Fall Window Boxes...

My Mom's fabulous window boxes were on our back deck by our outdoor table. She had these cascading petunias and then we had these pots of herbs we'd snip while making dinner in the summer... I always wanted her to show them off a little more and put them under all of our front windows. :)

Now it is my chance to have my own window boxes and I feel like I'm starting in one of the hardest seasons... a Fall Window Box. Hmmm... what do you put into a fall box? Well, I want to work with the greens, purples and whites instead of the more typical red, orange and brown colors. We just painted our door "Fig" and AJ and I are looking for ways to make it pop out a little more.

What do you think of these ideas using mostly the purple kale / cabbage, white gourds and grasses or ivy? What would you do? (all these pics are from Googling "Fall Window Boxes"... I wish I could take credit for them!)

Kitchen Inspiration: White Carrarra Marble Kitchen

Have you ever seen a "mood board"? Well, I love them... and I'm going to try to create a white carrarra marble kitchen mood board here... For years I have been collecting photos from design magazines, catalogs and websites and putting them in binders. I refer to it as "My Book" and it's my design inspiration for decorating, events and now the eventual kitchen re-do. I've definitely had people laugh at the idea of My Book but I'll tell you... it helps form your thoughts on what you like and don't like and what, design wise, you naturally gravitate towards.

Without further ado: My White Carrarra Marble Kitchen Mood Board

Marble 1: January 2010 issue of Canada’s Style at Home magazine

Marble 2: Southern Accents, designed by Frank Randolph

Marble 3: Elle Decor kitchen found on Decor Pad (loooove that website!)

Marble 4: Massucco Warner Miller Interior Design Kitchen found on the Decor Pad website

Marble 5: House Beautiful Kitchen

more home renovations...

When we bought the house we didn't realize that none of the rooms were insulated... we figured now would be a great time to take down the old drywall in the kitchen before our cabinets arrive and put up insulation.
We discovered the carpenter ants had been already trying to make insulation for us by eating our wood and making enormous piles of sawdust...
Don't you think the way the ants ate the piece of wood make it look like some expensive sculpture that artsy people would have in their homes? Maybe we should try to sell it on eBay. :)
The next two pictures show the kitchen looking more like a cabin with the dark wood floors, hideous brown wallpaper, the new insulation we hung yesterday (it was really pretty easy after we tore down the drywall!). I came downstairs this morning and AJ was sitting at the kitchen table with these whimsical Black-Eyed Susans reading his Bible and drinking coffee out of a plaid manly mug... it completed the "Cabin" look for me. :)
The last two pictures are of our newly painted "Fig" colored doors... we weren't totally sure about the purple-ish color initially but it looks really great with the light gray of the house!

Migonis Home: Manchester Renovations

We've taken "nesting" to the extreme and have gutted the kitchen. AJ discovered that it is much faster to use a shovel than a crowbar and hammer to take out the old subfloor. He saved us hours of work... but not before I hit myself in the knee with a crowbar (which, let me tell you, makes  walking unbelievably painful). AJ then opened up the doorway from our dining room to the front foyer so we could make the doorway between that and our foyer to living room the same size. It has made the house flow so much more smoothly (which we needed in this disjointed little Cape!). AJ also spent an afternoon removing nearly all of our kitchen cabinets so that the hardwood could go directly under them... having a pregnant woman on your work force is a "slight" handicap so I just emptied the cabinets for him and let him do the real manual labor! :)

 We hired Joe Floors to install hardwood throughout the downstairs. They were recommended to us by several friends in Manchester for being incredibly affordable and doing gorgeous work. Joe is Vietnamese, because of that there was a little bit of a language barrier. Our floors came out considerably lighter than we expected after the first day (let's just say it wasn't the "Dark Walnut" we thought was going to be put in) but when we explained to Joe that we wanted the entire downstairs, not just the stair treads to be Dark Walnut he made his crew stay later that night and redid everything. He was great and had excellent customer service skills. We'd recommend him to anyone! We love having the floors done and think it looks considerably better than the stained carpet!

Weddings and Babies...

This weekend was my good friend, Abbie's, wedding. We wanted to get a shot of all the pregnant women there! Jess (far left) just had her baby, then there is Katie (Abbie's sis) who is due any day now, myself and my friend Naomi (due February 13).

Abbie wanted to save some money on her flowers so I offered to take care of them for her. We ordered the flowers on a wholesale website and I made her church flowers, reception arrangements and bouquets! It was so much fun... I may be in for a career change...

The flowers pictures here are garden roses. Abbie and I loved them because they looked so much like peonies, which you can't get for weddings in August!

One of my favorite pics of the weekend. I'd be hard pressed to find a more easy going baby than Jess' baby Leah. AJ and I and Naomi and Ben were getting loads of practice!

The finished bouquets! Abbie's wedding colors were bright pink and navy blue so we did a few shades of pink in the bouquets and then tied them with navy ribbon.

My college girlfriends: Jess, Emily, Abbie and Naomi

Last night in the kitchen...

We were supposed to pick up our new (well, old, but new to us) car yesterday. When it wasn't ready I was so disappointed... you know when you have that one thing you've been so excited about all day and it doesn't happen? Well, that's how I felt. When I got home I found AJ in the same state of mind because of various other things... we knew just the cure for our frustration. KNOCK DOWN A WALL. No... we don't need anger management classes... :) We are having hardwood floors installed next week in the kitchen / dining room area and needed to get started on taking down the wall, removing built-in cabinets, ripping up carpet, etc.

We found about a bazillion layers of wall paper, which you can see AJ ripping off in the first pic, and the space where our built ins were formerly.

After removing armfuls of drywall and making our shop vac work overtime (and by "overtime" I mean making this hideous smell of gasoline fill the house) we made dinner. I took a picture of the meal I made and I think AJ felt left out because he wanted a photo of his side dish of kale. :)

My recipe was an easy variation of one by Real Simple magazine:

Ravioli with Butter and Basil

1. Cook frozen ravioli

2. In a large skillet melt 4 tbs of butter over medium heat. Stir in 1/4 cup of soy nuts and basil to taste. (The recipe called for fresh sage and pine nuts but I didn't have either.)

3. Mix in with the ravioli; season with salt and pepper.

The moral of the story is: when your plans don't work out and you're all disappointed... just knock down a wall and make a great meal. You'll feel much better about life. :)

Swagger Wagon

I had one of my first feelings of "oh my gosh, I'm a mom" the other day. I test drove a station wagon and liked it because it was practical (well, in reality it could have been because of the fabulous leather and pick-up too...). As a tribute to the Mom Car, which we did not purchase, I am posting one of the funniest movies on You Tube... Toyota's Sienna Family promoting their "Swagger Wagon". After you finish watching this one there are about eight more with the same family and the same Swagger Wagon... they are hysterical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-N3F1FhW4

Gardens... we've moved beyond throwing plants in the trunk of AJ's car

I didn't realize before we were married AJ's love of gardening... even until this spring and summer it was mostly confined to pots on the condos porch and in our living room. Granted, I did get to see the entire trunk of his car filled with dirt because he would find plants on the side of the road and need to bring them home but with the fabulous weather (aka: super hot and dry so our lawn is a nice brown...) AJ moved outside to our yard!

He took the stones for the stone wall, at 6am on a Saturday so no one would catch him, from the side of the highway in Manchester to make a stone wall and then we made a garden on the opposite site of the wall with black eyed Susans, a hydrangea and some moonflowers!

We picked up some patio stones to see what it would look like to have the entire area in the concrete stone (a lot cheaper than slate and looks very similar). We are going to do the patio a little bit at a time and will hopefully have enough stones by the end of the summer.

The photo on the bottom is of Morning Glories I planted by our mailbox... they are growing up the side of our fence and look gorgeous first thing in the morning!

My mom's pet peeve is anything wrinkled, so: Mom, I will apologize right now for putting a photo of that wrinkly tablecloth on the blog. It looks terrible, I know.... but the plain card table looked worse. :)