American Horror Story

Things have been slow around the Bungalow as far as home improvement or nifty additions go. We got caught up in a way-too-busy schedule of work and holiday grind. But now it is time to show some love to our sweet abode. Before doing that we have to embrace her faults (and ours).

We are messy. Terribly messy. My plan is to corral this mess and make some sense of our house. First on the list are the Guest Room and its closet and the Basement. The closet needs shelves and I need discipline as far as not treating the whole room as my closet. The basement is going to remain ugly for a while, but it doesn't have to be such a mess filled with things we don't use. It is time to clean, purge and organize! With that in mind, the first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem. Well, I admit it:

 Guest room after Christmas. It's a little bit better now. Not much.

This is from a different angle.

Then there is the corner of the stairway to the basement and the basement. Terrible.

 

 

 

But not ALL is terrible. Our living room looked nice for the holidays.

For 2011 I had a mile long list of resolutions for the bungalow's upgrades. That list is still quite long. This year I'm keeping it simple -- Clean up the mess and keep it clean. Fingers crossed. Whatever we get accomplished on top of that (hello, new living room ceiling?) is icing on the cupcake.
Happy New Year!

Art deco

Get it? Art deco ... meaning I acquired more art to decorate with.

Our evolving staircase is still mostly a blank slate for art I want but cannot afford. I did make my yearly trip to WVU's Mountaineer Week craft fair and visited artist Annie Morris Simco. We have prints of her work in the living room and a small original piece, also in the stairwell, I splurged for last year at the fair. And now we have a new print in the stairwell!

 Isn't it lovely? Of course I would love to the have giant original of this, but it is not in our price range.

 

I also hung up my print taken by my friend, Jill Olexa. It is a shot of the mural painted on the back of the Chic N Bones building in downtown Morgantown. Check out Jill Olexa Photography if you're interested!

 

 

I like the two new additions to our gallery. Just gotta keep on movin' up ... the wall.

Not-So-Scary Halloween

I have always wanted to attend Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom. I came close back in 2009, but with a choice between it and Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights on a trip with hubby and friends, my choice for Mickey was vetoed.

With the help of deal shopper Courtney, I acquired a few not-so-scary Halloween friends for our porch and brought a little of Mickey's party to Short Street.

Hopefully they make it through the season without walking away.

Four More Years!

Mike and I celebrated our 4th anniversary last week on the 25th. We enjoyed dinner at Lira on High Street where I arrived to meet Mike and was greeted with hot pink roses in our orange vase at our table. Mike was so thoughtful to go to the restaurant early and infuse our dinner with our wedding colors. After dinner we headed to Lake Manor, a bed and breakfast in Cheat Lake where we had a gift certificate. It was a nice retreat complete with a private courtyard and hot tub attached to our room, the Esquire Suite. No, miss Lilo did not join us. Courtney was kind enough to baby sit her.

Mike and I celebrated with traditional 4th anniversary gifts of fruit and flowers. He gave a floral print cover for my new cell phone to me and attempted to gift me with a black pineapple from Antigua (where we honeymooned). Hurricane Irene put a stop to the shipment of the pineapple from Florida, so I missed out on the fruit portion of my gift. It's ok, because I gave Mike two melons for his gift. Why is that so funny? I needed to give him some fruit and melons were on sale. He also received a St. Francis de Sales charm to wear. Years ago I gave him one of St. Peter, a patron saint of writers, and he's worn it ever since. Alas, St. Pete bailed on him recently and is no where to be found. St. Francis stepped up to the challenge of protecting my writer instead.

The bed and breakfast was a welcome break for this busy couple. Things are about to get busier with football season kicking off this weekend (Go 'Eers!). Here's to four more years ... and then some!

Meet Elle Woods

We have been trying to find a piece of furniture for Mike's basement office that is both a comfy seat and a decent place to sleep. We would like to have a double bed/loveseat combo. In the meantime, our friend Courtney offered up a very economical (cough, free, cough) loveseat. It has no pull out bed. But it's comfy.

Meet Elle Woods.

Elle came to us from the Sigma Kappa house, hence her name. She had a good steam cleaning before we acquired her. Just sayin'.

Like her namesake, she makes the best of her situation. Look how cute she is tucked away in the corner of Mike's office. Go, Elle, Go! Bend and snap it, gurl!

These Are My Confessions -- Part 4

I confess. I was laying on our hammock of yesterday's post and noticed we had some major weed issues.
I confess. I don't know if this is poison ivy or not.

If this is the bad stuff, we have a serious problem.

I confess. That is the guest room window. We need to do something about this before football season.

These Are My Confessions -- Part 3

Mike should confess this one.

For our 2nd anniversary, which was almost two years ago, I bought Mike a cotton gift in honor of the traditional type of gift given for a 2nd anniversary. The cotton consisted of an Original Pawley's Island cotton hammock.

I confess. No one even removed it from its box until June 2011 ... almost two years later.

Luckily, Mike's parents gave him a stand for the hammock for his birthday this year. And we finally set it up. And we finally get to use it.

I confess. I love it.

It comes in handy when you have to babysit your friend's kid while said friend helps to install a new Mr. and Mrs. Maytag. Four-year-olds can be convinced that this is actually a giant spiderweb created by Spiderman to catch the bad guys in our neighborhood.