Extreme Makeover: Company's Coming Edition.

This week has been pretty hectic, as we prepare for our Engagement Party this weekend, and for the many, many friends we have coming in town for the occasion. There's nothing like fifteen of your closest friends coming to stay the weekend to really make you spruce things up around the house! I realized that Mark has really only been using about one third of his house - his room, bathroom, living room and kitchen. The two guest rooms, guest bathroom, dining room and second living area have been sadly neglected. He has a roommate in one of the extra bedrooms, but the other one is just shut up with a bare mattress and a dresser in it, never touched unless someone actually is going to sleepover, in which case he puts his old high school bedding on the bed. Booooring.

We finally finished painting the kitchen last week, and then I brought up my (much nicer than Mark's) desk and set up his computer in one corner of it. The old desk? Off to Goodwill! Or, just the garbage. It's pretty bad. Next we tackled the guestroom. We painted it and even sanded and repainted the baseboards. I hit up Ikea, where for a whopping $35 I got a comforter, duvet set and new sheets. Ten bucks at Stein Mart for a bed skirt and the pillows from my couch at my place finished off the bed. When I officially move in, I'll bring my bed frame for it as well. I snagged some stuff from around Mark's house for a few decorative touches, and we've got a guest room!

Next up, hallway. Sounds boring, but we really wanted to use a burnt orange in the house somewhere, but couldn't bear to paint an entire bedroom that color, and the great room/kitchen-living areas-dining room are all pretty open, so any wall in that section of the house would be visible from everywhere, and would have to match everything. So we painted the little hallway that goes off to the two guest rooms and second bathroom an almost-UT burnt orange. I LOVE it. You can just see it peeping out from the main part of the house, and it looks fabulous.

So now we're down to the guest bath. I went to stare at the 3,000 paint swatches at Home Depot last night (sans Mark - he told me he trusted me to pick out ANY color) and came back with a sample of a nice golden tan. Harvest Wheat I think it was called. I put some up on the wall and we both agreed it looks good enough! So that's the last of the rooms we need to paint before Friday. Whew! So far all the colors we've picked are warm, earthy tones and I am just loving how they are all coming together. I can see myself living in this house.. it feels like it's transforming into our home. Mark commented as we labored over all the paint this week, "we're making this house a home." It's amazing what a little color on the walls and some strategic rearranging can do!

Keeping You on Your Toes

I decided to switch up my header, just to spice things up. This is a picture of my parents' "herd" of longhorns, up at our house in Muenster. Are you in the market for a longhorn? Feel free to give my folks a call and arrange to bring one of these guys home to your backyard. Check 'em out at Double N Cattle. (Or, looking for a website designer? My sister is your gal).

This past weekend we debated switching up our wedding venue and date. My mom found a ranch that hosts private events about 20 miles from the church we'll be getting married in, so she went to check it out with my dad and sisters. She calls me Friday morning and insists that this is THE place we've been looking for and that we must book it right now, but they aren't available on our date. But they do have a Saturday in June open. So I call the priest. The photographer. The WP. The future in-laws. (All while in the car driving out to the lake for the weekend.) And everyone is free on the June date. So we decide to go check the place out when we get back into town on Sunday. It was a very charming, very rustic ranch complete with some goats and a miniature horse. They had a ballroom that had the right look, but it was just too small. Even though the owner (who could not have been any nicer) swore they can set it up for 270, I just couldn't imagine us all crammed in that space. So we decided to forgo it and stick with what we've got. I'm relived because the idea of switching everything and notifying everyone already involved was nerve racking. But I am also bummed, because the ranch and the people who owned it were fabulous.

Well, Gus is demanding my attention. He's pretty cute, so I guess I'll go play with him for a while :)

Organize in Style

I love organization. I am a pro at making lists and crossing things off as I complete them. I love taking notes and making files. I once spent an entire morning at work reprinting the labels on all my files at work, so they would all the the same color and in the same font. So it's no surprise that when I got engaged, I wasted no time starting my Wedding Binder. Mark and I each snuck home some sheet protectors from work and he snagged me a big white binder. I spent the next couple of months filling it with pictures I had torn out of magazines and printed off wedding sites online. I got some dividers and made some sections, but it has already become such a mess that I've already abandoned it. It has no rhyme or reason anymore and filled with a lot of pictures and colors that I'm not even considering anymore.

Today I stumbled upon Russell and Hazel and fell in love in about 3 seconds. Their free PDF files of every list you could possibly need as you plan your wedding are pretty fabulous. Their binders and paper products are quite pricey, but I couldn't resist the black and white patterned binder and ordered it, telling myself that every bride deserves a nice Wedding Binder and this one will of course keep me right on track with all my planning. I cannot wait until it arrives in the mail!