Learning to be a Rebel...or at least how to use one: January 2014

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Outside Light Reno

There are a handful of cosmetic things that we knew wanted to change before we even moved into the house. One of those being the horribly ugly outside garage light! It was setup on a sensor and a few months after we moved in the other bulb went out (only one was working when we moved in). We knew we wanted to replace the fixture so rather than spending money replacing the light bulb we just stuck it out.

We were putting off this project for 2 reasons. One - We had no idea how to replace a light fixture. Two - The placement of the fixture is so low that we had to make sure that we bought a light that went up rather than hung down. Easier said than done.

One day we were at Lowes and saw this fixture and decided it was time to tackle this project! I'm super proud of Justin for doing this all by himself...well, he needed my strong arms to hold up the fixture while he screwed them in! haha

Before

Can you say U-G-L-Y??

After

We also replaced the entry way light so they matched.

Another part of the project was the fact that the owners only had one light put outside the garage (instead of 1 on each side). My dad encouraged Justin that this was a project they could tackle in no time! For our anniversary my parents gave use a Lowe's gift card so we could purchase the other light :) I fully intended on at least somewhat documenting the process of installing a light where there was no light before but Justin, my dad, and his friend Mark ended up installing the light while I was getting my hair done so I only have after pictures! That's okay - pretty sure I would have been lost with all that electrical stuff anyways!

The Finished Product! We finally have symmetry!

Monday, January 13, 2014

Master Bathroom Cabinet Refinish Project | DIY

Back in May of last year Justin and I took on our first labor/time intensive DIY house project at the new house. We do not like the light color of our cabinets and decided to test out the Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformation kit in our guest bathroom. We have been wanting to tackle the kitchen cabinets but that is a HUGE project so we decided to do our master bathroom cabinets since we look at those every.single.day!

I didn't take before pictures because I was suffering from those dang cedar allergies.

Before

Before picture (before the room was even painted) you can see the color of the cabinet in the bottom corner

Here's a {before} picture of the guest bathroom to remind you of the color

I didn't document the process but if you're curious I talked about it here.

After

Now we are trying to decide whether we can handle the kitchen ourselves or if we need to hire someone...stay tuned!

Thursday, January 2, 2014

New York City - Mother Daughter Trip

Since I'm super behind on blogging I decided I was going to post this today since ~~are~~ were headed to NYC! Winter storm Hercules had other plans for us...we cancelled our trip and will be going at t the end of February instead.

My mom and I took a weekend trip to NYC the first weekend of December...After a long evening of traveling (we left our house at 2:45pm and got to our hotel at 1:30am...due to delayed flights and a horrible super shuttle experience) we finally got to our hotel! We stayed at the Millenium in Times Square. We went right to sleep and woke up ready to take on a rainy NYC day. We realized in all of the times we've been to New York - it's never rained when we were there - crazy!

Our first stop was Chelsea Market...which is inside the old Nabisco Factory!

Some Nabisco history

So many yummy smelling spices!

After a quick breakfast and a stroll through Chelsea Market we went to the High Line...and luckily had umbrellas because it was misting (and COLD).

We walked to the end of High Line and walked over to Macy's. It was sunny when we went in but dark when we came out! In our defense the sun sets at 4:30 there and it was an icky day.

Empire State Building!

We tried to hail a cab but were not successful so we ended up taking a pedicab a few blocks to save mom's foot! She was a trooper trekking around NYC with her boot on!

Most expensive couple of blocks ever! haha

We decided to try a new place for dinner and ended up at Brooklyn Diner (It was only around the corner from our hotel). We got lucky and sat right away. We split a rueben and OMG it was the best rueben we have ever had!! It probably should be for the price...a $27 sandwich! but it was sooo good!

The next morning we got up early to get to the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular in time!

Really Starbucks?! I don't think I've ever seen my name spelled quite like that....I wonder what she would have done with Trojacek!

After the show we walked over to Rockefeller Plaza and then down 5th Avenue to the Central Park Zoo.

View from Central Park Zoo

Sea lion!

OWL!

This little guy is too cute!

We saw lots of fun animals at the zoo and waited to see the baby snow leopards but apparently it was nap time because they just wouldn't come out and play! After the zoo we took the subway down to chinatown to shop for some small gifts. After about an hour there we took the subway uptown and went to Bryant Park and walked around the Christmas market.

Tree in Bryant Park

We went back to the hotel to rest and watch some football before my uncle came and met us for dinner. We looked at eating at a few different restaurants near our hotel but Times Square was CRAZY so we decided to walk away from it and see if it was less busy. We found a Turkish restaurant that wasn't crowded and decided to have something a little different. You know I'm a picky eater but I've had Turkish food twice (once in Turkey and the other time in London) and both times I enjoyed it so I thought, why not?!