Busy Bees

We have been busy at making our condo feel more like home and doing a good job at it if I do say so myself.

Brightened this shelf area up by painting it light gray and adding old barn wood shelves. Adam and I got to traipse over an old farm with my brother-in-law, Buck, to find this barn wood when we were in Maryland over Thanksgiving. Reminds me of him every time I walk into the enter way.

We painted most of our condo from this yellow to a light gray except for our bedroom. We painted it a navy blue and I am loving it. We still need to hang all our white and gold decorations but it feels elegant yet cozy.

Took out the anchored plastic paper towel holder ( I have no idea why they decided to anchor a plastic paper towel holder) and replaced it with one we made out of pipe. Really loving the rustic/industrial feel we've gone with in our place.

These are two of my favorite projects Adam has made so far. I mean for real though, I love everything he's been helping me with. It's been so fun to do these projects together by brainstorming ideas and then helping each other complete the project.  The top art piece was Adam's vision and he took that one from start to finish. It looks awesome in person and is a perfect piece for entry way. The second piece is our coat rack in our front closet. So when I painted the closet, I had to take the old coat rack out of the closet. When I did that it jacked up the wall that I had just patched so I could paint. In my typical fashion, I got mad at an inanimate object and decided that the ugly monstrosity would not go back in the closet. Poor Adam went to work with a working coat rack and came back to an empty closet that now needed a coat rack. He was nice though and made this beautiful thing. Makes me happy every time I get to hang my coat there.

Adam has been getting good use out of his tools with all these projects. I can't wait to show you all of the finished products when we get them done. We are getting so close.

A couple weekends ago, we visited some friends and Adam's sister down in Kentucky and found these beauties along the way. Things are so much cheaper outside of the city. Most of the knobs will be used for various shelves.

Seriously, we spent $10 on that box of knobs. It was amazing and then Adam made this shelf to hang my aprons. I feel like we probably should do a few tutorials because we've been learning a lot but I don't really have any pictures to support that next time.

Thought I would give an update even if it's not very thorough. We are loving life and our new condo ;)

Top 5 things I didn't blog about in 2014

All over social media the last few days, I've seen top things people did, created, blogged about, etc in 2014 and everyone's resolutions for this year. Haha Gotta love people who've got it all together. That is definitely not us. We snuck in a second move this year, I changed jobs twice, and have met a ton of great friends which has left us muy ocupado (aka every minute planned busy). For the most part, we love this lifestyle but sometimes it's nice to be on time to something, buy gifts before Christmas Eve (Sorry mom!), and relax once a while. So in celebration of the New Year, I've decided to take a look back on the things I didn't blog about because we were too busy.

1. Girls Weekend/Boys Weekend
I had a girl's weekend in June with 7 of my college friends that was a perfect mix of sightseeing and relaxing. We had perfect weather and good food. Poor Abby and Kindra were both pregnant and Chicago is full of so much walking #wewalkedsomuch #terriblefriends



That same weekend Adam went to Michigan with his dad and a few of their friends for an annual golf trip. They rocked the views of Lake Michigan, good food, and three days of golf like a bunch of champs.



Adam also went on his second annual trip with his buds where they visit a new baseball field every year. Minneapolis was the destination of choice this year with Target Field and the Mall of America being obvious activities during the weekend. Love that they do this!

2. I saw my family 5 times this year
Ladies and gentleman, a new record has been set for seeing my family in one calendar year since I left for college over 7 years ago (Yikes, was I really a freshman in college 7 years ago? SEVEN? oh boy!). From girls weekend to surprise parties, I had a blast seeing new nieces and nephews and family staples this year.



3. We had 23 visitors this summer in our small apartment with only one bathroom
We loved hosting friends (old and new) and family this summer to see our favorite city and hang out with us city folk. Cubs games, beach trips, and good, good food. So fun!

4. I got a new job
I started a new job at my church at the end of October and hit the ground running. I'm the only graphic designer for a multi-site church here in Chicago. We currently have 6 locations but are looking to multiply again this year. It's been really busy but also really encouraging and challenging (in the right ways) ... just a really good fit for me. Really happy that this opportunity opened up for me.

5. We bought our first place!
This happened so fast but we fell in love with a place close to the lake and our church. We talked to a realtor at church on Saturday, saw the place on Sunday, I had an all day interview with my church (my new job) and saw it again on Monday night. We then put in an offer on it. I got offered a job the next day and we heard that they accepted our offer. Wowzas. We then closed 10 days before Christmas and moved that weekend! Crazy- Crazy but we are loving the place. We've done a ton of projects the last few weeks along side each other and friends to get this place looking like us and are hoping to show it off soon ;) After 5 moves in 3 1/2 years, we are ready to settle down for a bit.