First big home improvement project

Today, Monday the 30th marks our 1 month stay in our new home! The D'Antonio's (Richmond Branch) have decided to put our first time Home Owners tax credit to good use with the purchase of 10 new energy efficient windows from Home Depot! They are being installed as I type!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Steven and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving as a married couple in Richmond this year. Because of our work schedules we couldn't go to Salem until Friday. We fixed our own turkey with the necessary side dishes. Here are some pictures!

Martha Stewart, my mom, nana, and nannan would be proud to eat this DELISH 10lb bird!

Sophie's Room

Sophie's mom was very artistic. We were told she hand painted Sophie's room while she was 8 months pregnant with her second child. We wanted to carefully document the room before it is covered in something more neutral. Since we aren't planning on having a 6 year old girl in the next couple years we have no choice but to cover the flowers.

Matt and Kelly to the Rescue!

One of the best things about having a lot of work to do on the house is that we get to see our friends more often! Especially our favorite married couple from Chesapeake! Matt and Kelly (with Scout) came to Richmond for the weekend to help out with some projects! Here are some pictures!

And we can't forget Will! He's not in any of the pictures but he has been here every Saturday helping out around the house! We love having him here!

And we have a desk de Pottery Barn

Old fixtures come down!

And we're breaking ground to install single sconces on either side of the mirror

new dry wall and junction boxes go in!

And the old toilet comes up!

"Still Life" man jewelry come off for this job

Old vanity comes out...new one goes in

The Lady toilet is finished!

We're a dog friendly family

We our blessed to have wonderful friends and family and we have enjoyed their furry friends! Since we've moved, we have loved the company our our 2 nieces Daisy and Scout!

Scout wants to be apart of the bathroom demo

Lazy eyes

The boys had everything under control so we took a break

Daisy is enjoying "freedom" with the fenced backyard

"Can I, can I, can I? Please run around outside!"

After a long day of work

Paint Goes Up!

Last night Sarah, my favorite sister in law, and I taped the dining room to paint today. We grazed over hundreds of colors and options and finally decided to follow along with what the home owners did. We kept the chair rail and found 2 very pretty hues of blue to put up. A darker one on the bottom and lighter on top. Very "Williamsburgy". The colors look great with our dark espresso stained table and china hutch. We also found an awesome red color to go on the inside of the breakfast nook. The plate Aunt Susan gave us for our wedding present inspired our red "Italiany" "pastay" "Il Fornioy" kitchen. We're hanging it in the center of wall. Hopefully on our trip to CA for Christmas we can pick up a couple more! The same red matches our red towels so we're using it for the accent wall in the guest bathroom. This morning we hit Home Depot to pick up the paint and the three of us painted the dining room, nook, and bathroom! We got a lot of work done but there are still more walls to go!

Dining Room:

Steven painting

Almost done

Final product with 2 of our 6 chairs!

Breakfast Nook:

Tape goes up!

Tinted primer

First coat of RED!

Kitchen

We can now start opening our wedding presents since we have space for them! This is maybe 1/4 of the boxes that are in our storage unit!

Dear Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma,
Thank you for existing so we can have brand new things in our kitchen.
Love,
Lara and Steven

Sophie's Tree

When the Campbell's accepted our offer on their house, Sophie, the 7 year old, drew us a picture thanking us for buying the house. Then the morning of closing she wrote us another note: "Hellow i am the girl that wrote the note in the kichin and this is my speshel tree. can i still have it and can you take good care of it. write your answer here. yes or no." The note was tucked in her bird house hanging in the dogwood tree out front. I wrote her a note back saying that of course she can still have her tree and I would take very good care of it. It was gone when I came back to the house several hours later. In it's place was another note from Sophie, this time it was a picture of her standing next to her "speshel" tree. I made her a temporary sign for the tree that says "Sophie's Tree".

Day 2 in the house and Halloween!

Unfortunately because Steven got home around 10:30pm on Friday night from his last week of travel (YAY!) we did not have time to go get pumpkins and carve them. This was our small attempt at creating a welcoming atmosphere for trick or treeters! The one neighbor said to expect a lot, but we only had 18. It was ok because we were in the company of great friends for part of the night! Our favorite married couple Matt and Kelly came over and Will, our beloved friend who helped us move! And for those that don't know, came to my rescue when I had my flat tire Friday night on the way to the new house with a load of stuff in the car! Also, Thomas had another 24 hour liberty from Quantico so he was with us too. We had a great 2nd night in the house!

Waiting for trick or treeters!

We didn't have much moved in on Halloween. I think the flowers give it that special touch

A sneak peak!

Mike Topham, our photographer, has posted some of his favorite pictures from our wedding on his blog! The address is: http://miketophamblog.com/2009/10/lara-steven.html

First picture of the HOUSE!

I drove by the house on my way home from work today and took a picture with my cell phone. I promise there will be better ones to come!

Bridal portraits #2

Bridal portraits

First dance as husband and wife

Charm City Cakes!