Happy Monday! I hope you all had a great weekend! Here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to this past week.
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Home Projects & Updates
Over at the new build, they’ve decided to let the peninsula countertops dry out as much as possible before seaming them. If you missed last week’s update, since we did a mitered edge, they use a lot of water to make the cuts and the quartzite (Via Venato Quartzite in a leathered finish) absorbs a lot of that. They were really dark when they first showed up, but thankfully have lightened quite a bit as they’ve continued to dry. However, with the heat and humidity right now (and no working HVAC in the house) it’s taking a bit for them to dry.
They installed the countertops for the outdoor kitchen, as well! There were only two colors of granite they let us select from, so we just went with the lighter of the two.
Sunday, Kurtis and I had to mark the height of all the mirrors so they can properly place all the light fixtures. The builder typically does a built-in mirror in all the bathrooms, but we only opted to have them do that in one bathroom. All the others are options I picked from this post and you can see most of them in these design boards. The bathroom below is the only one that I selected a navy cabinet for just to change things up. This will actually be the bathroom where we place the cat litter boxes for now.
Top Sellers Of The Week
Following are the top sellers from last week across all of my channels. Links to each item are below the graphic.
BEST SELLERS (each number is clickable): #5 | #4 | #3 | #2 | #1
In Case You Missed It
Following are the posts I shared over the past two weeks, in case you missed some days!
Following are the most read blog posts of last week (excluding any of the new posts already mentioned above). Many times this includes old posts that are popular on Google or Pinterest.
Around Town & For Fun
Kurtis was still in Omaha for work through Thursday, so I was on my own most of the week. He was able to go out to dinner with most of his family Monday night, which was great!
Tuesday I spent much of the day helping our friends move into their new house. Rachel and I stopped in our tracks when we saw how the movers were getting her sectional up into the carriage house. Apparently the main door at the top of the stairs was too small, so they talked to one of the builder guys and asked if he could help with his forklift. They ended up hoisting it up through one of the Juliet balcony doors on the back side. I’m pretty sure that sectional is never coming out of that space again 😉
Rather last minute, we were told some pretty limited options on how they can finish our fireplaces. This is my friend Rachel’s. We were originally told they would fully be wrapped with shiplap. Last week I was then told due to fire code, they’d have to add a white quartz surround with trim. I didn’t love the look of some of the examples they were showing me. Rachel just had them wrap it with drywall and she’s going to apply Venetian plaster to it down the road. But I think I love the drywall more than the options the builder is providing so we may go this route (and can then add tile or whatever else down the road if we want to). Our fireplace bumps out about six more inches than hers for reference, since we had a little more space to play with. The fireplace is a fully vented gas fireplace so if you have other solution ideas, send them my way! I’m not seeing much I love searching the internet, especially with such a wide insert (all the good ones are square rather than rectangular and the non-symmetry really bothers me)!
Our house is out of control now. Between shipments needed for the new house, campaigns, and Prime day orders, you can barely walk in our entryway. I’m counting down the minutes until we can bring a large load of mirrors and light fixtures over to the new house!
And in exciting-to-us news, we both packed our first boxes for the move this week! I packed four while Kurtis was away and he did another three over the weekend. Slowly but surely we’re trying to tackle it so it goes as quickly and smoothly as possible in August.
The cats and I had some downtime back on their patio several times throughout the week. We had several storms, and I love to sit out there when it’s raining. I always forget the prior owners left these string lights so it’s fun to turn them on when it’s stormy out!
Friday morning, I headed down to our commercial building to work on a few things. I also donated a bunch of school supplies to Acton Academy of 30A so got them all opened, organized and prepped so the teachers didn’t have to! You can find the affordable cabinet here and all the acrylic organizers are from here and here (this is the woven organizer).
I still love organized school supplies and office gear so much. WHY?!? lol Rachel’s boys were helping me and they declared these pencils one of their favorites of the whole lot. They each asked if they could take a few home too because they loved them so much. They said their friends would raid those first once school started, so they wanted the best colors 😉
Saturday was our 18 year anniversary! Still so hard to believe we’ve been married that long – and that we’re old enough to have been married that long 😉 Here we were back in 2005, the night of our rehearsal dinner the night before our wedding. Babies!
Saturday morning, we headed down to Alys Beach for breakfast at Raw & Juicy. It was such a beautiful morning, and I always love how peaceful this little town is!
Saturday night we headed to Rosemary Beach for dinner to celebrate. I always love driving through the tree lined streets here on 30A.
Our town hall and post office are always so charming!
We opted for dinner at Edward’s, a post we had never tried before across the street from The Pearl hotel. It was really great!
By the time we left (we love an early dinner so were there right at 5 when they opened), the streets of Rosemary Beach had quickly filled with other diners. I always love the energy so much here!
Sunday we did our new routine of church followed by a stop at Walmart, and then lunch somewhere. This time around lunch was at Amici! We had a pretty slow day afterwards, stopping at the new build to measure for the mirrors. But then it turned pretty rainy and we kind of vegged out.
Sunday evening, we celebrated our friend Chris’ birthday at Amigos. The owners surprised the table with two giant dessert trays filled with all of their desserts. It pays to eat there multiple times a week 😉
Afterwards, we went to their house for a bit and just hung out on their back porch, watching a storm roll in. Their backyard is so peaceful!
Dune was in heaven, just jumping from one lap to another giving kisses and cuddles. He doesn’t always realize he’s almost as big as the humans sitting in the chairs 😉
Yesterday was to have also marked the one-month day from our closing/move. But, they’re now saying we may end up being delayed up to another week. Not the end of the world, but we are ready to get this move behind us and be in our new house! I’ll keep you posted, but we should for sure be in before the Labor Day weekend!
Recent Buys & Sales
Following are some sales from the weekend that have carried over and are still going strong!
- AMAZON has a number of daily deals happening now! You can shop their site here.
- ANN TAYLOR is offering 25% off full-priced tops and sweaters with code TOPS25. You can shop their site here.
- ANTHROPOLOGIE has a number of new items in their sale section. You can shop their site here.
- BALLARD DESIGNS is offering 20-40% off all indoor and outdoor furniture! They also have up to 75% off all clearance items. You can shop their sale here.
- GAP is offering 50% off your purchase at checkout – no code required. You can shop their sale here.
- HOMEGOODS has a number of new arrivals, as well as free shipping on orders $119+ with code SHIP119. They also have up to 75% off clearance items. You can shop their site here.
- J CREW is offering end-of-season cashmere sale at up to 40% off (plus an extra 15% off) and an extra 60% off sale styles with code SHOPSALE. You can shop their site here.
- J CREW FACTORY is offering up to 60% off everything, plus up to 75% off clearance styles with code SALETIME. You can shop their sale here.
- LOFT is offering 25% off new arrivals and an additional 50% off sale styles! You can shop their sale here.
- LULULEMON has a large sale section with some major markdowns. You can shop their site here.
- MADEWELL is offering tops starting at $30, shorts starting at $40 and men’s daily deals. You can shop their site here.
- MARK & GRAHAM is offering up to 70% off and free shipping on orders of $99+ with code SHIPFREE! You can shop their site here.
- MARSHALLS has a number of deals sitewide plus free shipping on orders of 89+ with code SHIP89. You can shop their site here.
- MICHAELS is offering 20% off regular priced items with code DAILY23US. You can shop their site here.
- NORDSTROM is hosting their annual Anniversary Sale! You can see my top picks here. You can shop their site here.
- OLD NAVY is offering 50% off pants for the family and up to 75% off in their clearance section. Plus get 25% off your purchase (including clearance) at checkout (no code required). You can shop their sale here.
- OVERSTOCK is hosting their summer home savings event. You can shop their sale here.
- POTTERY BARN is offering up to 50% off furniture, outdoor, and more. You can shop their sale here.
- REJUVENATION has limited time deals up to 70% off items and an extra 20% off clearance items with code EXTRA20. You can shop their site here.
- RUGS USA is offering up to 75% off sitewide. You can shop their site here.
- SERENA & LILY is offering up to 30% off bedding and bedroom furniture. Plus they’re offering free shipping on their clearance items. You can shop their sale here.
- SUMMERSALT is offering 25% off sitewide with code SALE25. See all of my top picks in this post. You can shop their site here.
- TARGET has a number of home deals, including up to 30% off desks, up to 40% off select throw pillow and throws, 30% off select outdoor furniture, and tons more! You can shop their site here.
- TJ MAXX is hosting a clearance event and is offering free shipping on orders $89+ with code SHIP89! You can shop their site here.
- TORY BURCH has a number of new items recently added to their sale section. You can shop their site here.
- TUCKERNUCK has a lot of cute new items in their sale section. You can shop their site here.
- WALMART still has our favorite outdoor swivel chairs on markdown, as well as the coordinating sofa and entire conversation set. You can shop their site here for other deals.
- WEST ELM is offering an additional 15% off clearance with code EXTRA15. You can shop their site here.
- WILLIAMS SONOMA is offering an additional 25% off clearance styles with code EXTRA. You can shop their site here.
- WILLIAMS SONOMA HOME is offering an additional 25% off clearance styles with code EXTRA. You can shop their site here.
I hope you all have a great week!
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I think I asked previously but did not see an answer. Are you keeping the house you currently live in as another b&b? Or will it be sold after you move to the new build?
The neighborhood we’re currently in does not allow short-term rentals, so we plan to keep it as a long-term rental. Long-term rentals are very hard to find in this area because of the volume of short-term rentals, so hoping it rents rather quickly 🙂
Thank you! Makes sense.
Happy Anniversary! Gifting each other a house is a great way of celebrating!! Just curious, what is the definition of short term rental vs long term rental?
Haha! Yes! We may not ever need to gift anything ever again 😉 And here in our neighborhood, I believe they consider a short-term rental any length less than three months. I typically think of long-term rentals as the year+ range, but here they would let us do less (likely for snowbirds that come for extended stays and for those needing temporary housing while they build). Basically they just don’t want a weekly-ish turnover like many neighborhoods have closer to the water. That’s one of the reasons we chose to live here permanently though, versus some down along 30A where you may not have “real” neighbors if that makes sense!