Happy Tuesday! We’ve owned our house for one week and have already made quite a bit of progress in transforming it into something we’ll call home. I’m going to start putting all home-related content over on Curated Couple, which is where our week one progress report resides (wood paneling, bedroom cabinet removal, and exterior painting — oh my!). I’d like to keep this blog style-related so you’re not inundated with content you don’t care about. š I haven’t had a chance to update all of the individual pages, but I’m entirely too impatient to wait to start posting our progress! (Plus, seeing how far we’ve come keeps me motivated for the next tasks.) If you’re interested, come on over! We’ll get back to clothes and accessories tomorrow!
We bought a house!
I wanted to pop in to share that we’re now homeowners! We closed on our house yesterday and spent the better part of the day embarking on our ambitious to-do list. We pulled carpet out of the coat closet, removed dozens and dozens of nails and screws from the walls, ripped out hundreds of tiny carpet staples that were left in the stairs (when the house apparently had ’70s gold carpet), and removed kitchen cabinets from one of the bedrooms upstairs. We didn’t get to everything we wanted to do on day one, but we’re feeling pretty good about the progress we did make. I’ll start posting on our shared Instagram account for the house at @curatedcouple soon and we’ll get our home blog up and running, too! Until then, things are going to be on the quieter side ’round these parts. We really need to get the painting done in the house before the floors are refinished in three weeks.
Left to right:
- A light globe we found at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $1. We purchased two. One is going in my upstairs walk-in closet, which the city assessed as a fourth bedroom in the house. We’ll need to have the house reassessed since you can’t actually fit a twin-size bed into the room and still walk in and around it.
- Our closing-day selfie! I look jazzed and Dave looks like he’d rather weĀ put down the phone and get to work. š
- Adding some life to the place — literally. The most recent owner purchased the house in 2001, but then started dating a woman and moved in with her, leaving the home all but abandoned. We met our neighbors who said prior to his ownership, students lived there and even earlier, there were drug dealings. I’m not sure how true the last one is, but who knows. A house built in 1929 probably has plenty of stories within its walls — and maybe old pot, too. (Kidding!)
Keeping Clean with bObsweep PetHair
Home purchases are becoming more abundant ’round these parts as we continue to get rid of our transitional furniture and invest in nicer items with a future home purchase in mind. In fact, we’re planning to finally order a king-size mattress and frame this weekend! So, you can imagine how excited I was when bObsweep reached out with an opportunity to try theĀ bObsweep PetHair, a robotic vacuum cleaner that’s akin to having a live-in maid who vacuums, sweeps, mops, and UV sterilizes the floors.
As any pet owner knows, keeping up with hair and dander is a seems like a never-ending chore. (How Bacon manages to shed as much as he does without going bald is a miracle.) And, if we’re being brutally honest, I’m not as good at staying on top of my vacuum duties as I probably should be. (#RealLife) This is exactly why I was thrilled to invite the robotĀ affectionately known asĀ “Bob” into our lives.
Bob arrived with a little birth certificate to announce his arrival. (He wasn’t exactly a petite newborn atĀ 7.6 pounds and 4.2 inches tall!) After letting the the little guy fully charge overnight, he was ready for action. He seemed a little scatterbrained buzzing around our living room and bumping into just about everything, but he began to learn the placement of items and would adjustĀ his trajectory as he continued through our apartment. Honestly, I wasn’t sure he was doing much at first and we laid down a pile of crumbs (rather, a smashedĀ goldfish cracker) to see if he could sweep it up. There’s a setting that forces him to spot clean one area and yet he struggled with the larger pieces. Overall, though, he did a great job with pet hair (as promised), dust, and the fibers my rug doesn’t seem to stop shedding. (We actually had to empty the dustbin fiveĀ times during his 20-minute excursion because of how much stuff he was picking up. I realize that makes me sound like a bad housekeeper.)
When Bob starts get tuckered out and only has 15% of his battery remaining, the vacuuming component shuts down and he begins to search for his docking station. We didn’t heed the instructions and had placed the docking stationĀ in the middle of the room, which makes it harder for Bob to locate. Out of pity, I picked him up and set him on a course to make a beeline forĀ his dock … which he missed. Afterward, we read that picking him up screws up his internal map. Oops. Placing the docking station parallel to a wall with plenty of open space around it makes it easier for Bob to take a break.
Overall, it seems that Bob will be best atĀ keeping up with daily or weekly chores. We’ve actually set a timer for BobĀ to get to work atĀ 9:00Ā on Saturday mornings so we can lounge around enjoying brunch while heĀ picks up after us! You can adopt a bObsweep of your own atĀ www.bobsweep.com.
I was giving Bacon so many treats (enough to take the place of his dinner) to get him acclimated to Bob and he was doing so well … until I turned it on. As you’ll see below, BaconĀ wolfed down the last ofĀ hisĀ morsels before making a mad dash in the opposite direction.Ā HeĀ eventually warmed up enough to tolerate the bObsweep PetHair as long as he was on a perch looking down on it with plenty of room to bolt if Bob got too close.
Rug: West Elm
Coffee Table: West Elm (it’s the raw mango version)
Book: Styled by Emily Henderson
Vacuum: c/o bObsweep PetHair
***
Thanks to bObsweep for partnering on this post!Ā
Decor Dreams: Dining Room
As you may remember, last week Dave and I were faced with a difficult to decision: put a pin in the house hunt and renew our lease for another year or roll the dice and hope we find a house before the end of June so that closing lined up with the last day of our current lease. After long discussions about our options (and taking into account your thoughtful words of advice), we decided to sign our lease for another year and start looking again in a few months. And it’s a good thing, too. Nothing came on the market last week that even piqued our curiosity. As some of you pointed out, we’d probably find ourselves settling on a house and compromising on our must-haves with that kind ofĀ pressure. I think it’s the right decision, but I can’t say I’m not disappointed. I was looking forward to finally ditching our weird transitional furniture and hand-me-down pieces in favor of things that actually fit our aesthetic. We’ve waited to do so because we we wanted to buyĀ furniture that would fit in the rooms of our eventualĀ house. Now, we’ll just go in the opposite direction and make sure we buy a home with rooms that can accommodate our things.
I’m antsy to start working on the dining area. I’ve had the image above pinned as my main source ofĀ dining roomĀ inspiration for over a year now. I love the mix of traditional and modern furnitureĀ that creates a sophisticatedĀ space. I’m using the table and chairs as my jumping off point, as you’ll see below, but I’m going in a direction that’s less Scandinavian.
Chairs | Table | Chandelier | Rug | Plant | Planter | Lamp | Art | Console | Tumbler | Candle
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 3
- 4
- 5