Search Results for: house renovation update #

House Renovation Update #1

by whoorl

I’ll be posting updates on the house renovation every Friday, so if you love this kind of stuff, yay! If you hate it, Fridays won’t be our day. It’s okay, I understand. I still like you a lot.

I will definitely put together more succinct before/after shots at a later date, but these updates are more of the nitty gritty. (I want to document EVERYTHING so D and I can look back and sigh.) Also, if you have any questions about the process, just leave them in the comments!)

So! This week was all about destruction. Nothing pretty to report over here at demolition party central.

Let’s start with the kitchen and surrounding living areas. The previous owners’ floor plan teetered on a great room concept, so we just wanted to take it to the next level. We decided to redo the kitchen entirely, as well as open up some wall space.

Here are some before shots of the kitchen area from the vantage point of the family room, shooting from left to right.

The wood-paneled room in the back left of the first photo was originally used as a den, but we will be using it as the dining room. Here’s a look back at the kitchen from that soon-to-be dining area.

Yep, LOTS of wood paneling. Wowza.

Well, it was nice knowing you.

Here’s the kitchen area after the first full day of demo.

(Wito is totally confused as to where the house went.) And the view from the dining area.

So far we have stripped the wood paneling off the walls, knocked out the entire kitchen, added structural beams, opened up the wall in the formal living room, a removed part of the floor. (The living room floor is original oak, but the kitchen and dining room floors are laminate. We are removing the laminate and replacing with oak.)

Here’s where we stand today.

Loving the open space. Feels so much better already.

Until next Friday!

Odds and Ends (+ House Update)

by whoorl

ps

1. Let’s talk about the house, guys. I realize I kind of left you all hanging with all the updates and then….nothing. Well, we’ve been working hard to finish the space, and we are getting really close. (Although, come on, you are never really “finished,” but that’s the fun and/or frustration of it all.) D and I made a quick trip to Palm Springs for Modernist Week earlier in the month to find some treasures, and we found some really fun additions, namely that brass globe above that will soon be hanging in our living room. I am so in love. (Also, we found our dream house in the desert that is in the above collage as well. One day…)

Also, you may have heard on the Facebook page, but after 2 1/2 months of hanging ginormous pieces of brown craft paper with blue tape over every window in our bedrooms, our window coverings arrived and were installed on Tuesday. People, you haven’t lived until a 5×5 foot of heavy craft paper crashes to the floor at 3 in the morning…heart attack city. No more brown craft paper EVEEERRRRR! (That was in my best Mommy Dearest voice.)

So! In regards to the house, we are waiting on the rest of our lighting fixtures to be installed, as well as a few more pieces of furniture to arrive, but fingers crossed, we will be finished with all the big stuff by the end of this month. I can’t wait to show you the before and after photos in April, and thank you for being so patient!

2. Oh! Fun challenge alert. Have you seen the #lippyaday lipstick challenge on Instagram by Norlin M? I’m totally going to try it – won’t you join me? That’s a lot of lipstick, folks.

3. Newsflash: I have a mom uniform. It involves a striped top, rolled up skinny/boyfriend jeans, ballet flats, a denim or cargo jacket, and a top knot. D and I were laughing at his Instagram feed because every photo of me looks the same. Like this one. And this one. Oh, and I really broke the mold with my hair down one day. (And those of you wondering how I wear my Isabel Marant boots, there you go.) Soooooo….do you have a mom uniform? What is it?

4. Considering going blonde? (Like I did in my twenties? BAD IDEA. Not that I’m saying it’s a bad idea for you, but horrible for me.) Anyway, here are some thoughts to keep in mind. Also, lots of perfectly straight side parts were on the Fall 2013 runways – here’s how to create a good one.

5. Okay, Kristen and I are bummed that our Dishing on Downton videos are on hiatus, but at least we still have our Mama Said ones to keep us warm at night. Some of our most recent ones are TV obsessions (yes, we have more!), lies we tell our children (we don’t get that channel, they don’t make gum in California), and how our introversion affects us when making (or not making) new mom friends.

Happy weekend, everyone! It’s really warming up around here, and we are going to take advantage of the gorgeous weather. A trip to the beach, perhaps?

My Guide to Oklahoma City

by whoorl

Howdy, y’all! Welcome to my guide to Oklahoma City. It’s chock-full of my favorite places to hang, eat, sleep, and shop.

A little bit of backstory for you – I recently moved back to OKC (where I was born and raised) after spending 20 years moving around the Midwest and West Coast. The last 12 years were spent in Laguna Beach (psst – I have a visitor’s guide to Laguna too!) and Newport Beach, during which I got married, had two children, and pretty much never thought I would leave.

Well, we did move. And I’m not going to lie – it was a bit of a transition moving from coastal Southern California to where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, but we haven’t regretted our decision a bit. (Okay, okay, maybe a little bit…weather and politics aren’t my fave here.) Oklahoma City is simply not the place I grew up in back in the 80s and 90s…it is a community bustling with arts, culture, great food, and it seems a new “hot spot” opens every week.

As you will soon see, this guide is really robust, but I wanted to provide tons of options. While OKC is the 8th largest city in terms of land size (FYI – you could fit the cities of Philadelphia, Boston, Miami, Manhattan, Washington DC, Pittsburgh and San Francisco all inside OKC’s city limits), we find ourselves spending most of our time in neighborhoods close to the city center. I’ve broken the guide down by neighborhood and ordered the lists from coffee to brunch/lunch to dinner to activities/shopping to cocktails. I’ve also put asterisks next to my very fave spots.

Let’s get started!

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