Who Wants a Cookie?

I specialize in chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin and snickerdoodles.

Ahh. My world just got a little better. My baker's high begins tomorrow.

Remember When?

Remember those beautiful french doors I said we're going to put up between the sun porch and the kitchen?



Haven't they turned out lovely?


Look. Don't judge me. That room isn't insulated and has z-e-r-o heat running through it--which makes for a freezing house. And it's not my fault that sometimes I like to buy beautiful clothes over beautiful doors.

J.Crew needs me.

For the Love of Lindsay

I've had a few people telling me they want to see some "real" updates on Virginia. I'm not going to lie, I've been a bit nervous. Have we made enough progress? Will they be bored? Then I thought, "Duh, Christie. This is a personal progress blog." It's not like anyone expects Beehives to earn their Young Woman in Excellence necklace thing anytime soon, right? That's strictly Laurel business. So meet Virginia's new and improved kitchen. In all her MiaMaid glory

But first, let's start at the beginning. (P.S. Again, I don't know why I was such a moron and only took pictures of the kitchen the day my dad's family cleaned the house. Virginia's obituary duly noted that she was an "immaculate housekeeper". She really was. So don't judge because these are the only pictures I have)

Anyway, back to the beginning. Anyone remember any of these?





We decided we were over the pink, the wallpaper (whaat?!?) and the cramped U-shaped kitchen and started tearing things out.




And don't forget all that wallpaper we had to scrape off. Too. Much. Fun.

Next, we were off to Ikea to pick out our cabinets. So many trips to Ikea. Too many trips to Ikea.

And then the real fun started. Putting together every last item in those boxes. Things started out pretty smoothly.



But people got frustrated.

Their motto was "teamwork gets the job done".

And I was there helping every step of the way.

And then, finally. Finally we started making some headway. It's not 100% done, but isn't that what personal progress is all about? Here's to you Rob and dad. You two are really, really great.

View from the garage door.


Everything but the kitchen sink.


One day we'll get new stainless steel appliances, and fill in that space with a stove. But who's counting?

I love that I have a place to display my wedding china.

And I love that Jodee and I found these cute, blue glasses at World Market. Rob asked me the other day if he was allowed to drink out of them.

You betcha, Rob. In fact, I'll even bring you the drink. Take a load off, guys.

I'm Hot

And you're not. But if you wanna hang with me I'll give it one shot. Top that.

Don't be jealous of my kitchen door. It's just too hot.

Hate on Me

Sorry that I've been a jerk of a blogger, guys. To be honest, I've had a brush with death. And by brush with death I mean a self diagnosis of AIDS and/or lymphoma. Not even joking. For the past couple months I've had fevers, swollen glands, bugs, flues, aches--you name it. So naturally I've come to the conclusion I probably have one of the above mentioned diseases. And even more naturally I put blogging on hold while I dealt with this.

Right now I'm in bed wearing one of Virginia's old scarves around my head, a mouth and throat full of cankers, drinking gatorade, and shaking off yet another fever. Feels right.

On the upside of my life, the house is looking good! The kitchen is all but done, the living room is looking great, and our sectional for the basement is almost here! We still have quite a bit to finish up, but it's definitely livable and we're definitely loving it.

Also, I wanted to tell everyone thanks for all the tips, advice and prayers (mom) about whether or not to paint our fireplace. I really took it all to heart.



It happened. And no one took it harder than Maxine. We still need to give it another coat and paint the mortar, but basically it's never looked better.

But that's only according to me and like 20 of my coolest friends.

Now, I ain't sayin' he a Golddigger. . .

Rob thinks he is too cool for school in this picture. Even if he's not, our new epoxy floor in the sun porch is. We love it! My dad told me he secretly thought I was crazy for putting that type of flooring in. But even he loves it. And we all know if Jim's happy, everybody's happy.

They actually have to come back and redo it though. I guess one of their rollers disintegrated while they were doing it so it looks kind of bumpy in places. You can't really tell unless you're staring right at it, but I plan to do a lot of mindless staring in that room.

Here are a few other pictures of how it turned out. P.S. Sorry the quality of pictures in this blog are all ghetto fab. I've been using Rob's phone for a lot of them. My charger got lost when we moved and I was too attached to the old one to replace it. Or just lazy.

My grandparent's had a sliding door with vertical blinds to separate the room from the kitchen. We're going to put white french doors instead.

Top the room off with my new capiz shell chandelier and some wicker furniture and we'll be laughing.

We also added the epoxy downstairs in the laundry room and bathroom. It wasn't very much more to add it, and I think it will look cool in the basement. People hanging in the family room will be dying to peek in there when they see the splash of color hiding under the door.

I had plenty of other pictures to add of the basement epoxy, but I wanted to stress how freakishly skinny Rob's legs/body are. This is what I'm up against, people. And it's not right.

Light it Up

Doesn't Rob look glorious basking in the afternoon sun? I can't find a picture, but we ditched the light bulbs and the molding from the sky light. Our electrician said it was weird to have them. So rude, yet so smart.

With the kitchen remodel and moving around appliances, we found out we had to do some new wiring. Apparently Virginia's house is "illegal" in the world of electricity. What a rebel, huh? Or just unsafe. You decide.

Rob decided to upgrade all the light switches and outlets while we had the electrician over. Fabulous idea, Bob! I can't believe how much it modernized the place.


We also decided to add can lights in the living room and kitchen. The living room already had two-- which have produced pink lights all their days. Gorgeous. My dad told me years ago they burned out and he replaced them with regular lights. Virginia wasn't having it. She sent him straight back for the pink ones.


Here's some shots of the existing and new lights in the LR:


And the kitchen:

At first I was worried the kitchen might be a titch too bright, but then I read a study last week that said you're likely to eat less food in a well-lit room. I'll take it.

And check out our bonus nightlight for when Rob (me) gets scared at night:

We have one on both sets of stairs. He insisted.