Elfa to the Rescue.

The closet on our 2nd floor is basically the equivalent of a junk drawer, but on a much larger (and more embarrassing) scale. Thankfully it no longer looks like this:


Thanks to our new elfa shelving (and some sorting), it now looks like this:


The shelves make this closet so much more usable -- we have so much extra space in there now for storage. Our table leaf is safely stored in a bag below the bottom shelf to avoid any scratches (and it is much easier to get to than before). My extra vases, candles, picture frames, and miscellaneous decorative accents are all corralled into a few bins for easy access. We also hung a mail sorter on the wall right inside the door. It has worked out great so far -- no more mail laying around out in plain sight!

The installation of it all was very easy, especially for me since I merely had the jobs of pulling off the stickers that came on each and every component and handing Justin his tools. Riley also did a great job of supervising throughout the project.

5 things . . .

5 things I am thankful for:

1. The Pottery Barn, West Elm, and William Sonoma Home catalogs we received in the mail today.

2. My wonderful mom, whose birthday was yesterday.

3. My best friend, whose birthday is today.

4. The super soft pajama pants Justin gave me for Christmas.

5. That tomorrow is Friday!

House Tour - 2nd Floor.

On to the second floor. This is where we spend most of our time, which means it is also the floor that is most complete decor-wise. This floor has the dining room, living room, powder room, breakfast room, and kitchen. It is a very open floor plan, which we really like (and Riley does too -- although he wishes he got better traction on the wood floors when he runs from one end to the other).

Our dining room:



The living room, which is completely open to the dining room:






Sadly, all of the pictures of the kitchen and breakfast room turned out like this:


We have since replaced the bad flash card, so I will have another post with the remainder of the 2nd floor soon.

Hook 'Em Horns!

Mission Organization.

I am really not one for new year's resolutions (mainly because I am terrible at keeping them), but the 30% off elfa sale at Container Store was enough to get me motivated to get better organized.

We had the folks at Container Store design a system for our 2nd floor walk-in closet, which had no shelving whatsoever. Not all of the pieces were in stock, so it is only partially installed. I will have before and after pictures once everything is in and organized.

In the meantime, I cleaned out and organized our kitchen's junk drawer.

Before (embarrassing, I know):

After:

Much better -- now I can actually find things!

House Tour - 1st Floor.

Happy New Year!

I thought it would be fun to do a little "tour" of our house. Here are some pictures of our first floor -- which consists of a garage, entry way, guest room, and full bathroom.

The entry way:



The 1st floor guest room, which is a major work in progress. The walls need to be painted, we need a rug, and we need to hang stuff on the walls. (Justin would say we need a foosball and pool table down there as well.)


On the other side of the bed is a chair-and-a-half that the ottoman at the foot of the bed belongs to.


This is the other half of the guest room. For now Riley gets the most use out of this room. He hangs out here in his crate when we aren't at home.


The attached full guest bath is great for storage because it has a linen closet and a full walk-in closet. We are going to liven it up a bit with some colorful towels and a new shower curtain.


The staircase leading up to the second floor, which I disliked at first, but have really grown to love.

Stay tuned for the second floor . . .

Good TV.

Besides the always dependable shows -- The Office, 30 Rock, and The Hills -- I haven't really been able to get into a TV show recently (other than the usual HGTV and Food Network gems). But that is about to change.

Even though The Hills' season finale was last week (and I feel slightly guilty for thinking Spencer was a nice guy in the episode), MTV didn't let me down with the new shows, The City and Bromance.

I didn't want to get hooked on The City -- but let's be serious, I knew it was going to happen. I feel like my days of watching MTV should be over, but I am just not ready to let it go. While Whitney remained relatively drama free in LA, I am glad to see things are getting interesting in NYC.

Exhibit A: Olivia.

She seems like she is a nice person deep down, but can't help from acting snotty and bitchy. And what is her obsession with Whitney's relationship with Jay? Which brings me to . . .

Exhibit B: Jay.

I sure hope he isn't giving Whitney the run-around. He is WAY hot and has a great Australian accent.

Speaking of eye candy, I am not embarrassed to admit that I also watched Bromance. The show's concept is pretty much Paris Hilton's My New BFF, but with guys. Despite being a pretty terrible show, Brody Jenner is a looker so I will continue to watch it. Big thanks to MTV for the gratuitous shot of Brody getting into the hot tub for the elimation.

And don't worry, it's not only the MTV-trash shows aimed at teenagers that I like -- there are a couple non-MTV shows premiering soon that I am looking forward to. Scrubs premiers January 6th and 24 has a 4-hour/2 night premier beginning January 11th.

5 things . . .

5 things I am thankful for:

1. Visiting with friends and family over the holidays.

2. Our dog Riley, who is curled up in my lap (making typing difficult).

3. Homemade macaroni and cheese - yum!

4. The holiday movies Love Actually and Elf.

5. Joel McHale coming to town in February.

Merry Christmas!

I heart Banana Republic.

I have recently been able to resist the temptation to look at clothes on BR's website, but I couldn't resist any longer.

There are so many great shirts that are perfect for work under a suit, but can also be dressed down with jeans. I love things I can wear to work as well as out to dinner on the weekend.




I love button-down shirts with ruffles or other fun embellishments.


BR has great wrap dresses, and this pattern and color is great. I always feel like I am wearing my PJ's to work when I wear a comfy wrap dress like this. Not to mention, most wrap dresses are pretty figure-flattering

And this dress is fabulous. I love the criss-crossed ruching at the waist and neckline.


I see a BR shopping trip in my future -- or I may take the lazy way out and order online (love the free luxe shipping)!

Blogging Hiatus.

Chick-fil-A and I have a love-hate relationship. I love their food, but their floors hate me.

We went to grab a quick dinner on Friday, and I slipped and fell on a very slippery floor. I knocked my head on a table, landed on my tailbone, and somewhere on the way down the tip of my right hand ring finger "exploded" (in the words of the ER doc and orthopedic surgeon). Thankfully, the fracture will heal on its own, and I only had to get 1 stitch because it was too swollen for anymore. The bad news is that all of your nerve endings are in your finger, which means that my finger hurts like heck. Thank goodness for vicodin and norco. I will refrain from posting any pictures of my beautiful black and blue finger.

From Friday to Monday afternoon, my entire right hand and wrist were in a massive split. I could only hunt and peck with my left hand. I am glad to report I can now type with 9 of my fingers! I am just thankful that I won't have as hard of time opening presents now (and blogging of course)!

Christmas Decorations.

This is really our first year to decorate our house for Christmas so everything is pretty simple, which is fine by me. I do have to say, they are much better than last year's decorations. Since we moved in 2 weeks before last Christmas, our house was decorated with boxes. Here are a few pictures of our Christmas decorations.

I just added 2 cute twig reindeer from Pottery Barn (they were calling my name the minute we walked into the store) and a bowl of tasty peppermint taffy to spruce up the buffet in the dining room.


And because my twig reindeer aren't very photogenic, here is a close up from the PB website.


I need to find some pretty ribbon to hang these ornaments with, but for now the simple hooks do the trick.


Centerpiece for the dining room table.


Guess I should iron the table runner . . .


My favorite decoration of all--the tree!!

Presents!


View of the lighted garland from the 1st floor.


Hanging the garland is Justin's specialty (he only uses 1,000 tie wraps).


I love coming home and seeing the lights outside!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

I love our new stockings, but they were hung with more care than most. We got them on sale, +20% preferred customer discount, free monogramming, and free shipping. However, there was just one small problem . . . they didn't hang very nicely. Here is where my OCD kicked in -- it bothered me immensely that Justin's hung more "flat" while mine and Riley's were more "tilted" (and at different angles no less). Something had to be done.

I am not a seamstress (heck, I can barely sew on a button), but I whipped out some needle and thread and took care of the problem.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Problem solved! I can finally rest easy when I am in the living room -- no more attempting to twist and adjust them to no avail. While I make no guarantees about how much loot they can hold, they sure look better (at least to a crazy perfectionist).

Christmas Decorating in Progress.

Due to our camera's corrupt compact flash drive, I thought all of the pictures we've taken over the past 2 months were ruined. While 50% or more of them were, I was excited to find that there are some that don't have neon horizontal lines running through them.

Here are a few that turned out from Thanksgiving weekend when we decorated our house for Christmas . . . As you can see, our dog is extremely helpful.

Riley helping us remove the tags and put lights on the wreaths.

Side note on the un-lighted wreaths -- Justin was pumped that he scored a great deal on these super discounted un-lighted wreaths during an after-Christmas sale last year at Lowe's. I wasn't so confident because I hate dealing with the little tiny lights any more than I have to (read: I would rather pay more to have someone do the work for me). He assured me that there wouldn't be any problems. We finished the first wreath in no time. After about 1.5 hours into the second wreath -- trying to find the problem light and re-stringing for the second time -- he mentioned that maybe the un-lighted wreaths weren't such a good of a deal as he originally thought. I of course did the "I-told-you-so" dance (a la Will & Grace). But in the end, the wreaths look great (and we saved some money too).

Riley thought the wreaths also needed a sock.

Riley posing under the tree before the ornaments go on.

Putting up Christmas decorations is hard work.

Stay tuned -- I will have pictures of the final product soon!

5 things . . .

5 things I am thankful for (there seems to be a theme):

1. Starbuck's Grande Non-Fat Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha

2. Dryer's Slow Churned Peppermint Ice Cream

3. Marich Mint Chip Maltballs (found at Central Market)

4. Williams-Sonoma Peppermint North Poles

5. Peppermint Taffy (courtesy of my mom).