Things That Happened in 2012

Happy New Year to you all! The holiday season is now officially over (finally)! I don't know about you, but I have a really hard time functioning during December. Maybe that's why I've been MIA pretty much since Thanksgiving. But now that everyone will be returning to their regularly scheduled lives I can breathe again. Don't get me wrong, I love the holidays and enjoyed them, but when you work at the mall you just can't wait for it to be over. Anyway, I wanted to kick off the year with a little year in review post. Lots of them have been popping up in my feed and I just want to be like everyone else. And they look like a fun way to put the year in perspective. It's so hard to see all the progress you've made when the's always something else that needs your attention. Ok, I'll shut up now, here we go!

 

In January we were enjoying some warm and toasty showers thanks to the new hot water heater we installed just days before Christmas. Thankfully this year we did not have any sort of stupid emergency and were able to blissfully ignore our house this year.

 

 

... and I introduced you to the closet that would eventually become our dry bar. Try not to get too jealous of this lovely shot.

 

 

In February we took a trip to Florida and stayed with Matt's dad. We were basically taking advantage of Matt going there for a work conference and I just tagged along for the weekend.

 

 

While we were there I found my first seashell ring and an obsession was born.

 

 

March was when I really got back into a regular schedule of posting so there was a bit more going on. I put a bunch of string on an old lampshade frame. That was pretty cool.

 

 

I made some macramé plant holders for some string of pearls plants we had.

 

 

I hosted a lame Instagram photo contest that 4 people participated in (3 of which are IRL friends) . Lets just stop talking about it.

 

 

Oh, and the dry bar project was kicked off with my first ever mood board!

 

 

April brought a serious craft fail (over on my friend Jenna's blog), which turned out to be a Pintrosity win! So there's that.

 

 

But I didn't let that ugly DIY dress keep me down, no I did not! I made a pattern using painters tape and made it into this cute little number. That's right, I sewed a skirt from another skirt.

 

 

Matt and I took another little trip pretty early in the year, this time to the magical land of Santa Fe! It was fun and I'd like to go back there again.

 

 

Oh, and I found more seashell rings!

 

 

In May the dry bar got some fancy new shoes in the form of some tile floors and some cabinets from Ikea. That was the first time that it started looking more like a cool place to serve drinks instead of a lame place to store your crap.

 

 

Since it was spring time in the Rockies we made a trip to the local nursery to find some new plants and some grass seed. Yep! We started grass from seed.

 

 

Speaking of plants, we also got some cute flowers to pretty up the back "yard".

 

 

Then I decided to throw Matt a birthday party a mere week before his birthday. Upon a quick evaluation of our house's ability to have guests, I decided that the bathroom on the main floor was seriously lacking. I spent a day painting over the worst shade of orange ever. Then a quick little pluming upgrade to the toilet and it was ready for use.

 

 

I think the smell of wet paint may have triggered something because I was suddenly possessed to not only paint the studio, but stencil 3 out of four of the walls. Crazy town!

 

 

The stenciling took a while but I finished the room in the begining of June. Oh and if that weren't enough, I painted the ceiling too.



 

At this point I was jumping back and fourth between the dry bar and the studio. Installing a countertop seemed like the logical next step. I created a template out of foam core board. Cut some Ikea butcher block down to size, stained, and finished it. All before being able to install it.

 

 

July brought the summer edition of the unofficial Pinterest Challenge. I whipped up an arm rest wrap side table thingy. It's actually come in really handy.

 

 

We also took our annual family trip with Matt's family. This year we made our way to Ouray, CO. It's called the Switzerland of America.

 

 

While we were in Ouray, I bought some beads that I turned into a Swarovski inspired necklace.

 

 

After our trip we started working on the floor of our loft and hallway. We ripped out the pee stained (it wasn't us!) carpet and then started the wood floors. The floor plan made this hard wood instillation a little trickier than most rooms, but once we got past a few obstacles it went fairly quickly.

 

 

And then since I hadn't had quite enough stenciling in my life I stenciled a wall in our stairwell.

 

 

Then it was August. Since my studio was no longer a black hole of creativity I really wanted to keep things moving along in there. Without storage a studio is just a weird room, so I installed some Ikea cabinets. And because I had to keep the cabinets in the studio as cheap as I possibly could I created my own cabinet doors out of pine boards.

 

 

After finishing them I wrote what was probably my most popular post of the year, how to get this stenciled stain look.

 

 

Then I took a trip to Seattle to meet up with Matt for a weekend of fun. We saw the space needle, the og Starbucks, but my favorite thing was the Market. So many beautiful flowers!

 

 

In September we finished the wood flooring in the loft.

 

 

Which led to installing a million bunch of small pieces of baseboard to finish off the drywall between all the spindles. It was a super lame project but it did make a huge difference.

 

 

I also wrote my first ever guest post for Lizzie at The Hip Soirée. We have since become Internet stalker friends. Some day we'll meet in real life and it will be awesome.

 

 

With things really moving along in the dry bar we added a back splash and then decided on how to finish the top half.

 

 

Installing some floating shelves, a large statement piece, and accessorizing really brought the bar together nicely.

 

 

With the bar nearly complete I started the decanter light. I still have one more decanter to add, but it's looking pret-ty awesome!

 

 

For the finally quarter of the year we installed a bettle kill pine mantle...

 

 

... and I made a bent wood tree star. Yep, that's it.

 

 

Ok, I think I like this year end review thing. It makes me feel pretty good about all the things we've accomplished. Now I just need to get back to my tree skirt and stockings.