Kitchen Dreamin'

Let's be honest here. Our new kitchen is what Rob and I talk about pretty much 80% of the time now (the other 20% being food). We have already made some firm decisions (like counter tops, color of cabinets, and sink) while other things are a little more flexible (layout of kitchen, brand of cabinets, appliances, light fixtures, etc). We created this mood board to show what we're thinking. I'll break it down for you guys..

• The kitchen is already painted Sherwin-Williams Open Air. It is definitely the color that we want to keep. We LOVE this color. The dining room is also painted this color, so we think it will just be more consistent if we keep them the same.
• The sink...ohhh that apron sink! It speaks to my heart! I don't know if I will ever have as much love for another object as I do for apron sinks. They're just lovely.
• While we're on this picture, let's take a peek at those butcher board counter tops. That's a definitely in our new house. Rob and I both thought of our dream kitchen and discussed it, and both versions had these counter tops. Badda bing Badda boom! 
• Glass front cabinets. I have a soft spot for open shelving. Rob loves glass front cabinets. I let him have this one...as long as I can paint the inside a super fun color! ;)
• The top right is a picture of the cabinets we're lusting after right now. They're KraftMaid cabinets  in Nordic White. Ahh...so dreamy!!!
• The bottom left is just one of the many little "kitchen hacks" that we want to install so that our kitchen is as fun and functional as possible!
• The stools are DEFINITELY a pipe dream. At $483 a piece, I don't foresee these in our future, but we are officially on the hunt for something like them. So if you see something, let us know. K? K!
• The light fixture is another dream. We're planning on having either an island or a peninsula counter top. Either way, we will have a little space that will need some fancy hanging lights. I just fell in love with these. :)
• Ohh! And the tile! We want our backsplash to be something gray and eye catching. I found this online. It's on the definitely maybe list! :)

Here are some pictures to show you our possible layout inspiration:

You can check out more of our ideas on our idea board here:  http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/21586192/thumbs/Kitchen (This is still brand new) 

OR http://www.pinterest.com/mindyguidry/kitchen-love/

So...now that you know where our minds are heading with this kitchen remodel, you all can keep us on track. Right? Right! We will see how much our final version veers from this plan. OK, so next time I write, it will be next year. Have a lovely and SAFE New Year's Eve!

Min :)

"What Ya Know About Rockin A Wolf on Your Noggin?"

Ok, so it was less of a "Thrift Store" and more of an Antique Village, but Saturday included some of my FAVORITE things: a day where Rob was off, a visit with my parents, and an antique village! A few months ago, I discovered the most wonderful little antique village only about an hour from our house. We convinced my mom (who hates antiques) to come along under the pretense that we were looking for cabinets, and we would stop into the village for just a minute. I believe she even said that she would take a nap in the van while we shopped. Three hours later, the van was so full of her stuff that we barely fit in the back seat! :) We did manage to come home with a few treasures of our own:

1. A 2014 Christmas gift for a dear friend who happens to also be a blog reader. I will have to keep that one a secret for awhile... But seriously!! I already have a gift for next Christmas!

2. Shut(ter) up! We bought this cute guy to hold our mail. Rob rigged up something on the back to make it work. It is white now, but we aren't quite sure where it will go, so it may or may not get a coat on paint. We will keep you updated...

3. LIGHTS!!!! We have been lusting after a light fixture that we saw online made with mason jars, but we knew that we wanted to spruce it up a little. Rob spotted these old boat lights attached to a boat wheel in one shop and started asking the shop owner about them. Rob is DEFINITELY the sweet talker in this family, and he and the owner finally came up on a price that made them both happy. This was the BIGGEST steal of our lives when it comes to shopping antique. The woman sold us the entire piece, but we weren't interested in the wheel, so Rob already removed it. He is like a kid in a candy store with these four lights. He keeps staring at them and talking about them. Even though our light fixture project was not on the front burner, I have a feeling that it will be ready before we know it... Hey, I'm not complaining! :) Meet three of our four little guys:

So....here's our weekend recap:
Friday - Em and I began to work on the "secret" project, but it ended up being a much bigger project than we anticipated. We are hoping to finish Saturday! :)
Saturday - Shopping, shopping, shopping!! (See above)
Sunday - Organizing, cleaning, stripping (doors), and DEXTER

Tomorrow, I have prepared a mood board to show you all of the ideas that we have for our kitchen remodel! Eeek!!! :)

Thanks for reading,
Min :)

The Hunt WAS On

Today, I'm going to share with you the way that we came about owning this new, old house of ours..

Rob and I are pretty spontaneous. I'm pretty sure that this all started when we woke up one morning and Rob said, "I'm tired of renting. Let's try to buy a house." Of course, I couldn't say no to that! We had been saving a bit for awhile, but we previously hadn't even known what we were saving for! It was around November 2011, and we decided that our goal was to buy a house in 2012. Then, the hunt was on..

I think that house hunting was one of my favorite things that I've ever done. Being the curious nosy lady that I am, I LOVED looking snooping through other people's homes. I loved looking for the potential in older homes. I loved knowing that each time we drove out to a new house, THIS could be the one! It was so exciting! We often joke now about how we wish that was a date night option. Maybe one day.. :)

The one thing that Rob and I knew we wanted was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home (or more) that was old and needed renovations. This was pretty easy for our real estate agent to pin point because in our town, most people want go buy new homes. :) I'm going to break down some of the houses for you... (I wish I still had pictures, but you'll just have to use your imagination)

The Pink House
This was the first house that we saw, and we were IN LOVE. We immediately put an offer in, and they counter offered. It was sad for us because their counter offer was just entirely too high. The house needed too much work for the amount that they asked. We were sad about this house falling through for a LONG time.
Pros: Location, location, LOCATION!!! It was so close to town, walking distance from the fitness studio I go to and the library. It was HUGE...and well built. It had 4 bedrooms. It had a secret upstairs spot (more on that later). The rooms were SO BIG. It had a beautiful porch. Did I mention that the location was the bomb??
Cons: EVERYTHING was pink. Outside, walls, CARPET, etc. Seriously. There was so much pink that my mind was blown. I like pink, but COME ON!!! The yard was so, so tiny. The bathrooms were carpeted. There was no central air. The upstairs room and bathroom were only accessed previously by a pull down ladder. Seriously.
In the end, we (obviously) didn't end up with this house, but we still often talk about what we would have done with this house if we would've bought it.

The Farm House
This house is actually not far from our home. We fell in love with this house, too, but we knew that it was too much work for us from the get go. It sure was beautiful, though!
Pros: The entire town could have lived with us. This house had 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. It had a living room, dining room, AND a den. It also had a backyard complete with a fenced in barn. There were so many hidden nooks and crannies - this house was a dream for hide-n-go seek! The character in this place was outrageous!
Cons: The price was too high for the amount of work needed to fix it to even become livable. The roof needed to be fixed. There was no central air (a BIG no no for South Louisiana). The electricity bill for a place that size would have been WAY too high. The upkeep of the backyard would've been too much for us to handle. The location was out of the range of where we were looking (coincidentally, we purchased a home even farther out of range).

The Psych Ward
Um...seriously. This was another GORGEOUS home that needed just too much work. We later found out that a family wanted to buy this house and brought a contractor before they put an offer. The contractor said that the foundation was so bad that it was useless. This was such a bummer because the house was BEAUTIFUL!!
Pros: This was the prettiest house we had been to (from the outside) and had the most potential (on the inside). The location was amazing. It was even on a parade route! It was another really big house where we could see ourselves raising lots of kids! This house had all original hardwood floors and SO MANY windows!
Cons: The house was previously a psych ward which gave me the creeps. The upstairs bathroom had stalls and bathrooms which might have made for some weird dinner conversation (Should this have been a pro?). This house didn't have central air either (see a pattern?). The house just needed SO MUCH WORK. Doors were ripped off (um...psych ward..). Floor boards were torn up. The rooms upstairs were not even remotely livable.

Half House/Half Double Wide
On our last day of house hunting, we drove into town to see a house RIGHT in our price range that "didn't need much work." We were getting desperate, people!! Well, they brought us to a home that was half of a double wide trailer that they built a brick home around. What?? It was the most discouraging thing ever. THIS is what we could get in our town? :(
Pros: None. We didn't like a single thing about this home. It probably would have worked for someone else, but this wasn't AT ALL what we were looking for. (Do I sound like a Debbie Downer? I felt that way.)
Cons: This house wasn't ours. It didn't look like us. It didn't feel like ours. Everything was just too small and cramped.

BUT...every story has a happy ending. From that house, we drove to the house that we now call home. It had been on the market for only a few days. Within minutes of driving up to it (with me whining the entire LONG 15 minute drive out of town, I'm sure), my mom was in tears because "This is where her grandbabies would be raised" and I was texting Em, asking her if we could still be besties if I lived far away (23 minutes to be exact). Rob and I were so excited that we put in an offer within 30 minutes of being at the house. The house was a diamond in the rough. Here are the specs on our current home:
Pros: HUGE backyard. It is on the bayouside, so we have the bayou sights and sounds every time we walk outside. It is already set up for a garden. It has a beautiful sunroom. It has a big backyard deck. There are SO MANY trees in the backyard that there is constant shade. The layout is open and perfect for hosting parties! There are built-ins! It had original hardwood floors and French doors. It was OLD and needed lots of love.
Cons: It was a little farther out of town than we would've liked. That's it. We loved EVERYTHING else!

We were so lucky that our closing went so smoothly with this one. We have updated the house in SO MANY WAYS since we first looked at it, but here are a few pictures of the way that we saw that house on the first day:


If you made it THIS far, you are a champ! Come back to visit our blog Monday to see a BIG (very detailed) project that Em and I are working on this weekend! :)

Welcome Home!

(Picture from the day that we closed on our house, 1 1/2 years ago)

Welcome to our humble internet abode. We've been looking for a place to document all of our fun and not so fun house projects, and I think that this is the perfect place to start. We hope that you enjoy reading all about life at the Haney house. Leave us a comment if you have any questions!