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07/01/2014

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Amazing What A Little Color Can Do!

Self high-five – Today we’ve been in the new house for 1 one month and I finally got paint on the walls!

Sure it seems that we’ve been here for a lot longer than that to me, but for some reason, I also have no concept of time here! I feels more like I’m back in middle school and on summer vacation – I don’t have to get up early and of course there’s nothing wrong with eating cereal for breakfast, lunch, and as a snack! But add in the perks of being an adult, like driving and not having to rely solely on allowance money, and that pretty much sums up my last month. A blurry lucky charms modge podge kind of a month.

So what have I been doing over the last 30 days?

1. Unpacking
2. More unpacking
3. Hunting for ideas on Pinterest
4. Cleaning up my mess from unpacking
5. Taking naps
6. Making a lot of donations to the Good Will and the Restore
7. Stalking the aisles of Home Depot and the amazing thrift stores down here
8. Watching the World Cup

You might have noticed that directionally my brain is still stuck in Northern Virginia mode (down here?), but I’m slowing starting to visualize this house and area when I say “home”. Give me some time. We’ve only been here for 30 days!

But back to the point of this post. So one thing that I have a habit of doing is staring off into the distance and mumbling under my breath. I’m sure that D has learned to just live with it, but it’s part of my design process. That and waking up at 3 AM to hunt for inspiration pictures on Pinterest, but whatever. The good thing about this past month is that I’ve had time to mull over some ideas, cross a few off the list as not-so-muches, and to add others to it. I keep a list on my phone that contains all of my ideas, by room as they pop into my head. This way if i see or think of something, I’m not likely to forget it later, but it’s also a good way for me to go back and review what my brain mappings have been so far. It’s interesting to watch the progression.

For example, I do not like bi-fold doors. I’m not sure why, but I just don’t like them. They always seem to stick and come off the tracks or maybe it was that time I got my finger stuck in one that has left me jaded in my adult life. Whatever it is, I’m not a fan. So wouldn’t ya know that this house has them In. Every. Room!?!?! I’ve thought of alternative, spent a few hours in Home Depot sketching out a plan of attack to replace them with barn doors (who doesn’t love a great barn door?), and wrack my brain for some other type of alternative. And all of that gets added to my phone or drawn out in my LBB (little black book). The other day, my frustration came to a head and I whipped out the drill and removed the bi-folds in the pantry/catch all closet. Just the act of tearing something out made me unbelievably happy because it’s the first DIY thing that I’ve done in this house, but it’s me winning one battle in my war against the bi-fold doors. Today, that bi-fold door got donated along with some other items to the Restore. But to get to that point, I’ve already done all of my homework on learning how to build and install barn doors, picking out stains and finishes, and even shopping for the hardware. Yet just having the doors gone was enough to make me happy again, so all of that planning shall just sit on my phone either unused or resurrected at a later date.

Progress? Maybe. Kind of sorta.

But back to my 3 AM Pinterest surfings, I’ve finally started to nail down the colors that I want to use in this house. I’ve also learned that colors here are different than in NoVA. The sun is different here so the colors appear differently on the walls. The amount of sun and shade and lack of hazy will change how colors look. I put up some of my favorites that I used in the house in NoVA and none of them have really worked out down here. Which brings me to spending a lot of time in my local Benjamin Moore store, Home Depot, and Lowes to see what kind of colors I can find. So far, the house is taking on a gray, buttery yellow, and blue color scheme and those colors have meant that I have spent more time getting to know Mr. Moore than anything else. They have such a great selection but the crew at my store is quite fun to hang out with. It helps. And the advise is always free and the commentary is hilarious!

I am very proud to announce that for the first time in my life I narrowed my color swatches down to 2 for the family room/kitchen and nailed it out of the gage for the cabinet colors. Normally it takes me multiple trips and several test pots to pick something; if I pick something. Today I painted the family room and part of the kitchen (no need to do the backsplash wall) Edgecomb Gray by BM and very soon I’ll tackle the trim and update that off white color, but for now the renter’s yellow is no more…well except for the backsplash wall! I’m feeling accomplished. I also started on updating the 9×3 island.

And I would post pictures but since I haven’t nailed down any of the light fixtures yet, I now have to wait until tomorrow to take pictures when there is natural sunlight. This is one of the drawbacks of a house with lower-ish ceilings and a husband who doesn’t understand the need to table or floor lamps. Yep that’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Besides priming the island without proper lighting isn’t the brightest thing that I’ve done, but I need to finish up the cabinets this week.

As I get ready to shut off the one light in the family room/kitchen, I can look around and nod cause the new paint makes this room look amazing!

On a different note, I’m convinced that there is money to be made in DIY. No, not from the blogging and book deals, but from the untapped potential of promoting the health benefits of DIY as a workout session. Ow! My arms hurt after all of this sanding, priming, and painting today!

Wanna see what interests me on Pinterest?

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janessa

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06/01/2014

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the house, the move

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I Like to Move It, Move It

We’ve finally done it! After well over 5 years of planning, Casa LoGalbo has finally made the big move! Where to, you may ask? A place where the bugs come in sizes and colors that I have never seen before but the skies are blue and the clouds are fluffy white and our back yard has a couple of palm trees in it. Welcome to Fort Lauderdale(ish) baby!

Having lived in Northern Virginia for way too long, it’s just in my nature to reference the city that everyone knows best so that I didn’t have to give explicit instructions as to where we actually lived. Something like this:

You: “So where do you live?”
Me: “Woodbridge.”
You: “Oh, never heard of it. Where’s that?”
Me: “Do you know 95 South? Where the Ikea is? That’s Woodbridge.”
You: “Man that’s a hike! The traffic sucks down there! I only go to Ikea when I absolutely need……”

And the conversation inevitably turns into our favorite items at Ikea and butchering the names like every other person who does not understand what umlaut and accents can do to a word.

Whereas if it had gone something like this:

You: “So where do you live?”
Me: “DC.”
You: “Oh cool. I love/Have you ever been to/Do you know…”

But the conversation can continue with going down some rabbit hole of Swedish meatballs and trading your top 10 horrific traffic moments.

At any rate, I’ll just leave it as Fort Lauderdale cause for the most part people know where that is…unless you are from or familiar with the area and then we can dive into the local haunts and thrift stores that I need to learn about and fall in love with.

But back to the move.

We finally did it! Actually it’s been a long drawn out process, but as I told D last night, once the dog is with us and not dogcationing in the kennel then it’s really real. And there he lays, napping on his new bed in a room with little to no furniture. Yep it’s official. We moved.

So my goal is to kickstart this blog again. With a to do list longer than Santa’s naughty list, I’ll be plenty busy for a while. Right now I need to kickstart myself off this couch that’s pushed back into the corner and organize a few things. Jack has already made himself at home and barks at the new washer and dryer since the sound are new to us both.

While the house is still empty, I need to finish taking some before pictures. It should be a lot of fun looking back at where we started and how things progress. But first…I need to straighten out the stuff that we carted down with us…

Fittingly enough, Pandora is playing Home. 🙂

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janessa

Posted on

09/03/2013

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about, the house

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la casa

Ahhh the house. For me it was love at first sight. It was one of those homes that as soon as we walked in the front door of the model home, I could see us living in the house. I could image our stuff on the walls, our furniture in the different rooms, eating breakfast in the breakfast area, hanging out on the couch watching tv….and the list goes on and on. Needless to say, I was sold.

Maybe I should rewind a bit.

After spending almost three years living overseas in the smallest apartment I have personally ever lived in, we were in Northern Virginia for all of 3 days before heading out on a much needed vacation and in that time we had to not only find a house but to put in an offer…and start the waiting process. And so began our house hunting expedition. And it was definitely a “hunt”! We saw big ones, small ones, medium size ones, ones with weird layouts and rooms in strange locations, some with yards, some with a square foot of grass that were listed as a yard, town homes, single family homes, and condos. I don’t know how we crammed that many houses into 2 days, but with our fearless realtor, Betsy, leading us, we squeezed them all in. I should mention that this took place in September 2008. If you remember, that was the height of the housing crisis. Houses were a wreck. Appliances were gone. Holes were in walls were unknown items used to be attached. Faucets were gone. Door knobs were gone. If floors could have been torn up, they would have been gone too. And yet, these torn up houses were still over our budget.

The experience was one of the strangest things I have ever been through. After a 27 hour flight (with a dog), we were tired. After looking at those houses, we were overwhelmed. Exhausted. Disappointed. Worried. Basically two jumbled messes. Even with Betsy as our guide, we didn’t think that we would find anything that we loved…or even liked…but we had to keep looking. We only temporary housing for so long and we were expecting the house buying process to take a while. On day 1 we did find one house but after putting in an offer, the family decided to rent it instead of selling it, so we were back act square one. Thankfully neither one of us were completely sold on the house, but it was the best one that we had seen and we were both ready to just cross “buy a house” off of our list. Settling is not always the best option people!

As we moved into the afternoon of day 2, we followed Betsy as she made a left into another new development. While I wanted personality. Dominick wanted new. I wanted a fixer-upper. Dominick wanted finished and turn key. The more we looked, the more the “to do” list grew and called for skills that were way out of my reach. I knew that this wasn’t the battle for me so we started looking at the model homes and apartments. It’s amazing how dejected a sad broken down house can make you feel! Model home after model home we toured. Blah and bland with builder grade items. Exciting stuff I tell ya! </sarcasm> The model homes were nice but they just didn’t have that warmth that I was looking for and the layouts didn’t suit Dominick. That was until Betsy mixed up a right and made a left.

We walked through the front door of one of the last model home we would tour and it just felt like…home. I was done. Dominick still wasn’t convinced. There were issues (price being one) but everything was minor. We saw a few more models to compare layouts and budgets, but we kept coming back to that one model in particular. It must have been kismet because as we were talking about what really was included in the 50% off finishes sale, I got a phone call and got offered my job. We were no longer a one-income family! It was almost as if everything lined up. Planetary style yo!

As evening fell on day2, we were signing off on the paperwork, eating pizza, and picking out finishes, appliances, carpet and flooring, anything else that fell under the 50% off sale (read: mama went shopping like she was on DIY Network’s Blog House!). It was whirlwind. We didn’t have time to second guess our choices. We just went with what we liked best. It was quick and dirty, but we really didn’t have time to wait. We had to be in Florida in 2 days to catch a cruise leaving the Port of Miami! So we signed on the dotted line, er lines. Crossed all of the t’s. Dotted all of the i’s. And then decided the next morning that yes, we did want that fireplace after all! Scurry, scurry, scurry to update all of the paperwork and then we were off to start our road trip. And that, ladies and gentleman, is how we ended up in our house.

And the best part? We still feel as if it’s home and the best house for us. No seriously, we will still make comments to each other about how much we love this house and compare it to things we see on House Hunters and Property Brothers. Well, to be honest with you, I do most of the HGTV watching in this house, but every so often, I do get a hold of the remote and Dominick will give in and watch with me. But seriously, we love this house. It’s way too much for two people and three flights of stairs was waaaay too much for me when I had my knee surgery, but we still love it. And our neighbors are pretty wonderful to boot!

Fast forward to the present and we’ve been living in and with the house for quite a while. Okay 5 years and almost 7 months if you really want to know. I’ve sat in every room and thought about how I was would make it my own and what I would put where. I’ve spent countless hours reading blogs to get ideas, roaming the aisles of Home Goods to get inspired, and even painted a few rooms. I am not even close to being done with my list, but recently I decided to pull on my DIY gloves and tackle a few ideas that have been rolling around in my brain. It all started with a kitchen backsplash and a lot of convincing Dominick that yes, I actually did know what I was doing (thank you YouTube gods!), but it really is all about just getting started right?

So welcome to casa logalbo…established in 2008 and built on lot 747.