The not so humble abode.

Our apartment is finally, somewhat finished. At least the part we've taken pictures of and decided to share. We think it's awesome, because it is. And, when I say 'we', I'm referring to Shelby and myself because he contributed a lot and not just to the hanging, building man stuff but to the design concept as well. Once we finally figured out exactly what our style was it was pretty easy. However, I feel like our timing to post pictures of our apartment was bad, with Pinterest on the rise I feel like everyone assumes that you got all your ideas from it. Well, we didn't. In fact none of them came from it and I told Shelby that I would be thoroughly offended if someone asked me if they did. So don't.

Basically our entire apartment is DIY and that's no exaggeration.

 Yes, those are pallets on the wall. I'm so obsessed with pallets it's getting ridiculous.

Curtains: Pier 1 (shout out) 

I loved their vintage 70's feel when I first saw them and waited and waited to buy them and when I finally did and hung them behind our tv stand (old apartment), I didn't like them very much. But, now with the contrast of our black table in front, I love them!

Table: Pier 1 (shout out again) but I added white geometric trim to it.

Chairs: Grandma's house. Literally. I'm not the biggest fan, but when I painted them black and added stripes I decided they were great...and free. (Notice only one chair has stripes. Yeah, I have issues finishing projects)

 Shelves: Cheap-o wall brackets from Lowes with our books stacked on top as well as random vintage finds we have come across.

'E': Vintage find in Dallas. Yes, we know the letter 'e' is completely insignificant to us 

Dear Head: Shelby or someone in his fam killed and I painted

Frames: Thrifted and still not filled with pictures

Literally the only thing we have actually purchased new in our living room is the couch and cow hide. We were forced to buy a new couch when our old one wouldn't fit through the door. Although this one wasn't much better. Shelby and I almost divorced each other after trying to get it in. Note to self: don't be cheap. Pay for delivery!

TV Stand: On its way to the trash at my father-in-laws auction house. I saw its potential and now its my favorite thing ever. I just wish I had a 'before' picture!

Side Table: I've blogged about it before, but dad and I built it together.

 I will eventually post pictures of all my before and afters but that could take awhile.

Now I basically live life never content (That's right, I said 'not content') at least when it comes to design, our apartment and all things crafty. I will love it one minute but in the next I'm thinking about how I can make if better or different. So our apartment is constantly changing. But for now, that is what it looks like.

Epic Fail of the day.

Let me just preface this post with a bit of an explanation. I haven't blogged since, oh, forever, and there is ALOT that has gone on since then. 1st off, we've moved. Moved to the good ole' DFW, that's right, we're big time. Maybe that's a small thing to most but the Shelbs and I are pretty much small town all around and we like us some Big Spring (surprising I know) and even more than that we love being close to our families. But we are young, have degrees, and have nothing holding us back so we decided to move.

Initially we decided we were moving whether we had jobs or not but figured we could always transfer with our current jobs if need be. Fortunately enough for me, I was offered a position in my company's Corporate Office...a big awesome high rise right in the middle of down town Fort Worth (seriously...it's way cool). So this is where I've been for the past 2 weeks, trying to adjust to big city life, having a real 8-5 job, traffic, big high rises, confusing down town aaaaand parking garages.....which brings me to....

The Epic Fail of the Day....

So my company actually shares a building with Chesapeake Energy and with that brings many contractors on site for....I have no clue what for...regardless, there is a separate parking lot for just contractors that doesn't require any form of parking sticker, authorization, or ...shade. This is where I've been parking for 2 weeks and my little car has been roasting in the sun. On Tuesday, while eating my sandwich in my car (because I'm lame have no one to eat lunch with yet), I finally remembered to get my license plate # and turn it in so I could get my little sticker and park in the parking garage.

The next morning, I had my sticker and I was psyched to park in the shade. Unfortunately as I got closer I realized how daunting that gate seemed and I wasn't really sure what to do and I might have creepily parked outside for a little bit and watched other people going in to make sure I knew what to do. Fairly confident in my observation skills I pulled out and up to the gate, rolled down my window and pressed the button, but nothing happened, so I pushed it again as well as everything else that closely resembled a button (all the while people are lining up behind me waiting for me to figure it out) and finally security comes on through the little speaker asking if I needed something.

I need to get through the stupid gate!
(I didn't really say that)

They so nicely informed me I need to swipe my super cool key card (which I'm really stoked about and love wearing around) and the gate will open.

Ok, easy enough...swipe, voila, I'm in.

I pull in and see all these parking spots and wonder 'why is no one parking in these spots? It's right by the door! I'm thinking 'Heck to the Yeah this parking spot rocks!' Good job.

Fast forward to lunch, I decide to go fill up my car. It takes me THREE tries to find the level my car is on. Luckily no one saw me walk up the stairs, out the door, back in the door, down the stairs, out another door, back in the door, down some more stairs, out the door and finally! I found it! So obviously irritated at this point I get to my car and realize I forgot to lock it. I quickly did a run down of all things important to me in my car (like my target sunglasses sitting on the dash, 16 bucks....oh yeah!), fortunately everything seemed to be in place. So I pull out and at this point I'm facing in an upward direction, start driving, look to my left, to my right and realize all the arrows are pointing one way and that way takes me up....but I want to go down because that's where the exit is. So I figure I'll just go with it and assume there is some simple way to get down just around the corner.

There isn't.

I go up and up and up and around and around and around and then somewhere around 5 minutes later and thoroughly confused, I finally make it to the stupid exit and fully affirm my hatred for parking garages!

It was then that I realized why no one wants to park in all those super close parking spots, because it's impossible to get out! If you know me, you know I HATE parking garages. I feel the need to duck the whole time I'm driving because, I don't know, somehow those concrete beams aren't going to be high enough for my little car to drive under, so I must overcompensate. And what bad movie have you ever watched that someone Hasn't been killed or mugged in a parking garage? That's right, none!

So I hate them and will continue to do so, but regardless I will still park in the stupid thing because A. I have a sticker and a super cool badge that allows me too and B. my car that looks like a toaster no longer feels like one when I get inside it!

That was crazy long winded....sorry.

My Dad Rox!

Yes, I know it's right after Mother's Day so one would assume that I would be blogging about my Mom, and although she is pretty much the greatest ever, I decided to blog about the ole' pops tonight.

Let me just explain a bit about what your are about to see and how it came about....
While cruising around the Crate & Barrel website I came across this driftwood table. Yes I know, it's awesome right?! But needless to say I don't have $400 to spend on an end table, so of course my creative wheels start turning contemplating how I can make my own version of this. I researched driftwood and go figure, it's all too expensive or way too small and we don't have an ocean, river, or a lake anywhere around Lubbock where I could go look for some, and the chance of finding any is pretty much slim to none. So instead of trying to re-create the same table I figured I would create my own version.

The next time I went home to Big Spring, Mom, Dad and I headed out to the farm, where Dad dumps all of our branches, with chainsaw in tow. We found the few branches that weren't mesquite trees, were the right texture and right width I had in mind, and we started sawing away. Ok, so I measured and Dad cut, and Mom helped load the logs into the car (we all played a part). I've decided my parents are pretty much amazing because what parents would give up their Sunday afternoon nap to help their daughter fulfill her crazy end table antics? That's right, mine would!

Basically I wanted to create an end table that was rustic modern with the warmth of wood. Aaaand I did!

Dad sat out in the hot hot hot garage for hours with me sawing, sanding, and screwing this table together. Ok, I'll admit, Dad did all the hard work, I just held the wood in place, but that's what makes him the best dad ever. Seriously, there's no argument.
And here's the finished product!!

I'm so proud!
It turned out exactly how I wanted! * Please ignore the excessive amount of cords running behind it.
**Shout out to the hubs who got me the glass to go on top for $1!

Zee Easter holiday.

Happy couple of days after Easter!

My Easter was awesome! For one, my Jesus rocks. Secondly, my whole fam, I mean literally the Whole fam, went to the big D town for the weekend to see my brother and sis in law.

This was Shelby's first real road trip with the Adams family and I'm sure it was quite an experience for him, because let's get real, it's always interesting with our family. It started with Dad, like always, they had some issue at work they needed him to fix so the whole loading of the car process and the first little bit of car time consisted of us all tip toeing around, whispering with a series of hand gestures in order to communicate with one another.

-Dad gets a little crazy when he's talking on the phone, in fact I'm pretty sure he got on to mom at one point because she was texting too loud. It's ok though, we gave him a hard time about it later, like always-

The rest of the trip consisted of a lot of chatting and a Really Really long, ridiculous, hilarious game of 'Go through the alphabet and think of a song title or main lyric for every letter'. This game lead to numerous mini duets, and Kendal making up a song for almost every letter due to her lack of song knowledge. Needless to say, Shelby dominated (he is like the music guru).

Aside from our interesting car ride (which could easily be an embarrassing Youtube video) we had a really fun time meeting up with my brother, sis-in-law, grandma, aunt, Christi and her kiddos.

We spent hours at Ikea, where I spent too much money, went to Bass Pro where Dad scouted out boats and we did some 'target' shooting. Then we all went to Austin and Ashley's new rent house where the kids and boys chased down river monsters and ghosts.

-It got a little crazy-

But the next morning we got to spend a lovely Sunday morning at Lakepoint, the church Austin works.

On a different note here are 2 of my latest projects...

I've really been in to black and white lately. Ok, I've been into black and white my whole life but I went through a denial stage with our living room and decided to do it in brown and greens (that was a mistake) but I have come back to reality though and I think I have finally figured out what I want, so I'm slowly making changes here and there.

This is a teesy taste of the direction our living room is going in...

I present to your our latest plant addition....The pony tail palm.

 Aaaand with an updated pot....

Apparently you can't kill this plant... which is why we chose it. We can kill anything.

One more black and white thing.
This doesn't go in our living room but will be our bedroom holding some of my jewelry. I found it at my father-in-laws auction house holding all kinds of nails and screws. It was super dirty, rusty, and a horrible cream and green.

I didn't get a picture of it before I painted but believe me, it looks way better.....I mean really, look how cute it is!

And this will become...

 somewhat of a DIY blog, per the request of a few of my best gals. Ok, it won't really be so much DIY, but more less a good place for me to brag about all my little projects I do around the apartment, aaaand give me something to look back on and be proud of myself all over again. I have a LOT of projects that I will have to catch up on but you will get just a taste of it today. Besides, if I posted them all at once I would no longer have anything to blog about.....except for my really random thoughts I periodically post about. Don't worry, there will be no lack of sarcasm. I know you were worried.  

This project is actually super super old and I'm no longer excited about it (I still like but the 'new' phase has worn off) but I suppose I must start somewhere.

My inspiration for this whole map thing came from the globe we have in our living room that belonged to my great (or great great) grandmother. I'm not sure how old it is but regardless of the details, its an antique. Anyways, I wanted to incorporate the blue into other areas of our room.

Side Note: So I seriously thought they just handed out free maps at gas stations or that I could find some old map just anywhere for super cheap. Little did I know, that wasn't the case. It cost me like $6! I know, that isn't that much but when your super poor you tend to think about it more.

Anyhoo here's the finished product.