Backyard (June)

My backyard landscape is growing strong:

I love how huge the asiatic lilies I planted last year are:

As for my other poor yucca, it decided to grow crooked, which was fine until the blooms weighed it down:

I'm excited that my outdoor tasks are done for the year. I scratched the climbing roses plan off my list, for a different outdoor game plan next spring. Woot!

2 dresser flips

So, it just occurred to me that I never posted either of these reveals. I want to post them together, because I only get to keep one, and well, decisions are hard.

(Please forgive my terrible pictures. I've been under the weather, and the thought of retaking and/or staging photos is not an appealing one).

Dresser #1:
Before:

After:

Dresser #2:
Before:
After:

The winning dresser will be going in the third bedroom (where dresser #1 currently is). The third bedroom is currently used as a second guest bedroom, and will one day become a nursery. Right now, I'm leaning toward dresser #2 – I'm liking the modern look (and the extra drawer).

Luckily, I don't have to make any decisions quite yet. I don't plan on getting rid of a dresser in the man cave, until our next Ikea trip (August or September) – when I can get some behind-the-sofa Expedit bookcases for better storage.

It's getting hot in here...

Sorry, for the break – I've been grouchy (you are welcome to picture me stealing Oscar's trash can here).

What should have been a simple "freon refill for our air conditioner" visit, turned into a "you'll be lucky if your air conditioner lasts through the summer" visit. Yay. I told Brent there was no way we were taking that gamble – summers is Kansas City are 95% miserable, with 100% humidity. So Brent and I have been getting price quotes. I don't think I realized how expensive air conditioners are – ouch! I'm just glad we found all this out after we got our sectional for the man cave, or the futon would probably still be here.

The new air conditioner will be installed in 2 week.s

A Tale of 5 Sofas

The 6-week journey of 5 sofas for the man cave is now over.

It was a long, brutal process, but it's over now. The issue was the landing going down into the basement – nothing would fit in the space.

Our sectional arrived the day of the wine-party (nothing like cutting it close), and it took 45 minutes (and one hole in the wall) to make it fit. The hole was Brent's doing. The delivery guys said it wouldn't fit, but Brent was determined and pushed the sofa into the wall. My houndstooth wall.


Sigh. Looks like somebody gets to learn how to patch walls in the near future. But it was totally worth it, because the futon is gone!

Before:

After:

Yep, the man cave has definitely come a long way in the past year:

The only issue now is the wall color. I've never been a fan of it, but Brent's loved it. Thankfully, that love is quickly fading with the brown sectional. I think a celery color would be rather amazing and lighten things up.

White wine-tasting party

I can safely say that my mom's birthday party was a success. As you'll be able to see from the photos, I kept it a similar format to the beer-tasting party – after all, if it ain't broke...

My reasoning for sticking with white wines was a simple one –

my mom + wine = spillage.

Well that, and that my mom prefers whites. But mainly the first reason.

Now, on to the fun stuff!

SAVE THE DATES AND INVITES
I love green wine bottles – so I used that to set the tone on everything I did.

FIRST GLANCE
Since most of my mom's friends haven't been to my house, I wanted a sign out front. (Well, I would have made a sign no matter what, but at least this time around I had an excuse).


THE STATIONS
We had four different stations set up around the house – chardonnay, pinot grigio, riesling/muscat and blends.

Aside from wine, each station had a wine opener, notepad, pen and napkins.

I designed the notepads, and then had them printed at VistaPrint.

Originally, I was going to get napkins with wine phrases on them, but when I saw these, I just couldn't resist.

For the station bottles, Brent drilled a hole in each one then we stuffed Christmas lights in them. (Just a warning – after 5 hours of being on those bottles got super hot, so we turned them off). As for the top part, I used a Silhouette.

We also had beer on tap for the non-wine drinkers. Brent and I definitely underestimated that amount of people we had in that group. The pony keg was finished off in about 4 hours, then that group moved on to mix drinks.

THE CHEESE BAR
Wine and cheese – it's a match made in heaven, so of course a cheese bar was a high priority for me. There were 9 different types of cheese, 3 different crackers and some fig spread, which went great with the Manchego cheese.


THE FOOD
I love appetizers at a party, and I can't see myself ever breaking away from this. Some of my mom's friends helped me out and brought appetizers as well, which made getting everything ready on Saturday so much less stressful.

The menu:

THE DESSERTS

The menu: Grandma's cream cheese brownies, cream puffs, lemon bars, pink champagne mini cupcakes, my mother-in-law's chocolate chip cookies with walnuts, chocolate-covered pretzels with heath bar and white chocolate-covered pretzels with sprinkles.


The phrase that pays:

PERSONAL TOUCH
I wanted to display pictures of my mom without making a huge production out of it (my mom would not like a picture wall). So, I cleaned off some wine bottles, created picture labels and placed them throughout the house.


I thought the party turned out great, but most importantly, my mom had a blast.

I hope to have the wine-party paper package available soon!

Eeeek!

Today is a super exciting day for me – I was featured on my favorite blog.

For anyone stopping in from HWTM, you can view my beer-tasting party here and the paper package I offer here.

Thanks!

Ashley

What' I've been up to...

Getting ready for this weekend's wine party.