Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend! I don’t know what has been going on with our weather lately, but today is going to be cool and raining all day. It’s definitely not feeling like summer anymore around here, but I guess with Labor Day only two weeks away, fall isn’t too far off. I’m really going to try and embrace fall this year, but it’s hard when I love summer so much!
This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.
It was a really weird week last week. I was sick almost the whole week with either bad allergies or a summer cold. I just felt off all week but thankfully it seems to be going away now! I basically hate laying around more than anything, so when I don’t feel well, I get so frustrated and just want to be doing things even though I don’t have the energy!
We were supposed to close on our new rental house on Friday. But, we got word on Thursday that a lien had been filed on the property the day before. Very long story short, we’re hoping to be able to close now tomorrow. The whole situation made us learn far more than we ever wanted to know about title insurance. Who knew you could potentially be responsible for the past 120 days (in Nebraska at least) of unpaid debts of the prior owners if a lien is filed?! Thankfully, the title insurance would help with most of that (and in this case, the burden fell to the seller because of the timing). So, hopefully we don’t have any further roadblocks and can close tomorrow and then get to work on it!
We are planning to have a large dumpster delivered to the house later this week so we can begin demo this weekend. Kurtis’ dad is going to come help us for a few days. We plan to completely gut the kitchen, and then hopefully address some of the archways like the one above to bring them into the current decade! We’ll be doing most of the demo work ourselves and then plan to hire more of the finishing work out.
Once we can get in the home again (hopefully tomorrow) I need to get measurements and start designing the kitchen, bathrooms, etc. This is a larger home than our other units at just over 2,000 square feet, so there are lots of decisions to be made. I think the living room will be one of my favorite spaces to bring to life! I’m actually kind of bummed out that, at some point, the ceiling beams were painted white. The wood is rather rough, so I don’t think we can sand it off. So, we’re scheming up other ways to get a natural wood look back again!
I got word last week that our living room window coverings are in and will hopefully be installed early this week! Once they are installed, I’ll plan to share all of the living room updates, including the fireplace (which you got a sneak peek of in our kitchen reveal and below)! The new windows coverings are a natural material and will have a similar vibe to our pendants. I knew we needed some additional warmth over on that side of the room, so I think the ones we ordered will be perfect. Stay tuned!
Vase | Faux Greenery | Tray | Soap Set | Faucet | Sink | Dish Towel | Hardware | Pendant Lights
On Friday, Kurtis and I made the 6+ hour trek to Minnesota and had dinner with my parents and a few aunts and uncles in Spicer, MN. I always love going to Minnesota, and have said my whole life, I’d move there if it weren’t for the winters! Although we at in Spicer, we actually stayed in Alexandria for the full weekend.
Saturday morning was my grandma’s memorial service. You may remember, she passed away a few weeks ago, but the family opted to do the memorial service last weekend. There was already a family reunion planned and a big party for my grandma’s 95th birthday, so they opted to push the service out a few weeks for family that had to travel to get there. My mom and her family grew up on a farm in Hoffman, MN, and up until 2014, my grandma still lived in the town so that’s where we had the service. My grandpa passed away when I was in third grade. I love these pictures of them both that we had on display!
This is my grandma’s confirmation photo. She’s on the far right and I swear she looks exactly like my mom and aunts in this picture. My great-grandma was an incredible seamstress, and my grandma’s dress shows those skills!
After the memorial service at the church, we headed to my cousin’s house for the reunion. My grandparents had 12 kids, so I obviously have a lot of cousin’s and now that most of them have children, it’s not a small group! It was fun to catch up with so many of them.
I love my cousin’s cute home! You can see some of the home interior in this post, when I visited her last fall!
Kurtis and I got up around 5 am yesterday to make the trek back. After such a long car ride, we basically felt like doing nothing the rest of the day! It was a great weekend celebrating my grandma’s life and legacy and it was fun to catch up with so many relatives.
Now that I’m finally feeling better, I’ve got a list a mile long to get done this week! I need to wrap up the dining room, photograph the living room (once the shades are installed), the usual blog work for the week, and then start knocking items off the new rental to-do list. I’ll also be decorating for fall shortly so I can share some inspiration with you in early September – I can’t believe I’m even saying that! The weeks and months are flying by.
Following are some sales that carried over from the weekend!
- J CREWÂ is offering 25% off your purchase with code FLASH. Shop the sale here.
- J CREW FACTORY is offering 50% off sitewide (prices as marked), plus an extra 15% off your purchase with code COOLOFF. That makes this ruffle-sleeved top I shared a few weeks ago just over $25! It also comes in a cute denim version. Shop the full sale here.
- ONE KINGS LANE is offering 20% off art and mirrors with code OKLXTRA20! You can shop their sale here.
- POTTERY BARNÂ is offering 20% off one full-priced item and free shipping on your order with code MYTREAT. Shop the sale here.
- WEST ELM is offering up to 40% off sofas, sectionals, benches, chairs and more! Shop the sale here.
- WILLIAMS SONOMA HOME is offering 20% off your entire purchase with code SAVENOW! You can shop the sale here.
- WORLD MARKET is offering 30% off all full-priced furniture with code FURN30. That includes our office desks that we love so much! Shop the sale here.
I hope you all have a great week!
If you would like to follow along on more of my home decor, DIY, lifestyle, travel and other posts, I’d love to have you follow me on any of the following:
Pinterest / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / Google+
disclosure: some affiliate links used
Linda says
If you find that your summers are too short. Move to Arizona. Ours go on and on and on and…..
(Insert laughing emoji).