... like really, really effing heavy. The struggle to get this thing over to my car in the 94 degree heat sucked and the man who was selling the dresser did all the heavy lifting. The comes hauling this beast into the car... which involved removing dresser legs, scrapping the shit out of parts of our 1.5 week old car and lots of sweat drippage. A million years later, it's in the car and I'm off. And it smells. And bugs are crawling out of it. What. The. Hell. Was. I. Thinking. 

$30, lots of sweat, a non-stop itchy I have bugs crawling on me feeling and some minor car damage and I finally have this thing in our garage, a new project ready for me to tackle. So after I bug bomb the shit out of it, Lysol the crap out of it, prime every inch of it with Kilz to get rid of the funk I'll need to figure out just want I want to do with it. I have some ideas (I'm ready to jump on the gold dipped furniture trend on a major way), but Jason hates them all and this dresser is going into our bedroom, so ideally he wouldn't despise it. Our end tables are a dark grey color (I painted them that color, so I'm willing to repaint them if necessary, although I'd prefer not to) so my gut instinct is to keep this grey too, but our bedding is grey too and that's a lot of grey for one room so I'd like to spice it up in some way.

This is what I'm working with... Anyone have any ideas? (FYI the handles will be changed) 






Monday, June 23, 2014

first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes family friendly car...

In April 2013, Jason & I bought a 2009 Volkswagen GTI. It was a pretty sweet car, fast and with a really nice interior. We loved it, but it constantly had issues, with the check engine light popping up every 3 months or so. We were lucky that it was a certified used car, because every repair we've had to make was covered by the warranty, but that warranty was coming to an end soon and those repairs were going to start getting expensive. Add to that the fact that the people at the Volkswagen dealership near us are completely incompetent assholes, who would let us come in and sit in their waiting room for hours before calling us down to let us know they needed to order a part and we would need to come back at a later time, to play the waiting game all over again. I should also mention that Jason & I have been a single car family since winter last year, as we work together and our second car would literally sit on the street for weeks at a time which led us to sell it. We need a reliable car, something that won't break down quarterly.

This weekend was the last straw for me. We made an appointment at Volkswagen to get our oil changed and have the check engine light that popped up on Monday checked out on Monday evening for the following Saturday as it was the first available appointment we could make with our work schedules. On Friday afternoon, the day before our scheduled appointment, they called to cancel and reschedule us for the following Monday morning -- ie. when we would be at work... We made the weekend appointment for a reason! 

We had been casually looking at cars at that point, knowing we'd have to trade it in before the warranty expired, even going to the Honda dealership by our house the week before to test drive a CR-V (a great experience, I should add). On Saturday morning, instead of heading to Volkswagen to get our car worked on, we headed to Mazda to check out the CX-5. We spent 4 hours at the dealership, going as far as to have our credit checked so we could get an accurate idea of how much we'd be spending each month, but after lots of promises to work with us on our trade and on the price, we were disappointed to have a nearly $400 monthly payment quoted to us, before the interest was even factored in! The car was great, the salesman we worked with was nice, but it just wasn't a fit for our budget. We took a Steak'n'Shake break and then headed back to Honda to test drive the Mid-level Honda CR-V. Here, we had more great service -- and broke down and bought our family friendly SUV. We got a great price, they paid off our trade-in, and the service was great. In Jason's words, "first comes love, then comes Bennie (our second pup), then comes marriage, then comes a CR-V." Our fast, fun car is gone, but our family friendly, safe, reliable SUV is an excellent replacement and we look forward to having it for years to come, as we have kids & shuttle them off to daycar, school, soccer games, and beyond.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

moving on to the next phase

Jason & I returned home from our relaxing mini-moon in Taylorsville, Kentucky early today. We spent a few days golfing (him golfing, me driving the golf cart), bourbon and wine drinking, eating, sleeping in and getting massages. It was an incredibly relaxing way to wind down after the hectic nature of the weeks immediately before and after the wedding.

As soon as we got home we headed over to the Post Office in hopes of our wedding certificate having made it's way to us during our absence. Thankfully it was the only piece of non-junk mail waiting for us and we were able to head over to the Social Security Office to begin the process of making my new name legal. Initially the office intimidated me -- some of the people there were a little off their rocker -- but since we were there at 12 on a random Thursday we were able to get through the line quickly & I was over prepared with every form of identification I could possibly need, so we were in and out of there pretty quickly. The clerk said I should be able to use a printout with my new name and existing social security number on it to get my new license, so I'm going to tackle that and then getting my bank info switched over tomorrow.

Other than that, I'm trying to finish up our thank you cards -- only 17 more to go -- and organize our pictures from our wedding and honeymoon on Shutterfly. We're supposed to be getting our professional pictures back within the next 1-2 weeks, so I have a photo book set up so that I can insert some pictures and order our photo book ASAP once those are in.

My hope is that we'll be ready to move past all the wedding stuff in the next week or so & we can just enjoy being newlyweds for awhile in the very near future. For all the lead up to getting married, I am certainly feeling quite rushed to move beyond the wedding stage as soon as possible. Some people say they get depressed when all the wedding madness is over, but I'm not feeling that at all. Instead I'm just excited about everything this new married phase of life will bring!

Sunday, June 8, 2014

the more things change, the more they stay the same

As I mentioned in my previous post, Jason & I got married 8 days ago on May 31st. Jason & I have lived together since February 2012, so honestly not a whole lot changed after that day. What has changed?

1) I take every opportunity I get to call Jason my husband. The switch from boyfriend to fiancé did not come this easily to me -- fiancé and boyfriend both seem like silly words to me for some reason (not that the level of relationship that they reflect is at all silly), but for some reason "husband" is a term I was able to get behind almost instantly. I've only accidentally called him my fiancé instead of husband a handful of times & I've stated that he is my husband far more times than necessary.

2) My name changed. Not legally, yet (waiting on the marriage certificate so I can tackle the Social Security office) but I've tackled the ever-important Facebook name change and the workplace name change (email, ID badge, business cards, etc.). It's weird switching between my old last name and my new last name depending on the thing I'm signing (ie. my notary stamp is in my old last name, anything I pay for using my debit card requires my old last name, but work letter, thank you cards, etc all get my new name... & I go by my new name now, I am quick to correct anyone who calls me "Amanda Old Last Name" because I hated my maiden name & my new last name is all sophisticated and snazzy sounding.

3) Baby fever is in full-force. I knew this was coming, but tried to keep it to myself as much as possible, but the moment we tied the knot people started asking when the babies would be coming. This may offend some people, but it just gets me more excited for what the future holds... while also terrifying my husband. I'm not saying we need to have a baby in our arms 9 months from today, but as I get closer and closer to turning 30, the thought of having a child weighs heavier in my mind.

4) Our house looks better than ever. I know, talking about registries is taboo for some reason, but we registered at Macy's pretty early on and I used it as a way to track the best sales so that I could get the best deals on things that we really needed ASAP, that weren't purchased for bridal showers, etc. Macy's bridal rewards program is amazing -- 10% back on anything you buy on your Macy's credit card while your registry is active and 5% back on anything anyone buys from your registry. During our engagement I bought (oftentimes with the help of gift cards generously gifted from friends, family & coworkers) new Belgique pots & pans, a Dyson vacuum, Martha Stewart dish sets, and Charter Club towels. This in addition to the items gifted to us at bridal showers and the wedding & our house finally feels like a grown up's house. No more hand-me-downs for us (you know, aside from the many items in our house I've thrifted)! We have enough Macy's gift cards that we're seriously considering upgrading our crappy couch to something new from Macy's furniture store. First we want to wait to see how much we get back from the rewards program -- something we should receive in the next month or so.

5) There is the potential for another change in the very near future that I'm super excited for. I'll fill everyone in on that if and when it works out!

With that, I'm off to finish up my packing. Jason & I are mini-mooning for the next few days at a lake house near the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. So excited for a relaxing couple days with the love of my life!

revival

Just over a week ago I married my favorite person on earth. Having previously blogged about our wedding planning prior to getting burnt out on all things wedding related 18 months into our 21 month long engagement, it feels appropriate to revive Vintage Lace & Pearls on a new platform now that the wedding is over.

From here on out, this blog will be about thrifting, home design, DIY, my attempts at gardening and cooking, and hopefully in the not too distant future, babies.

For those of you who did read Vintage Lace & Pearls on Wordpress, I don't want to leave you hanging -- here are some pictures from what was one of the greatest days in my life, even if I vomited 15 minutes prior to the photographer making it to our room (not due to nerves or pregnancy as everyone was quick to assume... just a too-heavy breakfast & a slight stomach bug) & felt sick to my stomach for 2 hours after the ceremony. Everything else came together exactly as I hoped it would & it was a beautiful day spent with friends & family celebrating Jason & I's marriage.