Basement Door - Progress

It's been a long time since I blogged about the basement door that Trent worked on all summer. I mentioned it briefly in this post. Who knew putting in a new basement door would take sooo longgg. But when your house is over a century old, sometimes it takes 3 or 4 months. So it's time for an overdue update. At the beginning of July, this is what the old, dilapidated, rotted basement door looked like (complete with yellow spray foam insulation everywhere):

It seriously looked like an old door in one of those horror movies. "Come down to the basemenntttt..." Perfect for Halloween. Ha.

Anyway.... moving on, you can tell we never really used this door a lot. But we needed to rebuild the door frame and install a new one that could actually be used for easy access when we start bringing in new floor beams, gravel, cement, and floor jacks to put down here. Needless to say, it only took a couple hits to knock this baby down.

The black cord you see running across in the photo is the cable for the tv. Since we have satellite, we don't use this anymore, but we will probably be keeping it and just moving it out of the way in case a future owner wants cable.

Here's the view from inside the basement once Trent got the old door removed.

A little messy to say the least...but just look at that lovely, not so stable brick wall that the door was built into. Yep, Trent had his work cut out for him with that one.

By August though, he had the new door all framed and secured. It was a tight fit at first, so he had to chisel some of the brick on one side to get it to fit. The doorway is also smaller than most, so he probably had cut a foot off of the (steel) door to get it at the right height. Rest assured though, it now opens and closes with no problem and fits pretty well in the new doorway. He did a pretty good job!

Fast forward to October, Trent's been getting all of the mortar/concrete work finished to secure the door frame to the bricks inside. No water or air is going to escape this door!

If you look closely, you can see that we have an actual, legit doorknob with a lock and key. Never had that on this door before! It's actually functional now, which is nice, and it's getting to the point where we'll actually be able to use it probably next summer, when we work more down there getting the house leveled and some of the floor beams replaced under the house.

I just couldn't resist throwing this picture in there...you know he just looks so happy to be working on this door for the third month now....

All joking aside, though....After the concrete is all dry in the door frame, Trent is going to be spraying the open, wooden part of the frame with insulation, and then he'll put the door trim back on the outside to finish it up.

It's coming along, slowly but surely. The basement is still spooky looking, but it's still a work in progress and we have a long way to go with the whole project! Maybe in the next couple of years we won't be so busy planning weddings and will actually be able to work more on house projects! I'm hoping this winter to get indoor projects done, like the hallway and maybe finishing some living room window trim that we started, oh...4 years ago! We can only hope! :)

Cake Inspiration

I want to give a shout out to my mom today, since today's her birthday! Happy birthday, Mom! And it's the perfect post for today, because it's all about CAKES! I love cakes. Most of these are wedding cakes, but there's also plenty of cute little cakes to go around...(I wish they were real and right in front of me, but what can you do!)

This past Saturday was our cake tasting at a local bakery, so I've been pinning cakes on Pinterest like crazy all week long! Let me tell you though, I love looking at pretty cakes, and the eye candy was not bad at all. So I thought I would gather a bunch of my favorite pretty cakes right here, all in one place, in case anyone else is looking for some cake inspiration.

These are all my favorites from Pinterest - from tiny to tier cake. I especially love the ruffly and textured cakes, and took inspiration from some below for our wedding cake design. (Psst - It's going to be white and ruffly with fresh flowers) Enjoy! (Sources are directly below the photos)

(1, 2)

(3, 4)

(5, 6)

(7, 8)

(9, 10)

(11, 12)

 (13, 14)

Are those cakes amazing or what? I can only hope ours looks just as beautiful. 

Hope you enjoyed drooling at them as much as I did! 

Most Recent Antique Store Finds

Hello lovelies. It's really starting to look and feel like fall out there. Still have mixed feelings. It gets dark at an ungodly hour these days, and today it rained nonstop all day and was a chilly 60 degrees most of the day. It shall be winter soon...Lord help us.

Anywho, wedding planning has been in full swing and is going smoothly, although nobody really likes to play the waiting game....but we all know how that goes. So I've mostly been on the hunt for milk glass vases, which we will be using for our centerpieces. Our wedding "theme" is "Vintage garden elegance," so I'm going to be collecting assorted vintage milk glass vases for the tables to hold tons of pretty flowers.

The Knox County / Spoon River Scenic Drive was last weekend (an awesome event with tons of flea markets and yard sales), and that was quite successful for finding milk glass, as well as some pretty cool vintage pieces for the wedding, including an old faded green, paint-chippy shutter which I thought would make some pretty cool decor and a way to display photos of us. And an old wooden box I think would be great for holding cards.

I also checked out a couple of antique stores this weekend we had never been to, including Skeleton Key Art & Antiques in Rock Island, and Living Vintage in Eldridge, Iowa. Both stores were really great, and I found a ton of milk glass at Skeleton Key. I only found one vase at Living Vintage, but they had some awesome restored vintage furniture there.

Here's my total loot from the Scenic Drive, and my recent Antique store trip:



You can see the card box and the shutter behind ALL of my new milk glass vases! All that stuff was well under $100 thanks to some awesome deals. The old shutter was $10, the wooden box was $12, and the vases were anywhere from .25 to $7 for a couple of the larger ones. Most were $1-$2. Not too shabby.

This next find isn't wedding related but at Skeleton Key, I saw this unique owl necklace and had to have it! It truly looks one of a kind, and may very well be. I love the gold/mint green combo, and this owl is so flippin adorable!

It was $16.99 but I decided to get it, because I would probably never see anything like it again, and I was already smitten with my new owl friend.

So those were my recent antique/flea market/sale finds. What have you found lately that's super unique?

Libra: Astrology Inspired Decor

Time for another Astrology decor post! This time it's Libra, and if your birthday falls between September 23 and October 22, then that means you. Libra, the seventh sign of the Zodiac, is an air sign ruled by the planet Venus, and its symbol is the Scales. Libra is the only sign which is not symbolized by a living, breathing creature - which is ironic, because Libras are sociable beings! The don't like to be alone and are better with a partner. They're companionable, a smidge artistic, and don't forget stylish.

Being the Scales of the Zodiac, they are fair and seek balance, peace, and harmony. But they are also on the indecisive side (which may mean they have trouble choosing that perfect paint color for the living room). Nonetheless, they definitely know how to communicate, being air signs and all, and when it comes to their home, they prefer a well-balanced, traditional style. They like airy and open spaces, their decor arranged symmetrically, and blue is their decorating color of choice. (sources: Style at Home and Astrology.com)

Let's see my decor picks for Libra, shall we?

Sources (from top to bottom): 1) Vintage scale - Etsy  2) Painting - Erin Fitzhugh Gregory 3) Wall mirrors - Etsy 4) Sectional sofa - Pottery Barn  5) Glass Pendants - West Elm 6) Trellis rug - Rugs USA 7) Vintage turquoise fan - Etsy 8) Ikat Pillow Cover - Etsy

And my pick for an airy and stylish, Libra-inspired room:

(from here)

Hope you like! :)

And that's all folks. Who is loving fall and the cooler weather? (I could go back to summer for a little while longer but that's just me. Not ready for winter yet....) Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Corpus Christi Shell Project

This summer we took an awesome little vacation to Texas, where we visited some pretty awesome cities, like Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. But perhaps the most memorable spot we visited was Corpus Christi. Why was this so memorable? Because it's where we got engaged. Besides photos to remember and preserve our time here, I also collected small shells from the beaches in the Corpus Christi/North Padre area. Up until now, they've been in a plastic ziploc baggy. Sad, I know. All summer I meant to wash them off and do something with them! But I finally got around to it.

I took one of the little $1 glass bottles I picked up from the Dollar Spot at Target (I had gotten two of them this past spring with the intent of putting shells or sand from our vacation inside)...and I put all of the little shells that could fit inside of it:

What I don't understand is why they would put a sticky label all the way around a glass jar that's meant for crafting??

I had to slowly pull away this label, which was kind of a pain. Like pulling a really huge sticker off of something when it's been stuck to it for a long time. And trying to pull it off perfectly. Of course there were parts of the label that were tough to get off. Luckily, it was a small bottle. And I guess that's what I get when I pay $1 for something...

Painstaking labor aside, I washed away any excess stickiness that was leftover on the bottle, and stuck my own little label on it - again with just a pen, I wrote our vacation spot and the year. Just like I did in the past with my Lake Geneva jar and my East Coast vacation jar. And voila, I had myself a nice little vacation memento!

I still have a few larger shells left over from this spot that can't fit into the jar (it's pretty tiny). So who knows what I'll do with these little guys:

I'm pretty happy with this easy little project. It fits into the living room pretty well, since all of my other vacation jars live in here, and of course our vacation albums and lots of photos are all in this room, too. It gives it even more of a personal touch when you have all these mementos surrounding you in the room that you hang out in 90% of the time!

So that's my little crafty project of the month. Ha! I haven't been too crafty lately! Wedding planning has been taking more of my time I guess these days.. :)

It's Fall!

So it's the first day of October (where does the time go?), and it's officially starting to look and feel like fall outside. I always have bittersweet feelings about this every year. Fall is nice and beautiful with all the colored leaves outside, but at the same time, I have visions of blizzards and -20 degree temperatures. And fall means that these are not far away. Boo.

But let's focus on the good things about fall. Colored leaves. Comfy sweaters. Pumpkin flavored everything. Oh, and fall decor.

We have a little bit of fall going on around the house now, since I put out my fall decorations this weekend. It was a little strange putting them out when it was still sunny and 80 degrees outside, but after this weekend it's felt much more fall-like around here.

Of course one of my favorite things about fall are the yummy fall scents in the form of scented candles. This year my fall candles hail from Target, and the smells are oh so wonderful.

My fall wreath is back, still holding up after maybe a couple of years I'd say? Can't remember how long I've had it for sure. Wish the door was prettier, but we've got a lot of projects we still need to tend to!

I got some brand new fall-esque dish towels, also from Target - and they were super cheap. Not the prettiest oven to hang them on either, but gotta work with what ya got.

My faux gords and mini pumpkins are scattered around the living room once again...and of course my owls look pretty fall-ish even though they're out year round!

The front porch is somewhat decorated, but all of my summer flowers are still in full bloom! They did amazingly well this year. I suppose due to the right amount of rainfall and a little bit cooler temps. I'm hoping to pick up some mums this weekend to replace them once they die out. So no pictures of the porch yet! Maybe this weekend I'll have some fall-y ones to share.

In the mean time, here is a round-up of all of my fall-related posts from last year to get you in the mood:

• Creative Pumpkin Decorating Ideas
• Pumpkin Patch Fun
• Our Pumpkins Through the Years
• Drilled Pumpkins
• Gatsby Halloween
• Our Fall Porch 2013
• "Welcome" Pumpkin
• Mum's the Word
• Fallifying the House
• My 10 Favorite Things about Fall
• Fall Decorating from Years' Past
• Fall Porch Inspiration

Enjoy!!