Anniversary Numero Uno

Brad and I have been married for ONE WHOLE YEAR! Well, a year and 20 days now.

We met up downtown celebrating the new year in the wee hours of January 1st, 2010, and Brad swept my hair out of my eyes for the very first time. I was smitten, eloquently telling him, "I'm a mess." 

Brad replied, "I'm a mess, too" and it was pretty much perfect. We went on our first date 2 days later.

We got married on January 17, 2015 in the Dominican Republic, and last month we celebrated our first anniversary. We had talked about a low-key weekend in a cabin somewhere with just us and the pups, but after looking around we decided to just have a stay-cation in the new house. The general theme was enjoy each other, enjoy our home, enjoy our pups, and of course, spoil ourselves rotten. 

In brief: we succeeded! We picked our favorite foods and spent the weekend doing everything we love.

We got each other 'paper' themed gifts - 

For Brad, a watercolor map of Charleston (I want to get a Park Circle one down the road)' in a funky frame and another photo/quote combination with a line from one of Brad's favorite songs (that he said at our wedding).

For me, Brad got cards with painted doors (we've been trying to decide on a color for ours) which are a-door-able (see what he did there?) and a with clever twist on 'paper', a shredder I've had my eyes on!

Always remember there was nothing worth sharing like the love that let us share our name

 - Avett Brothers

On Sunday evening for our actual anniversary night we headed over to the Obstinate Daughter on Sullivan's Island and had an amazing dinner - we'll be going back. The oysters, beets, octopus, gnocchi, tagliatelle, bread pudding were are amazing, but man, I think the farro/roasted brussel sprout combination was our favorite. Overall, an amazing weekend and everything we had hoped for. 

Happy anniversary my love, and cheers to many more years, and for better or worse, many more cheesy photos.

3 months later...

...and we are in our house! It has been a WHIRLWIND, and I told myself plenty of times, "I should really get back to this blogging thing I wanted to try..." but somehow never got around to actually doing it. Well, now I'm back! And a lot of happened in the meantime.

Closing was thankfully uneventful. It rained cats and dogs the week leading up to the closing, so the exterior of the house was behind. The crew was still doing punch-out stuff during our final walk through, and even after we officially signed the paperwork, but our builder was really responsive and had workers out non-stop until everything was done. Whew! We closed on a Friday, and moved in the very next day - we were ready to get out of our rental as soon as possible. 

Us in front of the new house! You'll notice a few exterior items missing paint, and a cleaning lady walking out the front door... maybe we should have timed it better?

After the move in. Stuff. EVERYWHERE. 

The countdown begins: 4 Days to Close

We close in four days.

FOUR DAYS.

Blows my mind. Our builder and his crew is knocking is out out though, everytime we go by the house there is something new, big or small, and all is amazing to us. It makes me a wee nervous on much needs to be done before we are good to go and ready to move in status, but our builder is confident which helps dramatically. 

Bathroom vanities and tops are in. Our builder accidentally ordered the same white cabinets we had in our kitchen, but caught the mistake and switched it to the dark brown like we wanted. I'm really glad we went for a contrast, and love the way it looks.

The upstairs bedrooms are all painted "Sea Salt" by Sherwin Williams. It's a soft greenish gray that changes a lot with the light, but is still neutral enough to match everything we have. 

The downstairs and hall are painted "Light French Gray" by Sherwin Williams. We compared all the grays our builder offered and opted for this one. I was nervous that we had made the wrong choice at some points, but now getting to see it on the walls I absolutely love it. It's neutral enough to match our eclectic collection of art and furniture, rich enough to make the trim look amazing (if I do say so myself),  but not too dark to make the room cavernous. Woo hoo!

One thing that took us by surprise was the sheer size of the island. It was framed out before, but has a huge overhang that you can see here, and is truly massive and amazing. I can't wait to cook on this sucker. 

Brad showed me a picture he took of a test stain of our floors and I swooned, and subsequently asked to ogle it multiple times throughout the day. Like the paint, at times I doubted our wood stain, but man alive, seeing it in person made all the difference. 

The downside of wood staining? You can't walk on the floors. I'm pretty impatient, and have a terrible insistent desire to touch wet paint/caulk/stain, so the tape X was definitely necessary. Smart builders. 

The upside of wood staining? It's freaking GORGEOUS. Can you hug floors? I want to try. The floors have been drying (and un-walked upon) all weekend, so I can't wait to trample them and run all over the house this afternoon. It's been a few a days!

So what's left?

• Toilets installed
• Downstairs pedestal sink
• All plumbing fixtures
• Mirrors in bathrooms
• Grout around the tub
• Front shutters 
• Water treated porch
• Painted porch
• Painted crawl space/foundation
• Finish concrete on driveway and back landing
• Sod & landscaping
• Kitchen appliances
• Kitchen backsplash 
• Wire racks in closets and pantry
• Carpet installed
• Quarter inch rounds installed on the floors