Here we go, again!

And so it begins again. We closed on our house June 11 and start demo this Saturday!


Currently we are in the selection/decision phase. This is hard for me. Why? You may ask. Isn't this what you do on a daily basis? Well yes. But on a daily basis I make design selections and decisions based on a clients needs, wants and an aesthetic that has a theme, function, etc (design talk, blah blah). This time it's all for US and since I know about a multitude of finishes and design options it is so difficult to just make up my mind. But we are getting somewhere.

Over the past couple of weeks while we wait for the loan to go through, David has created a budget and spreadsheets and has gotten pricing from subs etc. I have

I think I failed to mention that we are completely gutting the house. All walls are staying. But the master bath gets gutted and re-designed with a walk in shower. And then all new finishes, flooring, cabinets, lighting EVERYWHERE. It is a big undertaking. But this aint our first rodeo.

Here are some things we've been doing lately.

Our wedding was published in "The Knot Texas".

We celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary.   On a Monday.  But we had so much fun being all swanky at the W Hotel (of which I won a $500 "Staycation" gift certificate from Rockford Business Interiors because I "Liked" their Facebook page.  "Liking" pays off.)

I closed down the Etsy store.  This is one of the last windows I did.  For my dear friend Alison's wedding in Charleston, South Carolina ;)

I closed the Etsy store so I could focus on the house, and family and friends more.   If I didn't have a real job/career, I would love to continue making these fun windows and much more fun creative items.  They are strangely popular in Louisiana... and it was an awesome extra little income.

Our new house.  1 acre plot of land out in South Austin. 

And onto the fun stuff.  House stuff.

1.) With the advent of the iPhone... taking pictures of stuff you like and catloging it has become so easy.  So, I suggest taking pics of everything you like, save them and keep ahold of it for future refernce, even if you aren't planning on remodeling or re-finishing anything for years to come.  Its fun to just establish your style and figure out what type of design you like...  Here are some of mine for the "Twilight House".  (The new house.)

Bathroom tile inspiration/scheme.

Tile I saw in the women's bathroom of Maudies in Bee Caves.  Love geometric and obviously grey.

Middle "milk glass" bathroom vanity fixture.  Lowes... David and I have NO problem going to big box stores and shopping for fixtures/materials/finishes.  They have some great stuff!  And its not too expensive.  Although I am a huge fan of some pretty pricey finishes, there is a line I will not cross... and if it looks good, why not pay $39.99.

Grey.  If you know me, its my favorite color.  The new "brown" that goes with everything.  This was granite countertop selection day out at AG&M with my man Jesse Bogan.

Thanks for posing Bogie.  Cabinet door color... "Smoke".  Its fabulous.  This may or may not be the granite color we like.  I'm into the "concrete"/really monotone stone look. 

Backsplash?  Love the linear.

Grey backsplash?  duh.

Sample of travertine that I LOVE and will most likely be our bathroom countertops.  If I could do this everywhere, but apparently red wine is its worst enemy, but my best friend...

Our doors will look like this.  No more six panel.  If only the big box stores would catch onto this little gem of a detail...

West Elm love.  Pillows.  I am only now allowed to be the pillow covers.  I don't know what David will do if I bring home another pillow.

West Elm pillow texture.

Love this chalkboard art frame wall...  I will need to do something like this.

My new favorite store/thrift place.  Revival on 71 West.  Along with a lot of fun items inside the store that they have found and cleaned/refurbished, there are some awesome items out in the back under this huge tent.  Like, these great doors that I want to make into a barn/sliding door somewhere in the house.  This detail is beautiful!

www.barndoorhardware.com

More to come after this weekend's demo day! 

- katie & david, H&H

Lately, we're on our way!

So, we've been busy lately, and VERY boring.  So, you should be glad you haven't heard from us in awhile.  But, get ready for some exciting stuff.  David and I sold our house in Northwest Austin within 1 day.  And due to this extremely crazy time frame, we didn't find a new house by the time we closed, so we went and lived with Reanie and John, my parents.  In this little gem.  Their mother-in-law suite in SouthWest Austin.

Its cozy.  Mom occasionally does our laundry.  No rent.  Free meals.  I always have a wine buddy, and David always has a bow hunting partner.

So we moved in with the parents on March 30.  And only now, have found the perfect house.  Third times a charm.  Yes, we put offers on 2 houses before this, but we are so happy that they didn't work out... and I was getting a little tired of elderly realtors and sellers who didn't know jack about real estate.  But thats another story.

So, here it is!  We close in June and couldn't be more excited to start on the renovations.  Thats just what David and I are about.  We just can't settle for new or already remodeled.  Call it an obsession, or just a sickness.  But we LOVE it!    And, this truly is our dream house for hopefully 10 or more years.  It sits on an acre in Shady Hollow in Austin.  There are 103 trees on the property.  As the listing states.  Good layout, vaulted ceilings.  All it needs is finishes.  And thats what we'll do!  

So, get ready for another season of some fun times as we tear it up and put it back together! 

K & D

its been awhile

yeah, yeah, its been awhile.

But there has been alot going on.  Here is a re-cap.


Started an Etsy store, Edith Kelly Kate.  That kept me very busy, probably too busy during the holidays.  I had a lot of orders for crosses from some awesome ladies in Louisiana.  And, the interest has stayed steady.  I could probably make it grow bigger, with marketing, social networking etc... but I'm just not ready at the moment.  So, let the interest build and we'll see where we go.


Jobs.  Super busy with a multi-million dollar interior renovation at a major hospital in Austin.  Pretty crazy hours, pretty crazy deadline, but we got it done, and I'm proud of what we designed.  Now on to bidding, and construction, and other projects.
David has been working tirelessly on Parish Dental offices in Llano, TX with West Ridge Construction.  Click that link and go to their FB page to see the pics.  He's pretty amazing.


Vacation.  David and I were SO lucky to get a little break and head to Lake Tahoe for the holidays.  There was absolutely no natural snow anywhere to be found.  But were were able to hit the slopes for one day on a few (and I mean just a few) man-made runs with several thousand other people.  It was packed, but so fun.  We gambled, lost money, had some nice dinners, hiked and all in all got to relax and get away.  Much needed.


House.  We are getting ready to sell our house.  So, I am learning alot about staging and ne-neutralizing/de-cluttering.  Fun.  Except its basically a 1/2 pack/move because we've outgrown this house... (and we don't even have a kid yet).  But many new improvements have been made and I'm excited to post about them, but not now.


Family.  David and I are enjoying married life together immensely.  And even though this past holiday season was hard with my work schedule and very few hours together, he was so great and supportive.  Our families celebrated the holidays together in December at the Marchand house which has become a yearly tradition.  Our two nieces are growing up so fast and we enjoy getting to see their personalities develop.  Sidney is a true princess and Landry doesn't like other girls too much.  But she LOVES David.  Our babysitting adventure with the two of them (to help Sarah and Josh keep their long-standing tradition of Xmas date night going) was  eventful but fun.


Future.  We are excited to sell our house and move on to the next adventure in house remodel/renovations!  So keep a look out for those updates.  Lots of weddings and wedding events are scheduled this summer, so we'll see how we both are able to keep up.


goodbye for now,
katie

etsy, I have arrived

So, I did it.  I started an Etsy store.  Edith Kelly Kate.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/edithkellykate

There are only 4 items for sale right now... partly because I can't seem to have time to take pictures of the others that I have done over the past couple of weeks, but they are coming!  

Lots more wedding items, baby items, and christmas items.  

The 3 images from our wedding, the menu, the welcome sign and the cocktails sign were all taken by our fabulous photographer Heather Banks with Eclectic Images Photography.  I've got to get her to give me some tips on taking pictures of these things because apparently that is the #1 thing that helps you sell your stuff.  Good pictures.

all about decks

Over the past several months we have been pretty lazy not doing anything at all which is fine because months of planning a wedding really does take a lot out of you.  Its really great to get home and have a beer and just not do anything.

Before the wedding, David's project while I was ignoring him to fine tune the decorative marital details was this little project.  Our middle deck.  Its situated in between our garage and our house/master bedroom.  Before it had a gross deck with a hot tub in the covered area.  David cut the hot tub up into about 10 pieces and hauled it off, ripped up all the deck boards, replaced some rotted joists and re-laid all new deck boards and created this little gem of a space.    

The antler wall art was all David.  The pillows are from the wedding.  And the rug is a table cloth that I'll be sealing with polyurethane this weekend.

Again, wall art, all David.  I love it.  And the wet bar is an old baby changing table I got at the Home Consignment store for $100 and antiqued it.  We also bought custom shaped cushions for the bench which makes it so comfy!  I can't wait for the fall/winter when we can enjoy it without being soaked in our own sweat.

David also tore down and replaced the fence that leads to the front door/yard.  It matches our other little slice of fence at the front of the house.  I am obsessed with the horizontal fence boards and the color.  And our Home Depot furniture we got for next to nothing is also a great find!  They also rock slightly which is nice.

And onto the next project... the back deck.  Our existing deck is shown here as David tears it down to its bones.  Its a pretty weird configuration with how it is shaped and with the connection to the house its just weird.

Before

Before

 David ;)

Push out this cut-out corner to be flush.

Push out this side to the corner of the house.  

We'll have to think of something fun to do with this little area.  Or just take that shelf down... 

Our enemy at the moment.  This ground cover is the devil and we want it gone.  Its horrible.

So there you go, our project at the moment.  It doesn't help that its a consistent 108 degrees here in Austin but we want to be able to enjoy it all this fall and winter with all our friends with good food and good drinks!

Blogging from my iPhone...

So, I downloaded this app tonight that helps me blog while I'm on the go. Not that my random thoughts or pictures are of that much importance for people to see immediately and more often, but it makes the day go by faster when im sitting at an art install for 3 hours for work.

And here is a little treat. Our front deck (we have a back one too) that David just re finished.









- Katie Walker
Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I did it... couponing.

Okay, so I did it.  I went yesterday, coupons and list in hand and grocery shopped.  The couponmom.com system helped... but its very time consuming, and I'm still a little confused.

I waited about 4 weeks to collect coupons from the Sunday's paper.  There are 2-3 coupon booklets that come out in the Sunday paper, Red Plum, Smart Source, and P&G.  Couponmom.com suggests that you simply collect these booklets, write the date that they are published on the front of each and simply store until you are ready to shop.

When you are ready to shop, you have to go to their "Grocery Deals by State" menu and select your state and your grocery store.  I chose HEB and Randalls and looked at both lists.  When you look at the list it is set up into multiple columns.  I put a screen shot below.  Basically it tells you the description of the coupon, the % you save and the final price with the coupon, as well as (if applicable) the coupon booklet that the coupon is in. 

I've ammended the way in which couponmom.com suggests you store these coupons.  I basically spent about 30 minutes cutting out the coupons that I KNOW that I would be using.  i.e. I won't be using Huggies diapers anytime soon.

Then I put each date's coupons in a different envelope labeled with the date, and just go back to that and the individual coupons when I need them, not the enitre booklet (very cumbersome and annoying).  A little more time on the front end, but easier in the long run when you need to go shopping.

So then you go to the database, shown below.  You scroll down and check the box next to the deals that you want to use at this grocery trip and then click the button at the bottom to only show those selected deals.  This basically becomes your "coupon grocery list".  I had several other items that I needed so that was added too.

On the list of deals, the first set, as seen in the screen shot have a N/A under the column for the coupon code and date.  This means that there isn't a coupon, its just a special that the grocery store is having.  At first I thought this was pointless, but then when I was at the grocery, I realized  I would never have known about these "deals" without this database, and bought these items because they were on special and less than they would be before.  Obviously I didn't buy all of them b/c many were not applicable to our needs.  But some were!

So after some prep time, I was off!  It took a little more time to shop than normal because I was constantly looking at my compilation list of "deals" that I had selected and going back and forth.  But the grocery store was emty because the city was freaked out about ice/snow. 

SIDE NOTE:  We hadn't been to the grocery in about 4 weeks so we needed a lot of stuff, more than a usual 1-2 week visit.

When it was time to check out, I was very excited.  I gave the cashier the coupons and was looking at the toal... before coupons ~$315, after coupons and Randalls card ~$240.

After this total, I wasn't too excited anymore... I looked at the receipt and the coupons only saved me $13... the Randalls rewards card saved me $65.  I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the Randalls card HELPS the coupon... and that is what was showing.  As well as the fact that I did a lot of coupon N/A deals that were only the Randalls rewards card working.

All in all, I think that next time will be better.  I'll have done it before, learning curve started.  And, now I can use the coupons to stock up on things if needed...  I think if the coupon thing doesn't go well after the mere $13 saved, then I'll at least have the grocery "deals" to use to save on grocery specials.

Happy Saturday!