living room finished (kind of?)

**disclaimer: i wrote this post on july 20, but i needed one last picture of the finished living room. i thought i'd take it that weekend and finish the post. welp, it's august 18th now, so enjoy! :)

heyy everyone!

our living room is pretty much finished, so i thought i'd go ahead and blog about it! i still have to touch up the baseboards, BUT... i don't feel like doing that right now, so it's on hold. :) (and i'm more excited about my next project than i am about painting baseboards!)

we had ashton's boss (a general) and his family, along with the rest of ashton's work team, over for dinner last week, so my goal was to have the living room done before that dinner. and it was as done then as it is now, so i felt pretty successful! :) for those of you who were wondering, the dinner went great! i made a meal of my favorites... butter chicken, sweet green beans, salad and garlic bread. they all seemed to enjoy the meal, and i know one of them asked for the recipes and i believe has made the chicken and green beans since then. ashton told me after the dinner that i had passed the army wife course of hosting a dinner party, so i think that's a good sign. :) (but les, i don't have any pictures for you of the actual dinner. just a picture of the roses i got for the table. $6 at heb!)

back to the living room... 

when we bought the house, the living room walls were a dark brown. honestly, it wasn't too bad, but it did make the room pretty dark. i was too indecisive and couldn't figure out what color i wanted - i just knew i wanted a neutral color. (i thought that would narrow down the choices for me. do you know how many neutral options there are to choose from?!?) so i put it out for a facebook vote! luckily, everyone voted for the one that we were leaning towards, so that was a big confidence booster!

and the winner is... D! :)

there were two weeks in june where ashton had to work from 5am-10pm pretty much every day (i mentioned this in our no spend june post). so for whatever reason, i decided that would be a good time for me to do the living room. by myself. well, mostly - ashton helped when he was around and available, which i greatly appreciated. so i primed, and painted, and went back and did most of the touch ups (still a few left to be done). we purchased new blinds for the windows, and ashton installed those. AND... he installed the floor transitions between the living room and kitchen, and the living room and entry way. there weren't any transitions in those two locations, so we had searched home depot and lowe's trying to find something that would work. we looked and looked and couldn't find anything. at one point, we were cleaning out the garage, putting some things in the attic, and what do you know? floor transitions! they hadn't been stained, but ashton took care of that and installed them and it's wonderful! 

before i show you the final picture, i always like to go back to a before picture, so here ya go!

before we moved in:

before, but with our furniture:

okay, perhaps not the best before pictures. but here are some after pictures:

i know what you're saying... anne, you didn't really decorate the living room. i know, i know... but i'm now in the "i'm moving in less than six months, so i'm more concerned about making it rent-able" mode.

with the living room done, what's next? well, i am very excited to start on the bathrooms. we're going to paint the walls, color still to be determined. i found this lovely gem online last week and i am so excited. she shows her before and after of staining bathroom cabinets, and the after pictures look so great! i have already ordered the stains, and the new hardware for sink/shower (we're changing to bronze). i also shopped around for new countertops. and i found a winner, so get excited! there will be some new posts soon! :)

july meals!

i absolutely loved having a month of menus in june, so we decided to repeat it for july! i still use the spreadsheet that i shared with y'all last month, but i didn't like the way it uploaded on here. AND one of my sisters asked me to link to recipes, when possible. soo... with that in mind, i'm going to do this month's a little different.

July 1st - crockpot bbq chicken drumsticks

2nd - honey pork chops

3rd - gone

4th - gone

5th - chef's salad with bacon, ham, eggs, cheese, cucumbers, carrots, croutons

6th - pancakes

7th - bbq chicken leg quarters (on the grill)

8th - cranberry pork tenderloin

9th - italian crockpot chicken

10th - lasagna

11th - DB sausage

12th - chicken breasts in phyllo

13th - breakfast burritos

14th - bbq chicken pizza

15th - turkey & dressing

16th - butter chicken

17th - buffalo chicken garbage bread

18th - pizza

19th - sub sandwiches

20th - teriyaki chicken

21st - pork spareribs

22nd - roast

23rd - hamburgers

24th - cheesy chicken bundles

25th - italian breaded pork chops

26th - chicken crescent squares

27th - family reunion

28th - family reunion

29th - buffalo chicken sandwiches

30th - EAT OUT! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! :)

31st - cheddar bacon chicken

i tried to link to as many recipes as possible! enjoy! :)

anne

nephews and the fourth of july!

hello everyone!

apparently, i'm not as good at this blogging thing as i had hoped! life gets busy, and i get distracted. i have all kinds of fun things to share though, so i'm going to back up a bit in our lives. :)

we babysat my three nephews for a weekend while my sister and her husband escaped for their anniversary. and oh my goodness. these boys are precious and very well behaved, but we learned very quickly how tiring it is to have kids. especially three at once. i used to say i wanted to have twins or triplets the first time i'm pregnant, but i think i'm taking that back now. (no offense, jen - you know i love your boys!) we had a lot of fun with them... we made cars out of cardboard boxes for their drive-in theater we had planned for saturday night. we went to the lake and the big boys got to go down the slides (over and over and over) while the little one hung out with us, and then everyone got to play in the lake for a bit. (the little one spent the entire time "helping" by throwing the sand back into the lake, haha.) the big boys went bowling with ash (while the little one and i napped, haha). oh, and we can't forget working out - it was a combination of stroller riding, scooter driving, and racing the dog. these kids were as worn out as we were!

we spent the fourth of july with ashton's family at the lake. lots of good food and fun times on the lake! it was a short trip, and we had to drive home during the normal firework time, so we kind of had a traveling show. we saw fireworks all over the place on the drive home. also, you'll notice that together, he and i make red, white and blue. :)

also, on a sidenote, a different sister of mine and her husband have officially adopted the little boy and girl they had been fostering. which means that i can now show you this adorable picture of my nephew and his pet mouse! (in case you can't tell, that's a computer mouse, haha.)

one of several posts coming tonight, so be on the lookout! :)

anne