Thank you, Ikea...

For making all of my small space dreams come true! Larry and I had a sectional couch that wasn't going to fit in here if we forced it. We found a sleeper sofa at JCPenney that we were planning on buying. We then went to wander through Ikea one night to get ideas for storage and organization...and we found a couch we had to have! I wish I would have taken pictures of it in Larry's truck. The guy at Ikea insisted the four boxes it came in would fit in Larry's truck. Yeah, well, on a normal day, they wouldn't have. We had to get it out of there since it was 8:30 at night, so I made it fit. After this move, Larry has started calling me Houdini because I pretty much make magic. I despise taking more trips than necessary, so the amount of boxes and items I can fit in a car is pretty much incredible.

Anyway, enough rambling. After we painted, it was time to put together the couch and lay our rug down (which I adore!). I found it at Home Goods (y'all on the West Coast are missing out on this store!), and it was priced amazing and the colors were just what I was looking for!

These are totally out of order, but here is our couch! It pulls out and up like a trundle bed to create a space for people to sleep! We're accepting applications for visitors now :)

Larry the builder. My husband prefers to do housework in his underwear (weird), so I had to be very careful when taking this picture. I didn't think all of you ladies would want to see his skinny 36" long legs. You'd be jealous. Trust me. I'm so envious of his legs.

I fit in the box! Maybe it has to do something with the fact that my legs are a lengthy 28" long on a good day.

The finished product. Someone needs to clean their camera. I'll let them know. The chaise pulls up an the entire area underneath it is a storage bin! Yes!

Painting for Dummies

We could have used the book that I mentioned in my title. Larry and I had never painted before. It was interesting, to say the least. I was the taper and edging girl, he was the roller. I thought I did a great job, until I looked up at the ceiling and realized that if anyone looks up, they're clearly going to think a 5 year old painted along the edges of the ceiling. I'll be hiring a painter when we live somewhere permanently (whenever the heck that might be!). We decided to paint the entry hall a gray color, "Porpoise" to be exact. The rest of the condo we did in "Sandstone Cove". It turned out lighter than I planned, but I still really like it!

Larry working on the bedroom. And no, that's not an optical illusion, the bedroom is only 93" wide. I think I measured it about 17 times because I was sure my eyes were playing tricks on me or I was reading the measuring tape wrong. Unfortunately, nobody was playing a joke on me.

My porpoise hallway after one coat.

The color in the bathroom came out great! Those light fixtures will be leaving us shortly and heading straight into the dumpster where the dumpster divers (yes, they really do exist here in Chicago, and they are OUT OF CONTROL!) will find it and turn it into something beautiful, I'm sure.

The living room area

The bedroom. Notice the super pretty blinds. They are now long gone and have been replaced with much prettier ones that I will post pictures of.

The kitchen with our mini little pantry that we bought. We needed any extra space we could get!

The finished kitchen. The yellow is gone!

Larry so proud of his painting!

Living room. Whoever thought that was a good place for an A.C. needs to be fired.

My transition into a city girl begins

For those of you who haven't heard, Larry and I decided to move back into his condo in the city. We had renters living here for the past few years, and while they paid their rent on time, seeing the way they treated the place quickly made us realize we never wanted to be landlords again! I spent three hours cleaning the kitchen, and may have even spent a few minutes gagging the other night while pulling long hair (from the guy, gross!) out of the bathroom sink drain. Here are the beginning pictures of the transition from Larry's bachelor pad into our first home together! Did I mention that this new "home" is 475 square feet? I like to refer to it as our dollhouse.

Getting prepared to paint. The old color was a yellow that made me feel like I was in an institution.

The SUPER pretty sponge painted yellowy silverish hallway. I did not enjoy one minute of painting, but I LOVED the idea of never having to see this color again! Woohoo!!!