Smokin' It Up

Prior to our wedding, the security system tech came in to install everything.  Since Ben was in meetings, I attempted to make decsions on where things should go in the house.  One thing I knew for sure was that I did not want the fire alarm near the kitchen!  In my old apartment, I would boil an egg and the alarm would sound.  From there, I would grab a kitchen towel and start waving it until the obnoxious noise stopped. 

How our kitchen is set up, the range (stove) is on a semi-island and not against a wall so we had to find a slide-in stove to fit properly.  Then came the range hood...  So we needed an island range hood and not one that is wall mounted.  We searched to find a nice one but that didn't break the budget.  We surprisingly found one at Best Buy.  Our contractor was at the house when it arrived so he signed for it - because we asked him too.  The range hood sat there for several weeks until it was ready to be installed the week prior to the wedding.  When Ben opened the box, he discovered it was the wall mounted range hood.  After looking over the paperwork, that is what we somehow ordered. 

At that point, life was crazy, so a few weeks after the honeymoon, Ben begged with Best Buy to take it back and he would purchase the right one - that was significantly more money.  They agreed even though it's not their policy, but we were very grateful. 

Now to the smoke issue...  Ben and I have cooked several things over the past month and the kitchen and adjourning room were filled with smoke, so we had to open the doors, etc.  Well, on Sunday night, it was so bad that Ben and I couldn't stop coughing and we couldn't really even enjoy our food!!  Thank goodness the range hood was getting installed last night!! 

Now, we haven't tried it out yet, but it's very pretty and definitely helps to finish off the kitchen.  (When would I ever have thought a range hood was pretty??)

Happily Ever After x 2

This weekend was full of some fabulous friends tying the knot!!  On Friday, our friend Colleen married Guido at the Dekalb County Courthouse.  We stopped by after work to hug & congratulate!  Let's just say Colleen had to have been the hottest bride at the courthouse!  She was so saucy in her one sholder white dress. 

On Saturday morning, Ben and I hopped in the truck and headed to Nashville to celebrate my dear friend Anna's wedding.  We took a litte break at lunch in Chattanooga and ate downtown and just enjoyed the city for a few minutes.  Then back on the road... When we got to Nashville, we realized the hotel we were staying in was literally in between a Chuy's and a Gigi's Cupcake.  We were in heaven (but we didn't even make it to either place!). 
Anna texted me that morning and told me to come find her when I got to the church, so we left the hotel in plenty of time for me to go hug the stunning bride prior to the service.  Well, thanks to Google maps and incorrect names of roads, we arrived LITERALLY 6 minutes before the wedding was to begin and 1 minute before the mothers walked down the aisle! 

After the beautiful ceremony that her dad officiated, we headed to the reception venue that was very "Anna"!  Super cute and fun!  The food was FABULOUS and the Gigi's cupcakes were obviously a hit with the Worley's!  We got to cut a little rug on the dance floor and then the Zientek's headed off as husband & wife. 

The stunning bride, Anna.

The Worley's all cleaned up for Anna's big day :)

The Joys of the Master Bath...

I never thought that one day one of my favorite things in a home would be the master bath, well....the day has come!  Our master bath has been done for awhile, but we were waiting on our hutch and a few other small things.  Everything is DONE, (except for the blank walls) and we are LOVING it! 

For those that don't know, our master bath was TINY and backed up against our guest bath.  Ben combined the 2 bathrooms to make one large master bath and then we added a guest bath across the hall.  (See Demolition Day 1 for the before photos.)

Ben had a wonderful vision on how things were going to be.  The plan was definitely editted throughout the process, but in the end, we have a large walk in shower and double vanity and that's exactly what we were looking for! 



This is the view from the door of the master bed/master bath.  

We love our walk-in shower!  Ben built a bench in the corner and then there is a cubby hole box on the half wall for us to store soap, shampoo, etc.  

This is the hutch that we had custom made for our bathroom.  We were nervous about how it was going to look in the bathroom, but it fits and looks GREAT!

Our super cute double vanity is definitely a PLUS!  Granite and double vanities are way more expensive than we thought, so we compromised a bit with the color of the cabinet, but in the end we love the dark cherry and the granite is a perfect color for the room.  Now the mirrors....obsessed!  We saw one in TJMaxx, but we needed two.  I'm not kidding when I say I went to 8 - 10 TJMaxx's, Marshall's, and Home Goods to find another one and when I had almost given up....a second one appeared!! 

Oh the joys of being a grown up...

Meetin' & Greetin'

Ben and I had a very "stay at home, enjoy time together, & just get stuff done" type of weekend.  I had decided earlier in the week to bust out our new waffle iron and make us Banana-Cinnamon Waffles on Saturday morning.  I put all the dry ingredients together on Friday night, then put everything else together on Saturday morning.  As Ben said "these are way better the frozen Eggo waffles!". 

Ben has been excited to meet our neighbors and suggested doing it this weekend since the weather has been so nice.  After we finished breakfast, I started slaving away in the kitchen baking pull apart cookies ;)  Since our house is the only house down the street, it puts us in the middle of lots of neighbors.  I made a cute little note to tie around the cookies, packaged them up, then off to meet the neighbors we went!  We went to 14 houses but were only able to meet about 5 households as many were gone.  For those that were gone, we left cookies on their door, so hopefully

they will wave at us the next time they see us driving by :)  We met some really nice people and some interesting ones...  When we got finished, we went home, took a little break and then starting hanging curtains.  A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door and it was one of our elderly neighbors coming to meet us.  He said he was napping when we came by, but he stayed for about 45 minutes telling us about himself.  He was precious!! 

We did learn while meeting some of the neighbors, that they like to have "get togethers", so the neighborhood party planner took our information so hopefully we'll be invited to the next little gathering :)  On a side note...I'm so glad I don't have to be the party planner!  It is nice sometimes to just show up!! 

On Sunday, Ben and I served at the 9 a.m. service at church then came home and started getting some more work done.  One huge thing was Ben started on our massive pantry that will fill the random spot in our kitchen.  Here's what he did yesterday and he's hoping to finish this week! 

Cooking School Date Night

Ben and I love Groupons!  For those that are unfamiliar, basically Groupons are in areas all across the country and every day new ones are posted.  You can get deals from Dry Cleaning (yes, Sprayberry Cleaners had its own Groupon) to amusement parks, restaurants, and just fun date experiences.  Back in December, Ben bought a Groupon for $39 and it was for Cooking Classes for 2 that normally costs around $120.  What a steal and so much fun!  Last night we headed to Irwin Street Cooking School for Creole Cooking 101.  SO MUCH FUN!!

There were suppose to be 8 - 10 people there, but President Obama was in town and traffic was a nightmare, therefore there were only 4 of us there and we LOVED it!  It was like our very own cooking lesson.  We learned to make Shrimp & Grits, seasoned veggies, as well as Bread Pudding.  The techniques and recipes Chef Diane used can easily be translated into our own kitchen.  After our 1 1/2 hour cooking class, we got to eat the yumminess and OMG....our bellies were STUFFED!!  I can't wait to make our it at home!!

We were having so much fun and were so interested in everything we were learning, I only took one picture and of course it was of Ben cooking.  I promise I stirred, chopped, AND taste tested...alot ;)

My CLOSET!!

Apparently when I'm home, I'm a "distraction" to Ben.  While I was gone to Charlotte this week, he was able to finish my custom master closet.  Ben built this with his own hands.  I'm so happy I married a handy man!

Excuse the mess, but my shoes have been thrown in the bottom of this empty closet for weeks, so Ben was working around all my "goods".

This weekend, I'm going to fill this baby up!

Heart my hubby for making me a great closet :)

Now, let me preface this next by saying I am not an amazing cook by any means, but I'm getting better and better.  Ben and I do love cooking together, but tonight while he was mounting 2 of our TVs, I made Sausage Stuffed Manicotti from Cooking Light and it was YUMMY!  Granted, it took me awhile because I have not mastered the whole multi-tasking in the kitchen, but once we sat down to eat, our tummies were filled with all kinds of goodness.

Happy almost Friday!

Pottery Barn Who?

Back in October, Ben took me to the Apple Festival in Ellijay (where he is from).  Let's be honest here, I only went for the apple fritters, apple pie, an apple ice cream goodie, and of course the spicy corn on the cob!! 
While walking around the festival, we did spot a little "gem" booth that was between the carved out bears and the homemade jams.  We saw it and immediately walked into the little booth to find this awesome furniture that looked like it was straight from Pottery Barn at a fraction of the price.  We got the vendor's card and found out he was from Canton, GA, which is about 1 hour north of the city. 

At the end of January, we decided to call Tony from Barnwood Creations.  He does all of his craftsmanship from his house so he invited us over to show him what we wanted and he made our little "design".  We needed a big enteratainment center because we have a large blank wall as well as a bathroom hutch. 

This weekend, we went and picked up our custom furniture and are very pleased with the outcome.  We told him we would put our own knobs on the bathroom hutch because we already knew what we wanted, but he insisted on putting the hardware on the entertainment center.  Let's just say after picking it up, we headed to Home Depot to change out the hardware on the entertainment center, but other than that, it looks great! 

Below is our living room.  We obviously need more accessories as well as a coffee table, end table, etc., but we are enjoying having this room come to life!  We knew we wanted a large rug in the room and just knew it was going to break our budget, but when we were in Sterlington, LA in January for our shower, we dropped into this place called Mer Rouge Wholesale.  This is a big blue tin building on the side of the road - literally!  We went into the back and there were lots of nice rugs and CHEAP!!!  Let's just say we figured out a way to get a 10 foot rug into our vehicle back to GA. 

Ben and I love comfy furniture, so the other purchase we made was the green chair 1/2 and ottoman.  It's rather large, but so comfy. 

We are definitely enjoying our new home and love when we "finish" projects. 

A Finished Project!!

Ben and I started on a project at the beginning of February and finally finished it this weekend!! 

Ben's parents had an old buffet in their basement that they had tried selling in a garage sale, but it was now just sitting there.  They let us have it for our new home, but it definitely needed some work to make it go with our house.  Thanks to Pinterest, we got some ideas of how we wanted it to look.  We stained the top and doors and then painted the rest Rustic Red.  We also changed out the hardware from old wooden knobs to a light gold and it looks GREAT!  I'm excited to handwash all our new china and put it in our newly refinished buffet!

This is before the "beautification"...



And this is after!! 

We also worked on several other things around the house and I started putting "personal touches" around the house and decorating.  Ben even started taking out the massives of books that he has and is concerned because we don't have places for them all.  I don't know what we would have done if the Kindle was never invented!!

On Saturday night we had a double date night with Jared and Nan.  Ben and I love Blue Moon Pizza which is now open just a 1/2 a mile from our new home, so the four of us headed there for some yummy pizza and a few beverages of choice.  Now, for you Louisiana folks, you know there is no comparison to Johnny's Pizza (GA folks, completely different Johnny's than the ones here in Georgia) but I had to find a pizza place because how depressing is it to not have a yummy pizza place to go too??  I will always love Johnny's in Louisiana, BUT Blue Moon Pizza is my Georgia pizza love.  We even had pizza from Blue Moon when mom and dad were in town and they even admitted it ranked up there with Johnny's Pizza.  Ben also found out that the owners of Blue Moon Pizza go to our church, so now we have an even bigger obsession with it! 

Sunday night we went to our "Completion Night" at Bed Bath and Beyond.  We were able to get 20% off everything on our registry + additional things we needed.  We were truly blessed throughout our wedding season in being showered with lots of amazing gifts, but there were still a few things we needed to get.  We obviously weren't able to get it all as we would be eating noodles for the next 3 months, but we made a list beforehand of things we needed and/or wanted right now and we would be crazy to not get it for 20% off.  We still have several goodies that we want, but that will come in time. 

Happy Monday....

Dating My Man

A fellow blogger and sorority sister, Amanda, posted about "Dating your man". I LOVE dates, even if they are simple. Per Amanda's blog, I'm suppose to link this to another blog, but I left early this morning traveling and can't figure out how to link from my IPhone.

Last night Ben and I decided to do nothing with the house, cook pizza together, drink wine, and just snuggle on the couch and watch TV. For us, this is like the perfect "night in"! We love cooking together and making pizza has become something we really like to do. Our relationship started on a girls vs. boys pizza making competition so it's something we continue to do.

It was great just being with my man :)

Circles Are Better Than Rows

In a previous post, I mentioned that on the night of my bachlorette party weekend, Ben went to GroupLink at our church and got us into a Married Small Group.  For those not familiar, here is a little information.  Ben and I attend Buckhead Church which is one of Andy Stanley's churches in the North Point Ministries organization.  Buckhead Church truly believes in getting people out of rows and into circles.  We don't have adult Sunday School or anything like that, but instead we have Community Groups that meet weekly/bi-weekly that help you pursue spiritual growth and healthy relationships.  In a community group, usually everyone is in the same stage of life and area of town.  I have been in singles community group for years and I actually met one of my best friends and bridesmaids, Anna, through my community group.  Ben had never been in a community group, (he had never lived in Atlanta long enough to join one) but was definitely on the same page with me in joining a Married Small Group once we got married. 

GroupLink happens twice a year and I like to say it's basically "sorority recruitment".  You basically go to church and "find" your new community group.  We decided that we wanted to join a "Just Married" Community Group.  In this group, there is a leader that has been married for awhile and then everyone else has been married for less than 2 years.  At GroupLink, Ben found a wonderful couple, Mark and Michelle, who would be leading a "Just Married Group".  They connected and then we got into their group with 4 other couples.  Last night was our second time to meet but our first official "real lesson".  We are currently going through a starter book that helps us get to know the other couples as well as help define what we think a marriage is as well as how God sees it.  Ben and I left last night with a good feeling about our group as well as a new "best practice" to try to include in our marriage. 

After community group (I still call it a small group), we headed home because I had a "Fring Date" with my best friends!!!  If you don't know what "Fring is", well, it's awesome!  I have 3 best friends from college - Jennifer, Kendal, and Yitin.  We tasked Yitin with finding a way to get us all connected at the same time.  Basically, there is a free app that you download on your Iphone or Ipad and we were able to have a 4 way video conference call.  It was so awkward and great at the same time!!  There will DEFINITELY be many more Fring dates to come!  Since 2 live in TX, one in LA, and me in GA, this is the best thing!! 

While on my "fring date", Ben knocked a few things off the "to do list".  One of the things was hanging curtains in the Hearth Room. (Insert - we need a new name for this room because "Hearth Room" is just not cool!)  We had bought the curtains before we moved in, but then I really started liking our new French Doors with side glass without curtains, so we were going to put the curtains in another room.  After Ben was gone to Guard this weekend, I decided that every window needed to be covered or I was going to freak and stress myself out!!  Below are the curtains over the French Doors.  You can see there is an open spot with just a rug.  This is in front of the fire place because we are still trying to figure out what furniture to put there.  You can also see our kitchen and all our new appliances.  We are without a range hood (that's another long story) and the massive microwave is still hanging out on the countertop.  Ben is going to be building a pantry that holds the microwave, but for now, it's taking up counterspace, but who can live without a microwave??  Not us!!  Our next window covering to purchase will be shutters over the kitchen sink.  That window really freaked me out while Ben was gone because you can see every reflection! 

Over the Past 3 weeks....

Well, lets start off with the BEST news....We are MARRIED!!! On February 18, 2012, Ben and I were married in front of 125 of our closest friends and family members. The day was perfect!! I was calm & excited! My goal for the wedding was that at the end, Ben and I were to be husband & wife, everyone would have a good time, and we would be headed to Jamaica. All 3 of my goals were a success!! Our photos won't be ready for another month, but our fabulous photographer, Allyson Warrington of AGW Photography, posted a blog with a sneak peek: http://www.agwphotography.net/blog/?p=242

Now to what else has been going on in our lives....

Thursday week prior to the wedding, Ben and I were able to start painting. We painted until the wee-hours of the morning for several days. We were both physically and mentally drained to say the least. We did pause on Valentine's Day to "cook" our first meal in the house and have a little time together since life had been crazy and was going to continue to be crazy for the next few days. We were able to cook steaks on The Griddler (best invention ever!) and have fondue for dessert thanks to some fabulous wedding gifts! It did though, take us about 45 minutes to find our plates, silverware, etc. and then another 15 minutes to fine the wine opener. All of our stuff was still packed up (including wedding gifts) in our basement. After dinner, we watched "Cool Runnings" to get us in the mood for our honeymoon to Jamaica!!

On Wednesday, my parents arrived and we put them to work. Our friend Zach came over and finished painting the last room of our house because if I would have had to paint one more thing, my dad was going to have to carry me down the aisle! My knees were killing me - yes, it's a sign that I'm getting old!!

My brother and sis-in-law, Hannah, arrived on Thursday and we put them to work too! Hannah finished the last painting of all of the trim and Benji helped dad finish moving EVERYTHING from the basement to our living area. This was extremely overwhelming as we went from having nothing in the house to everything and we couldn't find anything. We were very grateful though because it helped us get unpacked when we got back from the honeymoon.

On Friday, no "house stuff" was done - except for the fact that Ben had to crawl in the dumpster outside because it was too full when they came to pick it up :(

Friday evening, Ben's parents hosted a wonderful Rehearsal dinner at Lenox Grill. We were blessed to our our wedding party celebrate with us before our big day!

Saturday was a day that I will never forget! It was so much fun getting dressed with all my bridesmaids and then marrying my best friend! The reception was filled with yummy comfort foods, cocktails, and ALOT of fun dancing!! I can't wait to see the pictures of this. HUGE thanks to my parents for throwing a party they didn't even know they could throw! It was PERFECT and exactly what Ben and I wanted!! THANK YOU!

I'll post a few wedding pictures when I get them and I'll also download some honeymoon pictures as well.

Ben and I headed to Jamaica on Sunday for a week filled with absolutely NOTHING! It was amazing! Our butlers Orlando and Jashayne catered to our every need! They brought us breakfast in bed or on our porch every morning, had a cooler waiting for us at our reserved seats by the pool or beach, served us fruity drinks all throughout the day, and also did cheesy romantic things to our room. It was so very relaxing and JUST what we needed after all the house stuff.

We got back from the honeymoon and started unpacking. The house by no means is complete and we still don't have all of our furniture, pictures on the wall, curtains hung, or any of the fun stuff, but it's painted, cleaned, and we are enjoying it! We are taking a few projects a week to finish. Right now the priority is CLOSETS! Ben put up closets in the guest bedrooms so we could hang most of our clothes (mine obviously did not fit). Do you know how nice it was to see clothes hanging in a closet? Ben loved the fact that he knew where his underwear were - ha! Ben began working on our custom master closets last week. He still has lots to do, but I bet he'll finish with them this week.

Below are a few pics of paint color in the living room, master bed, & guest bathroom. Remember, none of the rooms are done, but this will help to show you how much we have been able to get done.

We LOVE our living room color! The chocolate brown turned out perfect! We are waiting for our entertainment center that we got made. Hoping to pick it up this weekend!

Thanks to my mom and Hannah, we were able to come back from our honeymoon to sleep on our new bedding. They put our bed together so we wouldn't have to sleep on blankets :) This is our new bed and we love it. There's a dresser too that you can't see. We still need curtains and a big fluffy white rug in this room! Yes, I know the plastic is still on the lamps. I just bought them yesterday and was "testing" them out first :)

Our guest bathroom is Ben's favorite room. When we bought this house, this room was 3 closets and now it's a full bathroom! This room just needs the little touches like a bath rug & a cute picture or something on the wall. Ben decided at the last minute to add the middle detail tile in the shower and it was the BEST idea!