Finally, another post! What happened to me?

Hello fine readers!

I was gone too long, shame on me. I believe life got in the way but boy do I have some fun stuff to share. It has been two months and lots of new updates later since I filled you all in.

What have I been up too?

Well, the last two months has been full of TONS of dirt delivered to help our new yard, partial landscaping, new dog pen for Finley, a new paint job on the screened in porch, a piece of furniture being recovered, lots of new decor and plenty more I am not registering with right this minute! I will get it all shared soon but today I would like to share with you my newly painted screened in porch.

For those that have a screened in porch, you all know well, how WONDERFUL it is! It has got to be one of the most enjoyable places if like ours, yours backs up to the woods and you can open the door on a cool brisk morning and listen to the birds chirp while your making your coffee to go enjoy on the porch.

When we moved in the screen porch floor was never painted, I could never decide on the color and then on top of that if needed power washing before we painted. Well, after power washing it hit me. My aunt is a very fun and creative DIY person and her porch is tan and white checkered board. BAM! I am such a RED girl, RED & WHITE CHECKERED BOARD IT IS! My aunt jumped right in and said let's do it, I will help! Little did she know I was the helper and she was doing it.. (haha!) It took a couple weekends, because of course, we both work but after 2-3 weeks, the final product was just amazing! I took pictures of the process and they are below. It is a time sensitive project because of coating and waiting for it to try in between but in the end, it was well worth the wait! :)

Note: I do not have a good picture of before the white coating but it was like a battleship grey color. This means, the first picture below is after we did a couple coats of white.

(Miss Finley enjoying the newly painted porch!)

She doesn't do well wiping her paws before walking on it with all of our dirt in the yard! Soooo ready for the hubby to get the grass seeded in the next few weekends!

Hope you enjoyed!

Morgan

Organization Wall.. complete!

It has been too long.

I have got to get better about this 'forgetting to blog' thing.

I guess I just like to share the fun, new things in life with you all and not the normal everyday life. I should share more recipes because that is something I do complete quite often.. new recipes.

This weekend I finally got my organizational wall complete. It has been weeks because I have slowly collected my items that I liked for the wall. I had the inspiration from Pinterest, of course. My wall turned out simple and a lot smaller than those I saw because of course, my wall fit for this project is small itself.

I found all of my items at Hobby Lobby over time. I actually completed this project for the actual name as well. I plan to use it to organize my kitchen. Brooks and I are so bad for laying out mail on the counter until we take care of it. Well, this is the new mail basket.

Funny part of this story is that, I am not sure if I have shared this with you all but I have found out Brooks is not the best for putting holes in the walls and hanging pictures, etc. We found that out after we moved in. His patience wears thin, FAST. Me on the other hand, I will poke holes all day long as long as he is gone and leaves me to myself to figure it out. Well, Sunday the hubby decided to go fishing for a few hours with the guys so I took advantage of him being gone! My mom and grandma were planning to visit and I just wanted to empress them with my new project.

Well, let's just say it worked.

I kept my patience and after a hour of pondering, placing and putting holes in the wall.... TA-DA!

Give a woman a drill, level, stud-finder, screws, anchors, tape measure and a pencil and then you take notes!

Take note: I was planning to frame the cute saying but my space just worked out better to use the items you see in the finished product picture.

We are already getting good use out of our organizational wall. Brooks came home from fishing and the first thing he said about it was... "what are the red baskets for? mail?" So, I probably will not have a problem with him not putting his mail in the there. ;)

Until the next fun project or good recipe;

Morgan

Master Bathroom Final Touches!

Hi wonderful readers! 

Can I get some sympathy for ladies who's husbands are not a carpenter? :) My sweet husband sure does try but boy does his patience wear thin FAST. 

Our most recent project completion (note: that took weeks because we both work full time jobs and have hardly any extra time between taking care of the home after working all day and at that point you just want to throw your feet up on the ottoman and chill!) is our master bathroom. I saw this awesome idea on another bloggers blog that I follow and I just loved it with the look of our house and what we have going on for a rustic look. I thought it was just perfect for the final touch of our bathroom.

Like I stated, I found this idea on another bloggers website and I wish I could link her here but I can not remember the website to save my life. I found it on Pinterest and Pinterest took me to her blog.

I bought the 2 crates from Michael's when they were on the sidewalk sale for about $13 each. (The inspiration blog of where I found the project said you can get them from Home Depot for about $6 each..our Home Depot went out of business so.. I had to go to option B.) They come unfinished and natural so I had to stain them. I used a brown that went well with our vanity so it matched pretty good. The brackets I used came from Lowe's (2 to a pack). (For some reason and I am not a carpenter ... but I needed more screws than what came with the brackets. They give you enough to mount the bracket to the shelf/crate but not to the wall so get extra screws because if you are like us and in a new house.. you don't just have those items freely laying around from building up your stock in hanging hardware! :)) 

After having all of your items and your crate stained, I centered the crates over the toilet and used sheet rock anchors since they didn't center into studs. It took double the time it probably would have taken a seasoned picture hanger but you know, this new house and project thing is new to us newlyweds! :) 

This was the picture I got the idea from:

This is how mine turned out and a glimpse at the master bathroom's finished look:

Shower Curtain: West Elm

Rugs: Target

Towels: Target & Bed, Bath & Beyond

Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Mrs. Grifin

Picture the final touch!

I have been begging Brooks to hang pictures since we moved in and finally, weekend before last.. (this past weekend we were at the beach! short, sweet, get away!) he decided to help me out! We hung pictures all afternoon and got majority of them done.

Sorry I have been slack on blogging.. not too many new updates but as they come I will post away!

This is in the living room. It is our signature tree from our wedding!

Much more updating to be done and decorating changes (especially this CHAIR! Ewww! not to mention it is HARD AS A BRICK!) but everything is from my college apartment for the most part. :) --hand me downs and collections from family and past years. :) minus my NEW CHOUCH!!

This picture is in the spare bathroom. It frames one of my favorite quotes of all time.

"When I was in grade school, they told me to write down what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They told me I did not understand the assignment and I told them they did not understand life."

Hallway picture: Our significant dates <3

This is a wedding gift from my mom that hangs in our dining room. Not a good picture at all! It doesn't look to be a good fit for this wall but for some reason it looks 10x better in person. Hmm..

And another dining room picture.. my bridal portrait. Brooks had all pickings for where this baby was going. I think he did good! He insisted it go in the dining room and not our bedroom but what is even more perfect about this is that it matches the dining room so much better than it would the bedroom!

I have made these and they are laying in my bedroom floor to be hung! These are going over the master bathroom toilet just as pictured here. I love them! I will add a bathroom update when they have been hung. :)

Not only Brooks and I are enjoying the new house but Finley is really enjoying the new house too!

More to come..Hugs,

Morgan 

Special blog for a job well done at my dad's house!

Good afternoon!

I have to share what a neat job my Dad did with his dinning room. He recently added onto his house and where these windows are now, there were 2 real windows that went to his side yard. His side yard now has a brand new bedroom in it because he got married and needed to add on because I gained another sister and a brother! :)

I had these 2 old windows at my house from our remodeling and he came up with this idea so he did not loose the illusion of a window or loose his window treatment he had above his windows. He cleaned up the old paint and had a glass shop put mirror in the panes. He hung them back in the spot of the window to keep the look of the windows still being there. He then hung his drapes right back up! Looks awesome! Go Dad! I just might have to borrow this idea somewhere in the new house! ;)

PS: You can tell he is still under construction by everything covered on the table but should be in the new addition by next week or so! :)

Happy "hump" day!!

~Morgan

Mexican night at the Griffin's was a success!

Good afternoon!

A few weeks ago, Brooks and I had dinner with some wonderful friends and the meal was amazing. Lesley made a Taco salad, I brought the re-fried beans and we also had spanish rice. Delicious! It was so good that I had to make it myself, sooner than later!

Last night my father and his wife stopped by to see the progress of the new house so I shared the Taco Salad treat with them. 

Taco Salad

1 large bag of Iceberg lettuce, chopped

1 bunch of green onions, diced

3-4 small tomatoes, diced or

1 large cucumber diced

1 lb hamburger - cook, drain & let cool

1 can of red Kidney beans

1 bottle of thousand island dressing

1 bag of red nacho Doritos

Mix well all but the dressing and Doritos in a serving bowl

Crush up Doritos and add to salad (may not use entire bag -- don't forget they get soggy so don't use all at once if eating at different times/leftover)

After crushed Doritos are added to the salad, add dressing to salad and toss.

Enjoy!

I can not forget to add that my sweet husband took me chair shopping Monday on our lunch for dining room chairs to go at my grandmother's table that seats 10. We had enough of standing and eating for 2 weeks! Check out the dining room's new look with the chairs. I did something out of the ordinary and mixed two types of chairs for a formal but simple dining room look. We bought 6  Neapolitan wooden chairs (I am sure they have a proper name but this is what they called them in the store) and we bought 2 skirted Parson chairs. Planning for 2 more of the Neapolitan chairs because this table will seat 10 with another leaf we have stored in the closet..

Before: Casual look. We plan to get two more of the wooden chairs and put at the end as well when we don't want the formal look with the skirted Parson chairs. We will move the Parson chairs to the corners of the room for extra seating!

 After: Still got to figure out a centerpiece plan!

PS: Don't mind Finley's dog crate and the pictures to be hung.. laying on top! :)

Note: Please bare with the terrible iPhone pictures. I need to get out the digital camera more often. You can not tell in this picture but the chairs have black backs and legs and a walnut colored seat. The fabric on the Parson chairs is floral with golds, greens, orangy-reds and a black back ground.. all my colors in a more formal look!

Thanks y'all! Happy Thursday!

~Morgan

We are in! 1st Kitchen Debut!

Good morning!!!

We finally got in and settled this weekend, thanks to wonderful family and friends! Brooks was actually called to work out of town Thursday which really put a damper on the big move. All in all, we got it done! Yay, for real friends and family! I owe them all, big time! Brooks came home to a new bedroom, with clean sheets and his clothes some what settled in. He also came home to every room put together except for the office, which has for the time being, become the catch all-haven't put up yet, room!

I want to share with you our favorite room of the house..........the kitchen! I am still tinkering and moving items around but for now, this is what it looks like!

Back door/panty door:

Our first morning, we opened this door to the back screened in porch, cooked together and had breakfast served out on the porch! We were in heaven!

We are so blessed. The wait was for sure worth it! More of the house to share, later! 

Enjoy,

Morgan