Our New Place!

I'm finally posting photos of our new apartment! So excited! We've been here for two weeks and we're loving it. I have to say, it might have been the easiest move I've ever made. I started packing four weeks before our move date and tried to keep everything as organized as possible. On the morning of the move plenty of family and friends showed up to help. We had six cars and trucks and only had to make one and a half trips. By one o' clock, my grandmother, mother in law and sister in law had the kitchen completely unpacked and put away. By the next day, we had everything unpacked, except for three boxes that I still haven't unpacked because I'm not sure about where to put the desk. A HUGE thanks to our family and friends who made it a happy and exciting weekend instead of a big hassle.

Because of our trip to Italy and Greece is just two weeks away, we aren't going to be able to start decorating our place until we return. We want our new home to have a very different feel than our old one, so it's been good to have some time to just be here and see what kind of inspiration arises. We have some big ideas for this place that I can't wait to get started on! So, without further delay... here's a house tour for you!

The Living Room

We are just overjoyed to finally having a living room without a bed in it! Our new one is spacious with cozy carpeting and lots of light. This room makes us realize how little furniture we own! The vaulted ceilings make it feel huge to us.

Design Plans

We want to fill out this room and make it a comfy, stylish place for entertaining. We are going to add two pieces to our Sactional to make a larger couch with a chaise and add three pieces to our Hemnes Bookshelf to fill the empty wall with an entertainment center. We will be replacing the coffee table with something visually lighter and adding an area rug and chairs.

My grandmother is passing on a large oil painting from her house that I have always loved for the wall behind the couch. The painting is yellows, golds and cremes. We are leaning towards a yellow, navy and touches of teal for this room.

The Patio

We are beyond excited to have a little deck! The Curtises surprised us big time and bought us a beautiful new grill after helping us move in. We love to grill just about any day of the week! There is also a very handy outdoor storage room. Jake and his dad installed some shelves and hooks inside the weekend after we moved in and we've already filled it up. Being on the third floor facing out of the complex gives us a great view of the hills.

Design Plans

We would like to add a small L-shaped bench and a couple ceramic side tables out here for lounging out on the deck with friends.

The Dining Room

It's so nice to have a dining room big enough for our table AND people at the same time.

Design Plans

We'd like to do a wall of enclosed bookshelves for dish display on top and hidden storage below. We might even look into doing a drop down secretary desk.

The Kitchen

The kitchen has got to be our favorite part of the house. We love everything about it. There is SO much cabinet space that we were able to bring home gifts from our wedding that we hadn't been able to have at our old place... including my mixer! We love the walk-through and the open counter which is perfect for entertaining. We've never had a dishwasher or a washer and dryer before, so having BOTH in one room is amazing for us.

The Bedroom

Having a bedroom is nothing exciting for most people, but when you've lived in a studio, it's a big deal. Of all the rooms in the house, this one is the least put together at the moment. We haven't decided whether to keep the desk in the bedroom or where else it might go and we have no bed frame or nightstands and very little light yet.

Design Plans

Of all the rooms, I am most excited to decorate this one. We are going to do a removable wallpaper pattern on the wall behind the bed with hot pink side tables for accent. We will be doing a pendant light in the middle of the ceiling and want to do shoe display shelves along the opposite walls. We want this room to be romantic and playful.

The Bathroom

Our new bathroom has lots of storage space, plenty of counter space and a tub! We like having the rooms partitioned so that someone can be in the shower while someone else is getting ready by the sink.

That's pretty much the tour of our new place. We can't wait to get started with the decorating in September! What do you think?

Our First Place

I apologize for how slow I have been in updating the blog. Now that we are moved in to the new place, we are only two weeks away from our big European vacation. It's amazing how long a to do list can get when moving in meets arrangements for being out of the country. Anyways, before I post photos of the new apartment (in a very raw state), I thought I should pay homage to our old place. This was our first apartment together and our well-loved home for a year. It was cozy, at only 310 square feet and there were some doors that could not be opened while others were in use, but we made do and loved every second.

The "Entry"

More Than Loved: our cute little porch, seeing some of our favorite things when we walked in the door

Less Than Loved: the sketchy alley in front of our cute little porch, being able to see EVERYTHING when we walked in the door

The "Living Room"

More Than Loved: our cuddle-inducing couch set up, the beautiful blinds and floors

Less Than Loved: sleeping in a loft bed (or "upstairs" as we liked to call it), not being able to entertain many friends at once, doing my hair and make up in the living room

The "Office"

More Than Loved: having a little nook for crafts, my collection of cards, photographs and memories

Less Than Loved: having to duck to sit under the bed

The Bathroom

More Than Loved: the splashes of teal, our perfect towel and laundry nook

Less Than Loved: the tiniest shower in the world, having to close one door to open another

The Kitchen

More Than Loved: having everything within reach, an easy to clean kitchen

Less Than Loved: the lack of counter and cabinet space, the VERY outdated appliances, the paint and cabinet choices

The "Dining Room"

More Than Loved: tons of natural light

Less Than Loved: not being able to open our table all the way

We are very proud about what we were able to do with this place and we can't wait until we can dive into decorating the new one!

Alpha Xi Delta National Convention

Sorry I'm a bit late, but I'm doing some catch up here. As you might know, we just moved into a new apartment, so blogging has been thrown onto the back burner for a week or so. I would love to post photos of our new place, but the OCD in me requires that I catch up on my posts chronologically.

Anyways, a couple weeks ago I went to Atlanta for the Alpha Xi Delta National Convention. A lot of people are confused when I tell them this. They think that sororities are just for four years in college. The truth though, is that when you join a sorority, you join for life. Alpha Xi Delta is a lifetime sisterhood; an organization of women that works to support it's college chapters, it's philanthropic partner, Autism Speaks, and it's members... long after graduation. In fact, some women are even initiated into the sorority long after they've graduated college.

After two years of being a part of my college chapter of AXiD, I was very excited to get a national perspective on the organization. 500 women of all ages from across the country came to represent their chapters and alumnae associations and some, like me, just came to be a part of it all.

I had a bit of a rough flight into Atlanta and my first couple days there were spent recovering, eating room service food and gawking at the humidity. I shared a room with two collegiate sisters from my chapter, Jessica and Gina, so I had fun pretending I was the older, wiser alumnae. We also spent a lot of time with Taylor and Kelley from the nearby Theta Beta Chapter and I got a big kick out of reuniting with the many Alpha Xi Delta national staff, volunteers, council members and alumnae I have met over the last couple years.

On Thursday, we attended a National Initiation Ceremony, which is just like an initiation we would do in our chapter, except a lot more epic. I have to admit I teared up as we welcomed some new alumnae initiates, including our National President's mother!

All White for Initiation

On Friday, we attended the National Chapter meeting, where we heard the State of the Fraternity Address. It was amazing to hear about all the wonderful things Alpha Xi Delta has accomplished in the last two years and where we are headed next. Afterwards, we all set off to explore a little bit of Atlanta. Jessica and I are total Coca-Cola addicts, so we knew we had to visit Coca-Cola World. It was a blast, especially the Coca-Cola polar bear who was absolutely adorable.

Friday night we had the Awards Reception, which was held at the Georgia Aquarium. It was such an amazing venue with huge tanks on two sides of the banquet hall. One of the tanks had two giant Whale Sharks... the biggest fish in the world!

With Deanna and Her Presidential Bling

With Theta Beta and Julie

With Jenny

Saturday was the last day of convention and certainly the most memorable for me. The last banquet of convention is called the Rose Banquet. During the Rose Banquet they announce some of the most exciting awards, the current National Council hands over the torch to the new one, and they announce the location for the next national convention in two years. We were completely honored to be asked to sit with the outgoing National President, Deanna Detchemendy.

We adore Deanna. We are very lucky to know her pretty well since she has spent a lot of time working with our brand new chapter over the last two years. Lately, she has been visiting a lot to get things in order for a new house. She is a pretty big deal to us. We got to see her lots throughout convention, but getting to sit at her table right in the front during the Rose Banquet was incredible for us. I was sitting so close to the stage that I couldn't see the bottom half of people's face when they were standing at the podium!

Dinner was wonderful and we got to hear stories about Greek life from all the sisters and their husbands sitting at our table. The transition of National Council and the speeches from Deanna and Sandi (our new National President) were very emotional and touching.

At the very end of the banquet, they began to announce the location of the next convention. We were excited to find out where we would get to travel next. They started to play a video that went something like...

The next National Convention...

In 2013...

Will...

Be...

In...

SAN FRANCISCO!!!!

Our Reaction!

We absolutely stood and screamed with delight!!! I'm sure the three of us looked like crazy people! It was pure joy. As the video played scenes from San Francisco, we danced along to the music and smiled so big our faces hurt. San Jose is only 40 minutes from San Francisco and together with Theta Beta at Sonoma State, we are the closest two chapters. Along with the local alumnae associations, we will get to be a huge part of the next National Convention! We can't wait! After the announcement, everybody celebrated with Martinelli's sparkling cider and Ghiradelli chocolate. We couldn't contain our happiness. There could not have been a better way to end our first National Convention.

With Annie

With Our New National President, Sandi Edwards

With Gretchen

It was such a wonderful experience and I really can't wait for 2013!

Decoration Inspiration: Master Bedroom

We've been packing, sorting and planning for our new apartment for a couple weeks now and we are starting to get pretty excited. We want to try some new design ideas in our new place: bold patterning, industrial touches and introducing a lot more color. We've been selling some of our more monotone furniture and looking for inspiration for new pieces. With our new rent, decorating the apartment is going to be a gradual process, but we have some great ideas and projects to start with.

One of the rooms I'm really excited about is the master bedroom. I knew I wanted to go with a whimsical pattern behind the bed after I learned that Sherwin-Williams produces a line of removable wallpapers. Then, after I saw some features on Apartment Therapy about hot pink accents, I fell in love with the idea of doing two hot pink bedside tables. I thought Jake would never go for it, but he is completely on board. Here's an inspiration board I came up with for the room:

Ikea PS Maskros Pendant Lamp - $89.99, Kathy Ireland Grand Estates Easy Change Wallpaper #SW8EG5411 - $60.00, Lack Wall Shelf - $49.99, Cleo Table Lamp - $299.00, Hot Pink Side Tables - DIY Project, Ikea Nyvoll Bed Frame - $179.00