First Snow!

The first snow at the new house!!  

We loved watching the snow fall- it was beautiful!  

There is a river down there somewhere :)

Bailey loves the snow!  She jumped into a pile of snow and came out with an acorn in her mouth.  I'm pretty sure she is part squirrel :)

What we did on our first snowy day of the year... brewed beer and cooked schnitzel and spaetzle :) We brewed a stout beer (Midnight Mass Stout) that will be ready for Christmas-- our taste testers better be ready!  The schnitzle turned out great.  The spaetzle was not as easy to make as it looks, but it was delicious!  

Great snow day :) 

Pottery Barn look-alike lighting

We wanted to make our 70's house feel more modern and decided that changing out dated light fixtures would do just that.  We looked in magazines and did some shopping and realized that we loved Pottery Barn... we just don't love the prices!  Our goal has been to find Pottery Barn look a like light fixtures!

Foyer Light:

Matt and I went to Lowe's to buy blinds for our master bedroom and of course bought more than just blinds. We walked down the lighting aisle and both saw this light at the same time and knew we had to buy it.  We love the lantern look and this light looks perfect in our foyer!
        
               Pottery Barn $250                             Lowe's $70

  

                            Before 

                              After

         

Outside Lights for breezeway:

We have a breezeway between our garage and house and it is very dark at night.  We love the look of lanterns and found these on clearance at Lowe's!  Thank goodness that Matt is so handy, he had to crawl up into the attic of the garage and run electrical for these lights.  I love how this project turned out!  It not only provides light, but makes a statement.

                  
             Pottery Barn $300                                       Lowe's $20

     

                          Before

                           After

Breakfast Room table light:

The breakfast room had this retro light with 5 large light bulbs.  We had recently replaced all the light bulbs in our house with LED bulbs, however the bulbs just didn't work in this fixture.  This light fixture has a dimmer and the LED light bulbs either flickered or buzzed... very annoying!  Instead of buying new light bulbs, we decided to just replace the fixture itself.

                       
              Pottery Barn $100                                                   Ikea $40

          

                                      Before

 

                                          After

Laundry room lights:

Our laundry room/mudroom is the room we first walk into and also the room the dogs play in all day.  The harsh florescent lights had to go.  We love these soft flush mount lights and they work great in the space!  We actually had this same light fixture in the stairway at our old house.

                  
             Pottery Barn $230                                              Ikea $30

                          After

                                       

As you can tell, we live at Lowe's... they should start charging us rent. :)  And when Ikea comes to St. Louis next fall, we will be broke- we love Ikea lighting!

What a difference new lighting makes!

Small changes make a big difference

We decided to do a light update on our master suite...

We decided to tear out the shelving in our walk in closet and start fresh.  We love the Container Store and designed a new closet with so much more hanging space than before! We double hung our clothes and added shelves to hold our shoes.  Good thing Matt is handy and I love to organize!

Before

After

New blinds!  I hated these roller blinds more than anything else in the house. We decided to install 2inch plantation blinds.  It only took two trips to Lowes and zero trips to the ER... I call that a success! 

Our bathroom screamed 70s.. gold everything!  I removed the hardware from the vanity and spray painted the hardware Rust-oleum Universal oil rubbed bronze. This spray paint covered great and didn't require a primer.  I just washed the hardware and put about 4 coats of spray paint on it and voila, the look of new hardware without the cost.  

Small changes really do make a big difference!

Off The Rails

An eventful evening... A couple of weeks ago we heard this huge crack and loud boom.  It was pouring down raining and we go outside to find out what made that loud noise.  A tree had been pulled out of the ground, roots and all, and had fallen on top of the tram- this was not good!  Matt went down to inspect and found that a 10 foot piece of track was bent beyond repair.  Looks like our "handicap access to the river" will be out of commission until we can repair it.  We knew it was inevitable that a tree would fall on the tram, but we did not think it would happen a month after moving in.

 

I will miss going down to the river.. hoping to get it repaired soon.

Enjoying the View

What better way to take a break from unpacking than to take a ride down to the river and drink wine at sunset!  Still seems surreal that this is our view!

Moving Day

Moving Day....  The day we closed on our new house I managed to sprain my ankle, which made moving day very interesting.  Thank goodness for my wonderful husband and the moving crew!

What a relief it is to have all of our belongings at the new house and finally able to start unpacking and stop living out of boxes!  Thank you to my mom and father in law for stocking our fridge with the necessities of course!

<3 Kelly

About Us

Matt grew up in the City and I grew up in St. Charles.  Our worlds connected in high school when we were set up on a blind double date.  We saw Finding Nemo at the Galleria and then took his red convertible to Ted Drews... what a great first date.  Little did I know then that 10 years later we would be husband and wife.  We both went to the University of Dayton and moved back to St. Louis to be close to family and for our careers.  Matt and I have been married over a year now and outgrew our first little house what felt like the moment we moved in.

We have two little miniature dachshunds, Lilly and Bailey, who we adore and spoil! They love running around in the yard, stealing socks, and cuddling!  It is hard to stay mad at them long because they are so cute.

Some may call us crazy, but we just bought a huge house on 3.5 acres on the Missouri River! We have so many projects planned for our new house.  This blog will chronicle our adventures and projects.

<3 Matt and Kelly

We bought a house!

Closing Day with the keys to our new house!

We bought our dream house!  The search began almost a year ago for a home that had character, was on a private lot, and had lots of garage space.  This house met these criteria and so much more!  It was love at first sight- we knew this was our new house the moment we walked in.

The previous owners purchased this property with a 1930s summer cottage on it over 35 years ago.  The cottage was re purposed into a gorgeous great room with a vaulted wood beam ceiling, 1/2 bathroom, and a kitchenette.  We have plans to turn the kitchenette into a home brewery!  The house was added on to the cottage using reclaimed building materials- the bricks and hardwood floors are over 100 yrs old.  The enclosed porch and huge deck overlook the Missouri River.  There is a garage and a carport and oh yeah another garage... plenty of room for all of our cars and a workshop for Matt :)  If that was not enough character for us, there is a tram that provides access down to the river and an old cottage near the river.

We could not be more excited to make this our home!
Matt and Kelly