Excitement

So, I got my samples in for the laundry room floor. Here's a picture of the two options next to the Travertine tile that will go in the kitchen.

Left is the full rocks and to the right are slicked rocks.

Sorry about the lighting, I carried about ten pounds of rocks around all day yesterday and didn't get home until around 10:45pm. I think the security guys at my campus thought I was crazy when they x-rayed my bags and saw rocks :) I'm leaning heavily towards the sliced rocks, I'm kind of obsessed with them. I also just ordered samples of the black rocks and sliced black rocks just to make sure. It's that whole commitment thing.... when I asked Ryan which ones he liked better his response was "just tell me which ones I should like better", well played my man, well played (and then he chose the wrong ones which I quickly corrected).

I also found lights for the family room. I had been looking FOREVER and Ryan and I couldn't agree but then I saw these beauties....

Minka Lavery

I love how they're simple yet sophisticated. I also think two of them won't over power the room. I'm pretty excited to get these babies in and put them up. See you later spotlights :)

And my last piece of excitement came from getting home way too late and seeing my hubby-to-be working on the ceiling.

Our ceiling is going to drop a few inches over the breakfast bar so Ryan was making sure that it would all be square. Him and Clark had been working on it for most of the evening. So, things are coming along.... I will be so excited when all this drywall is done so we can paint and tile!!!

Back

From vacation and this time I actually have a tan, win. If you've never been to Lake Powell, I suggest you go...

And stay on one of these beauties...

Ryan's goal is to get the ceiling mudded and ready for painting this weekend. Mine is to not fail my midterms. Let's hope we accomplish both :)

I'm a Slave... for you

Get the Britney reference? :)

Ryan has been slaving away at the kitchen this past week. We're heading to Lake Powell for the long weekend so he's been trying to get as much done as possible before we head out. I can honestly say I've been very little help (although I did sand some drywall the other day) because school has consumed my life. He's been mudding, sanding and re-mudding A LOT to get all of our seams and corners looking good (and they do, oh, how they do).

It was crazy how huge of a indentation this wall had. Now you can 't even tell the old wall  from the new wall.

He also started to put up walls in our laundry room. Ah, the days when I can do laundry in my laundry room will be quite glorious.

This wall is going to be my striped wall :)

Progress is being made. Speaking of the laundry room, I'm thinking about doing pebbles on the floor in here. They had them in Iceland and we really liked them. What do you think?

White?

Multi colored?

Beige

Black?

So many options! I think the beige ones might be my favorite since they will have the same colors as the Travertine in the kitchen but a totally different texture. 

Lighting

I have a dilemma in my "great" room. The people who owned the place before us re-did the whole room but didn't put in recessed lighting. So, now, we're stuck with these two spot lights that are pretty horrendous. I've been looking around and I'm debating between what kind of style I want to go with. Part of me (a huge part of me) wants to put in two chandeliers.

Simple and classy

Ryan seems a LITTLE more hesitant about them, he mentioned something about being too feminine...

Another part of me (a very small part of me that I barely recognize), thinks we should just go really plain.

Maybe not this exact one.

And the last part of me, thinks that it might be neat to have a simple light that hangs a bit.

Simple.

So, what do you think? Do you think the first one would be too much? Our ceilings are around 9' tall so the height won't be a problem but would it be too busy? Decisions, decisions..

A Long Weekend in One Short Post

Although we technically passed our plumbing and building inspection, the inspector had told us that we needed a clean out on both sides of our sink pipes in order to pass the final inspection. So, before we could finish up drywalling, Ryan tried to get in touch with our plumber to make the fix. Well days turned in to weeks with no return phone call or text from our plumber (oh, how I love contractors) so Ryan took it upon himself to figure out how to put one it. So here it is, in all it's glory....

Ryan putting in the finishing touches.

And so, we were finally ready to put up the remaining walls.

Planning

Finished Product

Boy are those walls pretty. 

Although we still weren't ready to paint the kitchen (tear), my Mom, sister and niece headed down the Sunday of labor day weekend to help me paint the great room.

The ceiling was miserable to do but so worth it.

Sarah was great help.

Painting Away

The previous owners had painted the room beige and the ceiling a yellowish beige, I decided that I wanted to brighten up the room so we painted the ceiling white and the walls a light grey. Here's a picture of the "finished" product (we'll pretend I didn't have to paint the ceiling a second miserable time the next day).

Stairs

Partial View

Before and After of the ceiling

It's hard to get a good picture since part of the room is still a mess but I love, love, LOVE the grey and the white ceiling makes such a difference.

But because we couldn't have all the fun, while we were painting Ryan was mudding, sanding and repeating in the kitchen. 

So there you have it  folks we finally have walls. Glorious, beautiful walls... AND we ordered our washer and dryer last weekend so my days at the laundry mat are numbered #thankgod. Now the countdown is on to finish this baby and actually have a kitchen to cook in again. Woot Woot.

It's Electric!

Sorry about the lack of posts, business school is A LOT of work (as is this house).

Last week we were determined to finish up the walls so we could paint Sunday but, like usual, we ran in to a few too many obstacles. When Ryan was getting ready to put the ceiling back together so we could finish drywalling the room, he and Clark noticed that there was a live wire in the ceiling that was not in a box. After my soon to be husband almost electrified himself, they realized the severity of the situation. After countless Internet searches, we finally got in touch with my Uncle who told Ryan what to do which turned this little wire in to a BIG project.

Note: don't try this at home, folks

putting in the electrical box

putting the ceiling back together

It's always a good day when you can no longer see in to the bathroom upstairs from the kitchen and a lot less awkward when you have guests over :)