Moving On In! To the New Office!

   We are SO pumped to start moving into our new office and studio space! It will be SO nice to have an official place to deal with mail and bills, computers, printer, scanner, and all of Kevin's gadgets. Books shall be stashed and papers shall be filed + finally a full-time space for the sewing machine, book binding materials, and all of those other crafty supplies!

- Finished painting: "Buttered Sweet Corn" is a sunny yellow perfect to brighten up the long wall in the new office and "Fossil," a warm gray for the rest.

- We grouted the tile (again...) + Kevin stained, cut and installed base trim
    Remember back in June we shared how the tile looked grouted? (See Post) Well, shortly thereafter we decided that we didn't like it.... at all.
Here's what it was:

This pic is blurry, but you can see that we tried what was *supposed to be a warm gray grout - it REALLY got red and in the office with lots of natural light, it really took on a pink cast. Boo.

Here's it is now:

We decided to go with a dark charcoal grout instead - and we LOVE the way it turned out :)

Here you can see the tile with the trim with paint - voila!

- Hung window blinds

- We've moved in the tall bookshelf + Kevin's desk and Kevin has begun setting up our modem, signal repeater and printer just so...

Kevin gets the backyard view...

- I've begun to move in a few things to "my side" of the office too. This sunny yellow wall shall be home to my tall work table, sewing table, this new IKEA tall white book shelf and mounted wall shelves galore

Still to come:
- Ummm... more furniture of course...
- wall mounted shelves
- LOTS of stuff: supplies, artwork, computers, items collected over the years, etc.
- Floor Rug
- A place for Finch to hang out
- Plants - I think we need plants in here...
- New desk chair for Kevin
- Pillows in the window seat? Something comfy...

We will be back *soon with a grand reveal!! Can't wait to show you how the office turns out!

Cabin Favorites

   I've been visiting Kevin's family's cabin in St. Croix Falls, WI for years - my first trip was the weekend right before I turned 18 - so a *while ago...  At around 1 hour 15 minutes away, it's far enough to get out of the city; away from home, but close enough so as NOT to spend the whole day on the road. We get to spend time with Nana, head out on the boat, eat really great food, visit the nearby Fawn-Doe-Rosa, set off fireworks, check out the Pea-Pick'n-Flea Market, and lay around reading all day...
   Here are a few more of my favorite things about the cabin:

I love the metal bird artwork that hangs above the fireplace

Nana's collection of birdhouses - these are just a fraction...

family photos everywhere - including the best shot of Kevin when he was little with Poppy on the dock fishing.

a few pieces I've created for the Cabin up in the kitchen...

Finch and his brother Rocko always have a great time

+ this year at the Fawn Doe Rosa

These were a few of my favorite friends this year - the little Alpaca (upper right) was SOOOOOO soft...

Can't wait to get back to the cabin in a few weeks!

Mud Room Countertop Time

  We have installed the cabinets in our new mud room so the next step = countertops....well, *one of the next steps anyway. We really love our quartz countertops in kitchen - no maintenance EVER = the right plan for us. Plus, some stones, like granite, have TOO many LARGER swirls and patterns that are a little bit too busy for me. Just a personal preference thing.
  So! Off to Stone Countertops Outlet for us! After exploring several different companies for stone counter tops when we did the kitchen, we already knew where our one stop would be. We visited their Edina location...

we love looking through the huge granite and quartz slabs

these were a few of our favorite natural stones - WAY to expensive and busy for what we need, but we really liked the cool textures - We especially like the option on the top left - it was really cool and kind of had this birch bark effect. SO cool!

Some of the many quartz stone options - this red and green options are nuts!
The green is REALLY bright. I couldn't imagine who would ever pick them! Yikes!

We narrowed down to a few, simple colors - low contrast - not too busy

and we decided on...

This lovely lighter gray quartz - called "Ajanta" (which I looked up: Ajanta Caves are these 30 some rock formation caves in India - Cool!) Those of you who remember the stone we chose for our kitchen, shouldn't be too surprised.
I guess we just know what we like!
This quartz is not too dissimilar to that of the kitchen, only this is lighter and a little lower contrast...
The lighter, whiter options were just TOO white - and to sit atop our new white mudroom cabinets, we would end up with a whole lot of white...

Can't wait to show you how the mudroom cabinets and countertop turn out! Stay tuned!

June Birthday Time!!

   Our niece Brooke turned 2! We had a birthday bash @ Round Lake Park in Eden Prairie to celebrate!

Brooke in her pretty pink Circo dress from Target with a lovely pink princess hat! She LOVED her Dora the Explorer Cupcakes - and really enjoyed sucking the frosting off of the plastic Dora and Boots rings that sat on top :)

My brother Kyle with nephew Owen - 3 more months to go until you're big day Owen!
As per the usual, Owen had the best little faux-hawk hairdo - too cute!

Oh hey! It was MY birthday too!

Yum!! Strawberry cake with strawberry filling, cream cheese frosting and a strawberry on top -  you can NEVER have too much strawberry. So tasty! Thanks Jenny Sohn!

Birthday flowers from Kevin!

Another year down!