The Knot and The Nest

Coming home from the wedding weekend, Sam and I were overwhelmed with what still needed to be completed in order to get our lives back to "normal" again. We had to return borrowed items, return duplicate gifts, set up our joint bank accounts, clean up after unpacking our wedding weekend suitcases, write our thank you notes, take our clothes to the cleaners, get my dress preserved, and all the other chores/errands that would naturally occur without the wedding weekend (laundry, dishes, dusting, paying bills, grocery shopping). We still wanted to relax and enjoy our "high" of newlywed-hood, but life must go on, right!? We had to return to work. We had to part from each other at some point. We could not live in the wedding weekend forever. One week out now, I wanted to share some pictures and reflections from our weekend and week after!

Here are some pictures from the wedding weekend . . . just a few that will remind me of our amazing friends, family, and time together:

We also had to complete our home project - most of which was finished weeks ago, thank goodness! But, just the little odds and ends that needed to be completed were still there waiting for us. The thing about moving on past tying the knot is that the house/nest is still there waiting for you to start building it, repairing it, bringing love and joy into it. The next goal of our relationship is to continue to build and develop a home full of rich tradition, love enough for us and our extended family, open doors to our friends, and comfort and nourishment to provide later to our children. To start all of that, we decided to add some room to our living space, change up the lighting in the kitchen, and add a few touches with some new lighting fixtures in the dining room. What a project!
Here are some pictures of before/after:

This is the picture looking in from the kitchen to the wet bar. Sam and his dad demolished this entire wet bar in one day (I took the first few swings with the sledge hammer, though!)

The picture above is taken from the other side of the wet bar, from the den/TV room area. The jutting counter top made planning for our TV room difficult, and we never really used the wet bar anyway! Say good bye counter!!




Next, it was time to remove the cabinet/sink and the tile floor where the wet bar was, as well as pay a plumber to cap the sink pipes:



Then, Sam got right to work on putting the dry wall up to close up the doorway into the kitchen:


Getting closer!! It was now time to start painting and re-texturing the walls in the den area! This was the biggest part I helped with - even with a painful back! :) We were a great team:



Of course, we have a very high vaulted ceiling, so Sam got creative with how he wanted to paint the highest corners and spaces at the top of the wall/ceiling:




The kitchen wall was also painted to match the rest of the kitchen which we painted blue two summers ago:

The sheet hanging was to help prevent dust from continuing to settle in the kitchen. There was dust for days after demolishing the wet bar counter. . . I don't know if we'll ever fully get rid of that dust!! Eesh!

Then, we tore out the carpeting, and hired installers to put our bamboo flooring in. They had to lay a layer of cement down before completing the project:



And, the finished product looks something like this when the room is empty:


The last image here is taken from the living room looking into our new "media" room! Yes, Sam installed surround sound, and the TV is now in place, across the room from the comfy couch and our Ketubah hanging above the couch:



So, with new lighting, a new room, and the satisfaction of having done almost all of the remodeling ourselves, we have a new space for us to feel at home in! I know we're not done with all the remodeling we want to do, but we're at a good stopping point for now! Can't wait to have more friends and family over to entertain in this room. For now, we're enjoying relaxing (finally, after the wedding) together on the couch or playing Beatles Rock Band and singing our hearts out!