Month : August 2012

All Parties + Holidays

First Floor Tour.

I recently had a question from a reader asking how the first floor of our home is laid out. In particular, she was interested as to where our cubby and bench area was in relation to everything else. I agree, it’s hard to show in photos sometimes how things “flow” around here, so I’ll attempt to give a better glimpse. For starters, here is our floor plan. (Ignore the fact that the room labels are backwards, I had to flip the image of the plan so that it is like ours, with the garage on the right side.)

Now, ignore the crazy colors here and my not-so-drawn-to-scale skills, and here is a snapshot of the first floor when I was virtually arranging furniture in a floor planning program, prior to the move-in. (Do you like how it shows that we have two kitchen sinks? Not true haha…just a very unskilled user putting this together!)

So now, I’ll try and take you on a virtual walk-through. Come on in…(no, that wreath really isn’t there right now, but this was the last shot I had on hand – from December – of the front door entry).

When you walk in the front door, you can head one of two directions. The first is straight down the hallway (past our photo wall)…

…and into the kitchen/living area which is all one room and makes up our first floor.

With no formally created dining space, we opted to float our table and chairs in the open space between kitchen and living area. To the left of the table, out of the previous shot, is our kitchen…

…and to the far right, on the other side of the table is our living area….

(again, not a recent photo of the living room, here it is, in all its post-bookcase glory)

I didn’t know that it was worth a photo, but to the right of that chair that Page is sitting in (and trying to ignore my camera) is a coat closet, and just around the corner from that is the door to our garage. You would pass it before you walk back down the hallway to the front door. And you would remember to be awesome.

As for that cubby space, it’s along the front wall of our house, to the left when you walk in the front door, before you head upstairs to the second level…

This built-in was one of my favorite details about the house when we first walked through a spec version…I’m all for ANY bonus storage spots, and so many times we or our guests perch on that bench to get shoes on or off. If you were to turn away from this wall unit, you’d see our beloved rap lyric decal on the opposite wall before heading upstairs.

So there you have it, our first level. You can see why we’re anxious to add some more living square footage space in the basement sooner than later, and we do spend a good bit of our time upstairs where there’s a little more room to sprawl out. But all in all, I do love how well this first floor seems to fit us right now.

Thanks for taking the tour – despite the hodge podge of photos from different seasons and times of day! 😉 You can view more in-depth posts about specific areas in our house by viewing our “house tour” posts. Thanks for stopping by!

All Parties + Holidays

Girls Night In: Fifty Shades of Grey Party

Since it was all anyone could talk about, our book club decided to read the infamous Fifty Shades of Grey. For me, the jury’s still out on the book – it was certainly intriguing and I was turning the pages trying to find out more about the mystery man, Christian Grey’s, past. I didn’t think the writing was all that wonderful, and some of the elements of the book were repeated ad nauseam to the point where it got a little annoying. All in all though, I had to give the author props for a very different storyline from anything else I’ve been reading, and the story certainly kept me reading.

At the very least, the book sets a great stage for a themed party!


We decided to combine our monthly book club gathering with my friend, Christine’s, 28th birthday, invite a few extra guests, and really have a par-tay!

It worked out well that Page was out of town, so the ladies came to my house this weekend for a silly and fun get-together that involved good eats, sweets, cocktails, and some PG-13 entertainment thanks to a fabulous consultant.

The color scheme was of course, shades of grey, except for the occasional “red” (room of pain!) goodie…

…and of course some coy nods to details from the book. I was floored by Christine’s idea to skewer “Forbidden Fruit” on zip ties. 😉

To get the party started, we offered some non-alc Ana cocktail (sparkling water and cranberry juice) and two renditions of a summer cocktail that I’ve heard referred to as both “strip and go naked” and “summer brew”. The pink on the left ( we named it “Twitchy Hand Cocktail”) is vodka, lemonade concentrate, and beer. The gold on the left (labeled “Lip Biter Cocktail”) is tequila, limeade concentrate, and beer. You can make much smaller batches of either than what you see here – for every cup of liquor, use one can of concentrate and four 12-0z cans of beer. (I tripled this for each of the cocktails.) It was a cost-effective way to keep the drinks flowing for 17 ladies well into the night!

You know it’s a fun night when you forget to take pics once your guests arrive. Thanks to my friend, Julie, for managing to snap a quick hostess pic…I’ll have to snag some “people photos” from other guests!

Whether it’s your turn to host book club, or you’re just looking for a fun reason to get the girls together, encourage your guests to read the book, stock up on all grey party supplies, pour everyone a cocktail, and let the laughter and girl talk begin!

Cheers! 🙂