Home Sweet Home

Okay, so I have a lot of time on my hands as of lately! This means I have time to actually write these things. So, as mentioned in my last post, I wanted to share a little about our new home...

Making a house a home is not an easy task. I am still in the process of learning that it takes a while, even years, to make your home the way you want it. There will always be something that needs to be fixed, that needs to be worked on, that needs to be updated. It can get overwhelming! But, the best part is, William and I get to do it all together...and we are definitely making memories!

Our house had 0 color on the walls when we moved in. Naturally, I wanted color, so the painting projects began. Our kitchen/breakfast area was the.most.frutrating.task.EVER. It will never be painted again...EVER..haha! I had this grand idea to surprise William while he was out of town all weekend at our church's men retreat. I cleaned and had planned to have the entire kitchen/breakfast area painted. My sister and my dad helped me the whole day. It took five coats. That's right--FIVE! It's a deep orange color that is really pretty on the walls, but it was a headache getting it on there.

"Uptown Girl"
This is the only paint name I remember because
 Brooke and I sang it the entire time we painted.

All in all, I love it! William was very surprised and loved it too. When I picked it out, he was a little unsure at first, but he loves it now. I told him he shouldn't doubt my color instincts..hehe

On to the dining room! I'm usually not crazy about the color blue, but our friends have this color in their house and we loved it!  

It looks grey in all the pictures I tried to take, but it is definitely blue. Our dining room furniture is...that's right, you guessed it...thrifted! We bought our table and chairs from a yard sale and our china cabinet came from an estate sell. William is very particular about furniture (it has to be real wood), so I let him do all the furniture shopping.

And I do the decorating! Our chairs needed new fabric badly. Brooke and William surprised me one day and reupholstered the chairs for me.

I love it because the fabric ties in the kitchen/breakfast area paint color and the dining room.
The rooms are connected,  so it works out perfectly.

So yes, William is really into furniture. He loves to build it too. He built our coffee table and our end tables in the living room. The best part is...HE'S REALLY GOOD AT IT! He takes time to pick out the wood, cut the wood, sand it, stain it...it's amazing!

End table!

Please excuse the vacuum cleaner in the background...Lol

I am pretty crafty, but I have no idea how he does it. He always told me when we were dating that he was going to build me furniture, but I never actually believed that he could! He really proved me wrong. So, now he has a list of things that I want built :)

In the meantime, this is what our garage, "the workshop", usually looks like...

Projects, projects, projects!

Don't worry...he cleaned it up! :)

On the down side, I hear lots of saws, hammers, nails...but, that's okay! The plus side is that if he ever wanted to go into the furniture making business, he definitely could. If you are wondering, he does take orders! He's already got a few and he's definitely taking more! It makes him really happy that people want him to build their furniture :)

In the above picture, his most project was some shelves for our bathroom. He's going to give them a dark stain.

Bathroom shelves without stain

Anyways, back to paint. We originally wanted our living room grey, but we could never find a shade that we liked. The color I ended up picking was a total gamble because I thought the dark color would make the room looked closed it. It actually makes it look more cozy, which was what I was going for! I've used lots of natural colors (and of course, burlap) to decorate. I found the cute "R" pillow in the above picture when we were on our honeymoon :)

Lastly, our bedroom. We did find a grey that we liked for this room, but I cannot remember the name at all. 

The Mr. and Mrs pillows were a gift from my bestie, Brittany!

I love our bedspread! It's a map of Paris. I also love the bird :)

Our home as 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The search for a house was long and difficult, but when we found this house we knew. We also got a great deal, so that helped a lot too! There are a lot of changes that we want to make, but we know that it will take some time. William is currently in the process of staining our bathroom selves and a high-top breakfast area table. In the future, I want him to build a farm-style dining room table, a bookshelf for my office, and some shoe racks. Yes, shoe racks. I'm probably going to turn one of our bedrooms into a closet...woohoo!

So, that's our home! I hope you have enjoyed! I will leave you with one last picture.  This hangs above our front door :)

May Your Days Be "Marry" & Bright :)

Wow! It has definitely been a while! 6 whole months since I've posted. Life got crazy busy in the months that followed, but the best part is....I'M MARRIED!!! Married life is great :) Each day is a new adventure and William and I are cherishing all the special moments.

I thought I'd do a post about the wedding since it's my most recent (big!) event. I could truly go on and on about all the details about our wedding, but I'll stick to the main things.

First things first. My ceremony was held at our church, South Aiken Church of God. We wanted a rustic venue to match our theme, so we chose The Big Red Barn. It's located off of Chime Bell Church Road. My photographer was Jennifer Druelle Photographics, florist was Dyson Designs, hair by Emily Holland, make-up by Jessica Melton, Ashley Ridgeway, and Kristal Fox. Our cake was made by Kyndra's cakes and Carolina bbq catered. We used All Star rentals and had a family friend as a DJ...thanks Jason! :)

Many, many parts of the wedding and reception were thrifted (my favorite!) or hand-made. My sister, my mom, my mother-in-law, and myself shopped at local (and not so local) thrift shops for months. At first, it was  difficult because I didn't exactly know what I was looking for...

Pinterest helped inspired many of our ideas. It sparked the idea to create each table at the reception differently, using antique knick-knacks. We used everything from Mason jars, to candle votives, old glass door knobs, wooden crates, even an old telephone (lucky find!).

There were several items we collected along the way that I was so proud of. I found the old telephone at a local thrift store for only $8. The search for an old type writer was long...and tedious! I didn't want to pay a lot for it. The most exciting thing about antiquing or thrift shopping is that, sometimes, you find items when you least expect it! William and I were out of town one weekend, and we found the type writer at a small, church sponsored consignment sale. The lady sold it to us for $15! We were both so excited! Some of the most special things to me were our altar doors and the burlap aisle runner. The doors were old church doors and were absolutely perfect. We added glass door knobs ourselves just for a special touch! They are beautiful doors. William and I plan to use them in our new home :)

My mother-in-law worked so very hard to create our aisle runner. She sewed it all, including the white ruffle down the sides. She and my father-in-law painted the large "R" at the end. It turned out perfect and I was so happy!

I feel like I'm already going on and on, so here are some interesting facts about our ceremony and reception...

Ceremony
For my something blue, I had blue stickers on the bottom of my shoes that said "I Do". My something borrowed was a pearl bracelet that belonged to a late friend of my mom's. She gave it to me to wear on my wedding day. My something old was a cameo that belonged to William's grandmother. I attached it to my wedding bouquet.

ALL the groomsmen and the groom's boutonnières were hand-made by my mother-in-law! They were incredible! We used real cotton in all the boutonnieres and throughout the wedding. The ring bearer didn't hold a pillow, but instead a old Bible that belonged to William's grandpa. It was extremely special to both of us.

The little hearts that lined the aisle were individually stamped out by myself and Brooke. We used an old devotional book because none us felt right cutting up a Bible! Many of the hearts still had scriptures on it, so it still had that special meaning behind it.

Reception
Each guest table centerpiece was different, but had the same vintage theme. We had a coffee bar that had a different variety of coffee and creamers. We even had personalized cups that said our names :) William built a "kissing booth" out of pallet wood and we used it as a photo booth. Ms. Dee made home-made jellies and jams as our favors...and man, did they go fast! They tasted delicious, I'm sure!

The wall that was behind our sweetheart table was actually built by my dad, Mr. Jay, and Troy. Thanks again, guys! I know that wasn't easy! Our getaway car was driven by a family friend...who also let us borrow it for pictures! It was perfect.

Our cake was strawberry and buttercream icing. We didn't want the traditionally yellow cake and we thought the strawberry went more with our theme. I especially loved our "love birds" cake topper that I bought offline.

There are soo many gorgeous pictures (too many to post!), so I've attached a link to an album! Hope you enjoyed hearing about our special day! :) Pictures!

Next time, I just might have to show you around our new home... :)


-Mrs. Ray