Paint and More Paint!

Ever since I bought my house 3 and half years ago I have wanted to paint the guest rooms. Whoever lived here before me tried to do some touch up painting in both rooms but failed to use the same color as the walls so needless to say, they were a mess of different shades of beige. Having had roommates until recently, I haven't had the chance to get my hands on them...until now. I finally painted both rooms and am working on getting them in tip-top shape!

Here is a little before & after...

My first guest room project...the smaller room.

 Lovely touch up paint that is clearly a different color

 This room was just a little boring.

And after...

We got the comforter from Target right around the time we got married.  I definitely didn't want to spend much money on it and I wanted something with a little color but not too crazy because this room is really small.  As for what color to paint the walls, based on the colors in the comforter, my options were a soft blue, a bright green or a dark magenta.  Dark magenta was out first (even though I would love to be brave enough to incorporate a color like that).  The green was too bright/dark (I know that doesn't make sense at all but it makes sense in my head) so blue was the obvious choice in my mind.  So blue it is.  I really like how it brightens up the room (and it's all one color) and it makes it feel so refreshing.  All of the furniture in the room was either Richard's when he was little or his dad made it...very cool!  I'm so glad to finally have a real guest room!!  

Now on to the more difficult room...

The before...

 What a mess...

The color dilemma.

How many trips does it take to home depot/lowes/ace hardware does it take to pick out paint?  Apparently way too many!  Yes that is 7 samples of paint on my wall.  I really struggled to figure out what color paint to paint this room.  I really wanted to paint it blue but since the other room is now blue I didn't want two rooms with two different shades of blue right next to each other.  I was trying to coordinate with my old bedding that used to be in my room before we got married.  At one point I wanted to throw in the towel and get all new bedding but I persevered and finally found the perfect color...which one???

The after...

 The color on the far left!!

Whew!  I am worn out from this room!  When I couldn't do blue I thought maybe a green would be good because of the bedding (I didn't want beige at all...nothing against beige but it's just not my color)...but then I couldn't find the right shade of green that wasn't too loud or too light, etc. etc.  There is some brown in the bedding but even that was hard to find a good match that was close enough to not look weird.  And then Home Depot pulled through for me and they had this lovely brownish with a hint of gray just like the bedding.  And it looks great!!  I love it.  I just couldn't get excited about the green and I am definitely excited about this color!! 

So now both guest rooms are ready for visitors so come on to Greenville and visit!!  There are definitely still some things that need to be done in these rooms...

• Paint the trim
• Get some stuff on the walls
• Move our current upstairs bedside table downstairs when we get a new one for upstairs
• Move current upstairs mirrors downstairs when we get new ones upstairs
• Change some of the pictures in the frames so that it looks like Richard lives here too
• Paint the bathroom that is across the hall from these rooms (it is currently blue and fine for now but want to do something different...would love suggestions on a color).

That'll keep me busy for a while!  Plus my painting job is not finished...a few more rooms to go.  Next on the list...our bathroom.  It happens to be brown right now as well (not the same color brown) and I like it but my husband isn't as much of a fan.  Since he does share it with me now we're going to repaint it...more of that to come!

And just to wrap up this post...a picture of sweet Tupelo at 12 weeks old and a Happy Halloween wish from the child life fairy princesses at GHS!

The Newest Member of the Stein Family...

Meet Tupelo!!!

Tupelo is our new sweet, 7 week old, Boykin Spaniel puppy.  We picked her up yesterday and she has been settling in.  We actually got some sleep last night!  She is so sweet...she loves to follow us around and makes sure that she is right next to us.  She has also been exploring her new home and figuring everything out.  We've kept her pretty busy so she's been very good at taking naps.  Last night she cried for about 20 minutes when we put her in her bed at bedtime but then she slept until 5:30am!  My sweet husband took her out then and she did a great job of going to the bathroom outside instead of in her bed.  Today we have not been quite as successful with the no-pottying-in-the-house thing but luckily she is little.  We're working on it.  We love her!!!

(Please excuse Richard's lack of shirt and the folded laundry behind him)

She doesn't sit still too long for me to get a picture but we're working on learning to "sit" too so maybe soon I'll have a cute sitting down picture.  I'm sure she'll be growing fast so stay tuned for more pictures!

Honeymoon!!!

Exactly 3 months after we joined our lives together, Richard and I finally got to go on our honeymoon!!  We went to Biras Creek on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands.  It was the most awesome place and I highly recommend it.  I can't say enough of great things about it so I'll let some pictures do the talking...

 The view from our boat ride on the way to Biras Creek...look at that rain!!

 They had a life-size chess board on the beach.  Good thing one of my patients taught me how to play right before I left.  I still don't get it though...

 My talented husband did some wind-surfing!

Our snorkeling guy Wayne, aka Aqua Man, caught this lobster for us while we were snorkeling.  It was awesome!

 The view from dinner every night

Richard ate our lobster for dinner and then again in his omlet for breakfast!

My snorkeling husband...night or day.

We took a Boston Whaler out one day and went to lots of fun places for snorkeling and a picnic!

One day we rented a Jeep and drove around Virgin Gorda.  We went to the Baths and some other great snorkeling spots.  My talented husband was able to drive on the left side of the road without any fender-benders!!

Some of the spots in the caves around the Baths got a little tight.

We did some jumping off of rocks.  Richard proved yet again to be part monkey.

We stopped by the old copper mines and had some fun in the rubble.

We went to a beautiful, secluded beach for more snorkeling and reading.

Beautiful views!!

Richard took me for a ride on a sailboat.  We saw some turtles while we were sailing right under us!

On our last day it was a little overcast so we went for a hike up the mountain to see some beautiful views of the resort and Virgin Gorda.

This is our new little friend, the giant iguana.  He eats Hibiscus right out of your hand!

Our last night...so sad to leave!

We had the best trip and it was well worth the wait!!  It was relaxing yet fun and we both feel like we accomplished everything that we wanted to on this trip.  It was our first vacation together other than to visit our families and it was the first time that we got to spend a whole week of just us!  Good thing we didn't kill each other.  Instead I wish I had more time to spend with my sweet husband and I can't wait for our next vacation!!

Wedding Post 3 - The Wedding...Finally!!!

It's about time I got around to posting my fav wedding pics.  The problem is that I have so many favorites that I don't know where to start.  So this might be a long one...here we go!!

My beautiful girls!!

 My handsome brothers!!

Richard and his beautiful mother!

Our two precious flower girls, Rose and Mae

Richard and the kids.  They were so sweet to "help us get married"!

 I loved the back of my dress.  I have always loved the covered buttons down the back so I was so excited that my dress had them!

Our wedding was even better than I could have imagined.  I loved every second of it.  It seemed to go by so fast and I was completely overwhelmed by the entire experience for so many reasons.  It was amazing to have everyone that we love and that has been such supports to us all in one room.  Plus it was so fun to see everything that I had worked on come together to be an expression of who we are, how we love the Lord and how we love each other.  I still relive those moments in my mind and think about how much it meant to me!

The reception was such a fun party!  The dance floor was packed and we had so much fun breaking it down with everybody!  I wish I could have spent more time with everybody there but we can't say enough how much we appreciate everyone that traveled and came to celebrate with us!  We even lucked out with an amazing lightening show and no tornadoes!  

We have felt so blessed through this whole experience and we are so grateful for everything!  These are just a few of my favorite pictures as there are so many more that I love (thanks to our amazing photographer, Kim DeLoach).  Clearly I have a love for black and white pictures...now if we could just pick which ones to frame on our wall!  

Up next...the honeymoon!!