Finally Making Moves

I am leading an Accenture Retail group based out of New York City so this weekend I had a long weekend in Philly (a whole four days!!) due to an event in NYC Wednesday night. It was totally worth getting home a night early but definitely exhausting - I was in Charlotte Monday and Tuesday, then flew to New York early Wednesday morning. 

Love you New York!

I woke up in my own bed Thursday morning to the sounds of jack hammers at the back of the house. The demolition of the two houses behind us is happening even faster than we expected! Andrew even wrote to Naked Philly about it and they did a big write up on the projects planned for the two lots.

Very cool!

We are finally making moves with the trim and quarter round! The trick is to invite friends over for dinner to give us motivation :) We bought all our final quarter round and set it up in the basement to paint and prep to put up next week. The second floor is nearly done, the pictures are just super boring!

But this, this is an exciting picture

Dinner with our friends Lauren and Spenser and their 3 month old baby, Aris, was long over due and so fun! I am really trying to learn how to cook so I went on Pinterest and found some good recipes: yummy corn dip for an appetizer, butternut squash risotto and parmesan chicken for our main meal.

The dinner was a success! I am so happy for this great little couple and can't wait until we have our own little baby Haughton running around the house (not any time soon!). We did realize after having a baby in the house that we still have so much to do before we are really ready to settle.

Such a little sweetie! And so big!

This week we got tickets to the Philadelphia Home Show in the mail and we thought it would be great opportunity to find someone to do our banisters. We were so excited to discover BenFab, a custom banister company only about 20 minutes from our house.

Yay!!! Finally!

They had some really great floor examples and even a better portfolio of jobs they have done in the past. We will have an opportunity to customize anything we want, which will hopefully allow us to control the cost.

All metal option

Apparently the cable wire is more expensive (obviously) than the all metal option but it is the look we really like. 

This is the look we love

Oh well! We are having the team over to take measurements and give us some options this week. Andrew has been doing a ton of research so I know he will make sure we get exactly what we want while I am in Charlotte!

The banister master

We considered the Home Show a success and are so looking forward to all the projects we have planned over the next couple of months! 

Old people show.

Over Christmas we visited Pottery Barn because we were reconsidering getting the couch and chaise. I always love a trip to Pottery Barn and Andrew was super pumped that we were looking for a new, big couch again.

We really love the PB Comfort couches and it's a great time to buy - there is a big 20% off sale! We also had a 15% off coupon for moving into our new house and they allowed us to use that discount as well. We went home and measured out the living room with blue paint tape to see if we could make it work.

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We decided it will be a great addition to the living room and something we desperately need! I am just praying that when it gets to our house it won't feel too big in the room.

New couch outline!

                               

The couch will arrive in early March and the banisters around the same time frame, two expensive purchases. Since we have such a crazy summer already lined up, the kitchen renovation may be pushed back until end of August :( I think it will really give us an opportunity to figure out what we want before we make such a big purchase.