Frequently Asked Questions:

In celebration of our 1 year Blogaversary, we've put together a list of Frequently Asked Questions. Now  my definition of "frequently" is slightly skewed, if it was asked it more then once I've included it!
I'd like to thank anyone who sent a question this year. I'm always more then happy to answer!

So let's get this party started:
1) One of the questions we get the most is from Women who want to stay at home (either as a stay at home mom or a housewife) asking us how we're able to do it? 

In case your wondering, NO Lee doesn't make tons of money, that's usually where people go first. And NO, we don't have any super rich relatives (I did get one email asking if my parents were super rich haha NO). We realize it is a HUGE luxury to have one person at home, the way we're able to do it is strictly through sacrifice. We don't drive new cars, both of our cars have over 200,000 kilometers on them. We (like most of you) DIY as much as possible. Whether it's putting up a fence, or and oil change on the car or an entire new engine in the car (yes Lee can do that) we do it ourselves. We buy used whenever possible, we eat dinners at home, and we simply do without, as much as I'd love a couple pairs of Manolo's and Lee would love the newest latest technology it's more important to us to have someone at home taking care of business (so to speak). If you really try to save money, I mean really really try, it can be done, it's mostly a matter of what your willing to give up in order to stay at home. Stay tuned for a post about WHY we've made the choice to keep me at Home :)

2)The second question we get a lot is Do you want kids? Actually once we got "Why don't you have kids?"

Short answer: YES we definitely do want kids.
Long answer: I have a disorder called Hyperemesis Gravidarum, the severity varies from woman to woman I happen to be un-lucky and have a very severe case. If you've never heard of it before in short it's severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. We've had failed pregnancies and aren't sure what our next step is going to be, we're looking into all of our options, surrogacy, different adoption choices, but as soon as we know what our plan is we'll be sure to share it. We're very optimistic that there will be mini maillardville manor addition in the future :).

3) Is your house always as clean as the pictures on your blog?

Yes, and No. In general the house stays pretty clean (as I mentioned in the two questions before I'm a housewife, and we have no kids) it's pretty easy to stay on top of things :) But on the other hand there are things that aren't "picture perfect", I have a terrible habit of leaving my clothes on the bathroom floor, Lee likes to leave his socks on the living room floor, I don't usually make the bed, unless guests are coming or a bedroom shot is needed for the blog :) and after I make dinner the kitchen looks like an elementary food fight happened in it :)

4) A very sweet woman once asked me how old I was exactly, saying "your young enough that I can ask it without being rude :)" It made me laugh out loud.

I am 27, Lee is 35. A couple of times we've gotten asked how long we've been married and how old we were when we got married. We've been married for 5 1/2 years now. And to save you from doing the math, that made me 22 and Lee 29 (he turned 30 one week later) when we tied the knot.

5) The question I get asked after any picture that shows my hands is: "IS YOUR ENGAGEMENT RING A DIAMOND!!!!????" 

NO it's not. I chose a Green Amethyst engagement ring! I've always LOVED the light green, glacial color of the stone and knew that I didn't want a "Traditional" wedding ring. While I did want a traditional wedding set, I knew I wanted something a bit different. And the price compared to a diamond makes it a steal!
For the record, My ring is a 6.25 carat green amethyst, with three small diamonds on each side, and the band is made of white gold, we designed it ourselves :)

6) What are your nationalities and backgrounds? Family??

Lee's parents are from the Czech Republic, in fact Lee was born there and immigrated to Canada when he was 2.
Lee has one brother, he's both older and taller than Lee. He's married and has two children, our niece and nephew :) 
Ashli's parents are much more of a mix!
My Dad is half Chinese and half Portuguese
My Mom is half Scottish and half Irish.
I have one sister, a younger sister. She, as my grandmother would put it is, "living in sin" with her boyfriend hehe oh grandma. He's a good guy and we're all anticipating a wedding in the new future, although they both get mad when we bring it up :)

7) How tall are Lee's parents? 

This question makes us giggle. Lee is 6'8" tall his brother is 6'9" tall. Lee's parents are on the tall side but not anything crazy. Lee's Dad is 6'0" and Lee's mom is just shy of 5'10". No one is really sure how the boys got so tall but here they are all 13+ feet of them :)

8) What breed of dog is Max? and why did you pick that breed? 

Max is a Yorkshire terrier! And to set the record straight about this breed, there is NO such thing as a Tea Cup Yorkie. The standard size for a Yorkie will range between 4 lbs to 7 lbs, Max is 5lbs :)
There are tons of reasons we chose to get a yorkie, number one being they don't shed! They're small, we wanted a little doggie at our feet not a roommate. And they're just like a real big dog, but packed into a small little package :)
By the way, the reason his tongue sticks out all the time is because he lived in a puppy mill before he came to live with us, and they didn't take care of him at all. So due to poor diet and just in general poor care, most of his teeth have fallen out, or had to be pulled out. The poor little guy, so in short, dogs need teeth to hold their tongue in, hehe. It's super cute, I Love it!

9) Did you ever rent before you purchased your first house? If so, what kind of place?

We've rented A LOT of different places, especially Lee. But together We rented 3 apartments before we bought our first apartment.
Our first apartment was a little one bedroom on the ground floor in Vancouver's west side. It was Lee's bachelor pad before I moved in. It was a horrible little place but I LOVED it soooo much. it was the first place outside of my parents house! LOVED IT! After we were broken into we moved:
To another 1 bedroom apartment in Vancouver's Kitsalino District, one block from the beach, that was such a fun summer :) I remember we had a little balcony and I thought it was the BEST thing in the world.
From there we moved in to a newer Studio apartment on Vancouver's East side. It was in a Loft building with concrete floors and exposed ducting.  It was a little weird that our bed was about 4 feet from the kitchen but hey it was cool :)
That was the last place we rented, we bought our first apartment right after that. A very OLD, very run down one bedroom apartment but we loved it so much it was the first place we could change things in and boy did we ever. New floors, new kitchen, new bathroom. This is also where we learned of the challenges that come with renovating your one and only bathroom, which holds your one and only toilet :)

10) Have you ever had a job? Do you think you'll go back to work one day?

This one makes me laugh too. Because of course I've had a job before. Through High School I worked at Subway, that's right I was a sandwich artist extraordinaire.
Through College I was a waitress at a local Italian Restaurant.
After that I was a sales rep for a woman's silk lingerie company. We represented lingerie lines and sold them to stores.
Then we got married, I worked a part time job until we were able to make it work with having me at home, and once we could we did.
As for going back to working outside the home one day?? I don't know? Maybe? It depends, right now I'm just looking foreword to having some mini-Malinek's running around the Manor, I know that I want to be a stay at home mom but after that who knows?

11) What do you guys do for fun besides DIYing?

We share some hobbies with each other: Like Volleyball (it`s how we met) and tennis (the one sport I can keep up with Lee at), a bit of skiing in the winter.

We also have separate hobbies:
Ashli: I like to scrapbook, knit, sew, baking (come to think of it most of my hobbies are kind of home related) and now gardening
Lee: Goes to the gym frequently, LOVES to work on his car, and my car and occasionally the neighbors cars (haha), he likes motorcycles, and basically anything with an engine. And like any good Canadian he can play hockey :)

12) And the question I get asked the Most by far is . . . where did you get the baskets in your townhouse bathroom from?

They are from the Real Canadian Superstore here in Canada. I've been looking for a similar version available to our American friends but haven' found anything yet :(

Our 1 year Blogaversary!!

It's been one year this month!!! WOW! It's been so much fun, way more work then I thought it would be, I've cried (when blogger erases my posts), I've laughed a TON (you guys leave the best comments). I've been brought to tears over sweet emails and comments.

I just am so incredibly grateful for all of you! Everyone who's ever left a comment, or sent an email. Those of you who leave comments everyday. I can't thank you enough. You've given me an outlet, you've given me a voice and I wanted to THANK YOU! Although THANK YOU doesn't feel like enough!

To thank you, I do what I always do when looking to say Thank You . . . I baked!
HAPPY 1 YEAR BLOGAVERSARY Maillardville Manor!!!

We'll be celebrating our Blogaversary all week this week, we've got TONS of posts lined up this week! Look for at Least 2 a day! Everything from FAQ to some shots of our Beautiful Province :)
Stay tuned we've got another one today!

Flowers on Friday: Blue Birdy Bouquet

It's a Blue Birdy Bouquet!
The little birdy basket is from Homesense. We usually have little chocolates or candies in it, but this week I used some leftover floral foam we had hanging around and added a $3 stem of flowers from the grocery store.
It's small, it's cute, it's SPRINGY!!

Next week marks our 1 Year Blogaversary, we've got lots of special posts planned, can't wait to start the celebration!!! Join us here, first thing Monday! and keep checking back we'll be posting like CRAZY all week!!

Linen Closet Progress

I'm made some good progress on the linen closet yesterday!
Here's where we started:

Here's after shelf supports:

With Shelves and paint (Martha Stewart's Geyser):

With luck it will be raining this weekend  and we can finish up, it needs a few more shelves, and a spot for the vacuum (easier said then done, finding a spot for the vacuum and still making good use of the space in the linen closet isn't super easy).

My 365 Magazine!

I wanted to let you know about a FABULOUS new online magazine called MY 365 MAGAZINE! I might be a little biased as our library is on the cover!!! (by the way we're very EXCITED).
CHECK IT OUT: our article is about adding spring to your home using accessories (I counted MAX as an accessory, albeit a pooping accessory :) I hope you like it, they did a great job putting it together!

 

p.s. If you're looking for another GREAT online Magazine don't forget to check out "House of Fifty" also!

We're on PINTEREST!! it's Awesome!

HOLY CRAP!!! Pinterest is AWESOME! I know everyone is saying this and I am totally late to the Pinterest party, but seriously, it's amazing!
It's Victoria Day up here in Canada, and it's finally sunny. so we'll be spending the day OUTSIDE! I've been waiting to play tennis all year!
I was going to skip today's post but I thought I'd share some of my favorite Pins!!
Happy Door and Rug!!!

So Much Color!!!!

Pretty Ruffled Aprons:

LOVE this Quilt!!!

And I love this cork heart, what a great way to reuse old wine corks and make something super functional :)

You can even catch some of our Manor on there :) 

To Check out our Pinterest Account you can follow this link or click the link on our sidebar :) Let us know if you're on pinterest too, I'd LOVE to see what everyone is pinning!

Mother's Day Bouquet: Doggy mom's count too :)

Well the title about says it all:
This is my Mother's Day Bouquet from "Max! (I meant to share last Friday, but blogger erased the post, then sent it back to me this week . . . weird.)
Anyway,
Here it is. It was very sweet of Lee I mean Max to get me a lovely bouquet for Mother's Day with a little tag saying

"Puppy Mommies count too!!" 

While I know that "real" mommies work much harder then "puppy" mommies do, I was more then happy to accept the bouquet! 

Old Screen=New Art

We picked up an old screen at a local junk store. It was $49 and it was broken. One of the hinges was broken off and it damaged the side of one of the panels. So it was marked down from $179 and no one seemed to want it. Originally I thought we'd just buy some new hinges and repair the side, but a screen wouldn't really work along the bedroom wall, but they would work if we hung them up :) So we did (not a great story but the truth haha).
Here they are, they're the first thing you see when you walk into our master:

We took these hangers (bought from Michaels -40% thanks to our coupon)

We attached them to the back of the panels, two on each panel:

Then we hung them up:

THE END hehe

Paneled Wall Tutorial: By Lee!

Well, backed by popular demand and a gentle yet firm request from Ashli to get my feet wet and do a post ….my long overdue Maillardville Manor debut is here!  (Insert trumpet sounds here)
We did have a few questions on how I put together the panel wall and we figured it would be best answered by myself rather than Ashli, since I can do math, seriously she's terrible at it! Although she can figure out what the tax on a $90 pair of shoes is in 2 seconds, she's not gifted in the measurement department :)
The material we used to create the effect was 0.5”x3.5” MDF (medium density fiberboard) mouldings.  It turns out that the day we went to price out the wall, they were on sale at around 46 cents a foot.  We had figured we needed about 86 feet, allowing for several feet of extra wood.  At the same time that we purchased the wood I picked up some “No More Nails” industrial adhesive.  I needed to glue the pieces to the wall because we didn’t space the panels where the studs were.  My general rule of thumb is that using a nail in drywall with no studs not the best idea, and in our case is a sure fire way to get a foot long board in the forehead at 3:00am.
The panels were divided equally along the wall.  I mocked up 4, 5, and 6 panels on the wall and we decided that 5 panels was the right amount of separation.  After disconnecting the wiring to the switch that controls the lights, I then used a wall patch and drywalled the holes where the lights used to be shut. 
Being as efficient as possible (I think lazy is a better description…but that doesn’t sound as good) I figured out that to make the least amount of cuts I would put the upper and lower horizontal pieces up first, followed by all the vertical pieces and finally the middle row of horizontal ones.
Here is a handy diagram of the layout and order of installation of the pieces.

I measured and cut the upper and lower horizontal pieces, glued them onto the wall and used a brad nailer to temporarily hold them in place.  Like I said before, nails in drywall for a long term solution will result in a lumpy head, but for a temporary solution until the glue dries works pretty well.  After the upper and lower pieces were in place I measured each of the vertical strips, cut them using a hand saw and glued/nailed them in their pre marked evenly spaced positions.  Using a cutoff saw would have been cleaner and faster but I didn’t want to make a mess in the bedroom and didn’t feel like running downstairs for every cut I had to do (again, efficient…not lazy).  One thing to note is that each piece was a slightly different size so to get a perfect fit I had to cut, test fit, trim and finally glue/nail one strip at a time before proceeding to the next one.
This is a picture of the vertical pieces in place and the start of the final horizontal row in the middle.

The final pieces are the middle horizontal ones.  As before, each of those had to be measured individually and fitted into place before doing the next one.

Now that all the wood was up on the wall I left it alone overnight to let the glue dry.  This is probably where is should say to make sure that everything is where you want it because once the glue dries you won’t get it off without destroying the drywall….which now that I think about it might be another post I will do sometime in the future.
As the next day dawned and we were sufficiently dizzy from smelling glue all night, the wood was good and secured to the wall.  At this point I took some drywall filler and went along the wall filling and sanding  any nail holes and imperfections.  I like to use drywall filler to fill nail holes when the piece is going to be painted because it is so much easier to apply, easier to sand, it fills in very small holes and dries rock hard once paint is applied.  The next step was to go along each seam with paintable caulk.
After several hours to let everything dry, I wiped down the wall with a damp towel to remove sanding dust and debris, grabbed the “color de jour”….fancy hey….and the rest is history.  The whole project only took the weekend and of that time, it took longer to paint the wall then it did to get it ready for painting.
Finally, with the wall complete we moved the furniture back and I think it turned out pretty good.

I want to apologize to Ashli for ruining her usually witty posts with my run on sentences and grammatical errors.  I hope this helped and if there are any questions I would love to answer them so ask away. I'll check in during the day to read the comments and answer any questions!!

Sincerely,
Mr. Maillardville Manor, but you can call me Lee!

Meal Plan Monday: Breakfast!

One aspect of my meal planning that has been seriously lacking is Breakfast! I've always glazed over breakfast, here are some of our breakfast made easy ideas.

First I LOVE to make and eat these Granola Bars it's Ina Garten's recipe and they're delicious.

Ingredients

• 2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed
• 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup chopped pitted dates
• 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8 by 12-inch baking dish and line it with parchment paper.

Toss the oatmeal, almonds, and coconut together on a sheet pan and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the wheat germ.

Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F.

Place the butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for a minute, then pour over the toasted oatmeal mixture. Add the dates, apricots, and cranberries and stir well.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. (we use a mini loaf pan lined with parchment paper) Wet your fingers and lightly press the mixture evenly into the pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool for at least 2 to 3 hours before cutting into squares. Serve at room temperature.

• Making an extra large batch of  pancakes on the weekend and then freezing them and re-heating them in the toaster like frozen waffles works fantastically. Freezing Waffles also works great haha
• Fresh Fruit and cottage cheese, so simple! 

• Breakfast Casserole- we make this on the weekend and it's soooo good! It works great if you have overnight guests, you can assemble it the night before and pop it into the oven when you wake up, get ready while it's cooking and eat it when your ready :)

Ingredients:

• 4 slices Bacon
• 12oz-16oz Bacon or Sausage Cooked and Drained
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups milk
• 4 slices white bread
• 1tsp dried mustard (we use a tsp of regular Frenches mustard and a  dash of Cayenne).

Directions:

• Grease a 9x13 pan. Tear up 4 slices of bread and place in the bottom of the pan. Top with bacon or sausage, sprinkle shredded cheese on top. Mix eggs, milk and mustard together pour over casserole.
• Bake at 350 for 35 min :)

• Muffins are always good but maybe not everyday, Muffins are just donuts in disguise haha Muffins also freeze well, if you want to make a big batch and pull one out in the morning. Oatmeal Muffins would be okay everyday, in fact this week I'm trying out a jam filled muffin recipe, I'll let you know how it goes :)
• OATMEAL-Lee has oatmeal in the mornings and uses honey to sweeten it! Our naturopath highly recommended it as Lee has cholesterol issues in his family! Oatmeal can significantly reduce your levels of Bad Cholesterol. 
• And I never underestimate how good a bowl of rice krispies and a cut up banana can be. As far as cereal goes, a good rule of thumb is that your cereal should have less then 10grams of sugar per serving! LOVE CRUNCH is my new favorite cereal! It has 10 grams of sugar per serving and that includes the little chunks of chocolate in it . . . . YUM. It also super great in Yogurt!!

Bedroom Chandlier!

Apparently blogger doesn't want you to see our new bedroom chandelier, why else would they erase my post during their recent site upgrades. Maybe they're jealous of the deal we got on it, or maybe they just want one of their own. Whatever the reason maybe, I'm just glad they weren't upset about anything else in our house and erased those posts too ~haha just kidding.
From what I can tell when blogger updated their site, they disregarded any changes I mad right prior to their update.
So here it is again:
The Bedroom Chandelier:

Zoom Out:

We're sleeping under the stars

If only there was a reality show called  "sleeping under the stars", you know instead of "dancing with the stars", I call George Clooney haha
Anyway,
Just hung them up last night and after a near miss of my head while Lee was hanging them . . . . I was almost STAR STRUCK! haha (I'm so clever . . . not)  We got them up and I LOVE 'em!
Here they are, I bought them from Homesense about 6 months ago, but couldn't figure out where they should go, I tried them above the front hall console, above the fireplace, above the upstairs console, nothing seemed just right, until now. I LOVE the little sparkle they add, and they reflect the chandelier light beautifully.

That's right I said chandelier light, we've got a chandelier up in the bedroom :) It went up last night too! No pictures yet . . . it is really difficult to get a good decent not horrible picture of a chandelier. If the lights are on it makes weird shadows and glowing shiny spots and if it's off it looks weird too, like it should be on but we know you can't take a decent picture of it on, so you gave up and turned out the lights, weird like that! I'm working on it, I'll post one tomorrow, good or bad!

Let there be . . . prettier . . . light!!

My number one money saving tip is: stay OUT of the store. This post is a direct result of not following my number one tip!

Here's how it went down:
"The chickens are in the oven, they'll be ready in about 40 min, I'm just going to run to Homesense to get pillows for the guest room" (my in laws were coming and we had no pillows in the guest room)
Lee: "Ok, I'll put the carrots and potato's on in 20"
Me: "Ok thanks, I'll be back in a second"

40 minutes later, I came home with pillows, pillow cases, gardening gloves and these:

That's right I went to homesense for Pillows and came home with LAMPS. I couldn't help it, I tried to leave without them, but I couldn't! They spoke to my soul, or my addiction to pretty shiny things . . . probably the latter.
I brought them in the door and immediately stated my intention . . . to see how they look and take them back. I put them in place, and Lee agreed they looked GREAT! So really it was Lee who bought new lamps for the living room. :)

I fell in LOVE with their shape, and with their color, Their price wasn't bad either @ $39.99 each.
Another big feature was that they already matched the living room and they wouldn't create a ripple effect throughout our main floor (you know, one change, leading to another), green is already our color of choice for the main floor :)

Needless to say, this wasn't a planned purchase, so that money has to come from somewhere, either it's June's Home Budget or we won't be eating the last week of May :S haha.
I'll let you know how hungry I get how it goes :)

Master Bedroom Part.1 Paneling

It's done . . . and we LOVE it!
The Grand Total for the paneled wall was:
$49.00, not including paint because we already had the paint in the garage from the builders :)
But seriously, $49.00! That was the molding at 46 cents a foot, and 2 tubes of construction adhesive.
$49.00 took us from:

 To:

This was hands down the most impact I've ever achieved for $49.00

Another inexpensive huge impact part of the bedroom would be our New BED!!! $90 off Craigslist (including the slats :).  Actually the bed cost us -$60 :) We sold our old bed for $150 on craigslist and picked this one up the same day. I LOVED the simple, sort of farmhouse inspired look. If your looking for an inexpensive bed with a farmhouse look I couldn't recommend this one enough, WE LOVE IT! It's from IKEA it's their Lillesand Bed, and it's super affordable @ $149.00 for a Queen.

For the Window treatments I wanted to add a little texture, so woven grass roman blinds would be perfect, and VERY well priced. Our windows are fairly standard up stairs so finding blinds was easy. We found these woven grass Romans from Walmart for $20 each. I added white Ikea Lenda curtains at @$29.99 a pair. I cut the tab tops off of them and used clip on curtain rings (my new favorite item). We bought $6.99 curtain rods from JYSK.

The quilt on the end of the bed was made by me, it's the first quilt I ever made!! I used our old top sheet from our old sheet (the organic ones from Target). The squares were made from mostly reused pieces of fabric from around the house, I think the total cost for the quilt was under $10 :) I'll have a quilt tutorial coming up soon, I'm no master quilter but I'll share what I've learned :)

The Bedside lamps are Pharmacy Lamps from Canadian Tire. I don't love the bases, but I'm in LOVE the tops so I bought them! We have the same bedside tables as always, originally from Homesense!

ALARM CLOCK:
I also snuck in a picture of our new alarm clock. It's a Sunrise Alarm Clock with Nature sounds. There's nothing I hate more then a Loud Beep Beep Beep in the morning, so we thought we'd try a sunrise alarm clock. 30 minutes before your alarm goes off the clock lights up gradually, and if that doesn't wake you up it's alarm is sounds of nature, you can pick chirping birds (our personal favorite) or a babbling brook (get ready to be late for work if you pick that one), I think there's a ribbiting frogs setting but that seems more like a good night setting??? The theory behind them is that it gives your body a more natural awakening.
Lee likes it, he says the chirping birds are a nice way to wake up, but the light doesn't do that much for him. Me . . . I could sleep through anything, so it doesn't really matter too me, Lee wakes me up. Or Max, nothing like stinky dog breath in your face to wake you up!

So there's part 1 of our master bedroom, we need a chair in the corner, some organization in the closets, eventually a fireplace!!! . . . eventually! But Part 2 should be coming soon, we're adding hooks and artwork and a chandelier, some closet organizers, the works :)

Thanks for reading! Hope you all had a Fabulous Mother's Day!

We've Been Featured On Friday

I am super excited to let you know that we've been featured over on Southern Hospitality!!! Woo to the Hoo!
I am such a Huge fan on Rhoda!
Her post on tips for New Bloggers helped me so much when we started this little adventure! And for that alone I am indebted to her, but now a feature, I might have to give her a kidney or something ;)

One of her projects I will definitely be trying is her Bead Board Wallpaper, that's right, wallpaper. I've seen it before, but could never imagine it installed, but she did it and it looks AH-MAZING!

So a Big Super Duper thank you to Rhoda! If you get a chance pop over and see our feature, Rhoda picked some of my favorite shots from around the house :)

Flowers on Friday: our 250th post!!!!

This marks our 250th POST!!!! Wow! That's like a bazillion words :) hehe I was always bad at math ;) Honestly I'm surprised we've reached our 250th post, I've probably "quit" blogging almost once a month, but I'm so glad we've kept moving forward :) Next month is our 1 year anniversary, I'm thinking of some idea's to celebrate but as always, our best idea's come from our readers, so let us know if you have any questions or ideas for our big 1 year anniversary :) we could use all the help we can get, I'm fresh out of ideas, have I mentioned it's been 250 posts. haha

What better way to celebrate 250 posts then with FLOWERS! Just a little guy! A little batch of Alstroemeria with a tiny little fern sticking out the side. It's sitting on our entrance hall table!

A BIG thank you to everyone who reads our little piece of the internet :) You're the reason we do what we do, tending to this blog has been a fantastic outlet for me, I've met so many fabulous people because of it, and at this point I couldn't imagine my life without it :) Thank you! From the very bottom and very top of my heart! 

Wishing all the Moms out there a SUPER DUPER Happy Mothers Day this weekend!

p.s. We're still looking for our winner from out curtainworks giveaway, Julie from Online Inspiration please shoot us an email! Otherwise we'll be drawing another name on Monday!!!

Master Bedroom Part 1

We're headed upstairs ! ! !  Wooo Hoooo! We've kind of started on the guest room, nothing to write home about, or should I say nothing to blog about, just a bed and some white sheets (our favorite organic white sheets from Target :) I'll whip a post up for next week.
But the important part is the decorating/ organizing train is moving upstairs, next stop Master Bedroom :) choo choo
First things first, get the walls done. Our Master is painted the same color as the rest of the house, Mourning Dove by Martha Stewart, although it looks significantly more green in our bright master! It's a good thing we LOVE this color because, literally every room in the house (except for the Master Bath) is Mourning Dove including the garage :)
I am a huge fan of panelled walls, and with all the paneling downstairs it seemed fitting to bring some upstairs. We're copying the pattern of the downstairs panels upstairs (big panel on the bottom, little panel on the top).
Here's where we're at:
Notice the scones high up on the wall, those totally didn't work for me, too high to be reading lights, and with our lamps directly below them it just seemed redundant to have them there and I don't want anything "extra" in our bedroom, just simple, functional items.

So Lee disconnected the wires and pulled them out, patched the hole, and now we're ready to get cracking or panel'in haha

Here's where we are now.

The plan is to finish the wall this weekend, fingers crossed it all goes well.
And the Best Part is the Price, I'm not going to tell you now, because it's not finished and I don't want to jinx myself, but I'm 99% sure we have nothing else to buy for the wall and we are sooo far under budget I can't believe it!!!
Should be done by Monday!!!

Sponsor Shout Out!

We now have a grand total of . . . 4 sponsors! Woo Hoo!! We are so grateful for our fabulous sponsors, Max is especially happy, he Loves to eat, so if you'd like Max to keep eating sponsor the site,  hahaha
Just Kidding We promise we will feed Max no matter how many sponsors we have :) But we are very grateful for the sponsors we do have.
We have Leslie from Aihu : Aroma Therapy and  Plant based ingredients everything from skin care to shampoo and beyond :)

CJ from Something to Chase. A blog dedicated to renovating a renter's house into a home for two (and two miniature dachshunds!) on the eastern shore of Maryland.

 Kristin from Modern Canine Training, a local dog trainer, who looks exactly like I do, because she's my sister :) I count her as a sponsor because she pays me in free manicures :)

And Home Alarm Services! We are big believers in Home Alarm Systems, not only for the home insurance discount, but the peace of mind it gives, I know that when Lee leaves in the morning he sets it and no one is sneaking in to steal Max. hehe