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We bought a house!

June 21, 2017 by jessica 9 Comments

First 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.

First House

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 we put down the phone and get to work. 😉
  • 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!)

Filed Under: Home, Interiors Tagged With: life update, our first house

Keeping Clean with bObsweep PetHair

September 1, 2016 by jessica 4 Comments

Bobsweep-2

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 the 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 robot affectionately known as “Bob” into our lives.

Bob arrived with a little birth certificate to announce his arrival. (He wasn’t exactly a petite newborn at 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 adjust 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 smashed 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 five 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 station 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 for 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 at keeping up with daily or weekly chores. We’ve actually set a timer for Bob to get to work at 9:00 on Saturday mornings so we can lounge around enjoying brunch while he picks up after us! You can adopt a bObsweep of your own at www.bobsweep.com.

Bobsweep-6
Bobsweep-8
wood backdrops
gray backdrops

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, Bacon wolfed down the last of his morsels before making a mad dash in the opposite direction. He 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! 

Filed Under: Home, Interiors Tagged With: bObsweep, bObsweep PetHair, bObsweep review, robotic vacuum cleaner, vacuum cleaner review

Decor Dreams: Dining Room

June 13, 2016 by jessica 4 Comments

Dining Room Inspiration

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 of 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 buy furniture that would fit in the rooms of our eventual 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 of dining room inspiration for over a year now. I love the mix of traditional and modern furniture that creates a sophisticated 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.

Dining Room Inspiration

Chairs | Table | Chandelier | Rug | Plant | Planter | Lamp | Art | Console | Tumbler | Candle

Filed Under: Home, Interiors Tagged With: decor dreams, dining room, dining room inspiration

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Hello!


Jessica Hamm
Hello there! I'm a first-time homeowner updating a 1920s house in Madison, Wisconsin. I have a penchant for travel and a love of costume jewelry.

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It’s so nice to be home after a whirlwind week. It’s so nice to be home after a whirlwind week. We flew out to Philadelphia last Friday for a few days of exploring. It was our first time in the City of Brotherly Love and we loved every minute of it from the architecture to the restaurants, and most of all: the welcoming and friendly people. After that, we had one night at home before a flight to Denver to celebrate my cousin’s wedding. We got back to Madison late last night and have spent the day puttering around the house, getting caught up on laundry, grocery shopping, harvesting the season’s first tomatoes from the garden, and admiring just how much the hydrangeas have grown in the course of a week.
I always get a kick out of comparing views of our I always get a kick out of comparing views of our home today to the photos I took during our home inspection. (Swipe to see our main bedroom then!) While I knew the house had potential, it was hard to look past some of the owner’s “design” choices. Though, it looks like the room was destined to have a warm-toned quilt. 😂

P.S. @schoolhouse just released new colors of their popular Stillwater Floral Quilt!

And, for those interested, I’ve linked my bedroom items here: https://liketk.it/5iC8R

#SchoolhouseLiving #InteriorInspo #SlowDecorating #BedroomDecor #MainBedroom #CenturyHome #StillwaterFloral #HomeReno #HomeRenovation
Back in December, we booked @therobeychicago for a Back in December, we booked @therobeychicago for a couple nights in the summer and our long awaited anticipation of lounging by the rooftop pool was finally fulfilled last weekend. It also inadvertently became the weekend I made Dave eat a cheeseburger every day, between @redhotranchchicago, @eatmottst, and @smallcheval. There are worst ways to spend a weekend.

#chicago #visitchicago #therobey #therobeychicago #duckduckgoat #mottst #artinstituteofchicago #chicagoeats #auchevalchicago
Our guest room wasn’t a design priority until la Our guest room wasn’t a design priority until late last year when we finally bought a bed, mattress, and a set of sheets. We used some of our own extra bedding (tucking in the generous overhang of our king blankets under the queen-sized mattress) and old bedside lamps from our bedroom: functional, but not quite the charming space I’d envisioned.
 
That started to change when I purchased the Popcorn Grid Coverlet from Schoolhouse — an item I’d been eyeing for years — plus some graphic floral pillows. Then came a bright blue round cushion and the sweetest Teig lamp, both generously gifted by Schoolhouse, and the room finally started to come together. You can shop my picks here: https://liketk.it/5f322

#Ad #SchoolhousePartner #SchoolhouseSpringStyle #SchoolhouseLiving #InteriorInspo #SlowDecorating #GuestRoom
Growing up in northern Wisconsin, lilacs always hi Growing up in northern Wisconsin, lilacs always hit peak bloom right around my birthday on May 30. My mom would fill a large crystal vase with fresh-cut stems, and their scent would waft through the house. 

Now that I live a few hours south and lilac season wraps up earlier, the blooms actually mark the start of my birthday month.

#Lilacs #LilacSeason #SpringFlowers #InBloom #BirthdayMonth #MayBirthday
Snapshots from the past week: • Spent quality t Snapshots from the past week:

• Spent quality time with my favorite cat

• Biked for Pacificos, chips and quac, and tacos at @bandit.tacos 

• Loved how the rain collected on the Lady’s Mantle I planted last year

• Dipped my toes (quite literally) into this year’s mesh shoe trend

• Snapped a lot of Lily content

• Drove home with a new lilac in the passenger seat
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