SHELTER FOR TWO

This week has been so fast. Here we are and it is April 5th, a sweet Friday afternoon it is. As some of you may know, Jordan and my mother took this week off to paint the foyer, staircase walls, and upstairs hallway. They worked so hard Monday the 1st through Thursday the fourth to finish up. I commend them for doing such an excellent job.

With that being said I will walk through this week on what they have accomplished while I was away at work during the day. Monday - was patch cracks in the wall day. Boy, there were a lot of cracks. “Unleash the Cracken” the house did. So Jordan and mom drew out the cracks and made them wider for smoother patching. After they did this, they then used grout to patch the cracks. That would pretty much sum up Monday, since the patchwork has to dry. Tuesday -  was check patchwork and re-patch some, then wash the walls. Sounds easy, but… Have you seen the height of these walls? Wednesday - was prime the walls with Kilz. TWICE! Talk about an all day process. Thursday - was (drum rolll) Painting the Walls!!! Starting bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning they began putting up the tape around 6 am. Painting started not long after and continued till they finished up around 4:30. Whew! What a job! I am so grateful for their work this week. (Side note: The yellow color is formally called: Jackson Square.)

Next up PICTURES! Here are the completed project pictures:

This weekend Jordan and I spent sometime with Mom and Dad Avery. April 6th was also their Anniversary! Happy 39th Anniversary!!! We went to see Körner’s Folly again, my favorite house in North Carolina. If you haven’t been there, it is a great day trip to make to Kernersville, NC.  

Here is the website if you would like to see what it is all about: http://www.kornersfolly.org/ . If you are into Interior Decorating / Design and Architecture & History. You will love it.

Also, we went to Winston Salem… Jordan’s favorite place to go shopping. We had the chance to go to the Homegoods store. Jordan and I planned to look for a mirror and lamp to go in the foyer that would match our new Jackson Square color. Bingo! We found the perfect combo. Here is a sneak peek:

Also, we picked up the box candle holder and these two pictures frames. We have yet to put pictures in. Jordan cut some fresh flowers from the yard and viola! 

Jordan and I also updated our dining room “hutch - china cabinet” for Spring.

The second row of plates from the top were a gift from Jordan’s Grandmother. The dessert glasses came from Jordan’s friend Ed. The third row from the top were my grandmother Ruth’s set. They shout out “SPRING HAS SPRUNG”. The bottom row is an arrangement of canisters and a rabbit, bear and measuring cups.

Now something very special:

Jordan’s dad painted the portrait to the right for Jordan this year. It is the portrait of Jordan’s great grandfather Luther. This compilation is in our foyer, as you may have seen in the picture above of the foyer. This radio pictured to the left was Luther’s radio. Below are two photographs one of Luther and one of his wife. 

That sums up this entry for tonight. Hope all is well, thanks for reading.

Nikki :)

Jordan Here! Haven’t heard from me in a while, have you? Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and a good one it has been indeed!  We enjoyed a superb traditional meal prepared by my lovely bride, a corned beef  brisket cooked with potatoes, carrots, and onions alongside steamed cabbage.  We were joined by our parents and for dessert enjoyed a green velvet cake made by my mother.  It was truly a gastronomic delight!

But let’s, for a moment, travel back a few days… or weeks….

The day is February 27, the time, well never mind about that.  The important thing is that on this day my good friend from Boone delivered two ice covered rocking chairs to me.  I had been in a conversation with him earlier about our search for rocking chairs for our front porch.  ”You know what…” he said as he pondered, and that was that.

They were period, from the 1920’s, just like our house, smaller rockers, with flaking paint and a 1970’s addition of English Ivy designs painted on the backs. 

I brought the chairs home and was excited to sand and paint them. On March 10th I finally had a chance to do so. I spent a Sunday afternoon sanding the chairs and painting them both. By Sunday evening they were dry and ready to be put on the front porch and boy do they look great!

March 9th - a Saturday -  Laura and I were cleaning out the attic and I brought down the original arched windows that used to be installed in the attic. They were in desperate need of being cleaned, so I gave them a good scrub and cleaned the glass with glass cleaner and decided they would look great in the Dining room. AND THEY DO! Nikki and I were talking about hanging some artwork below them, possibly some cross stitch work she will do in the future.

On Saturday, March 16th, what a busy day, Laura, Nikki and I went to a bridal shower for Nikki’s god-sister. Came home and I got busy working on installing the porch swing to the front porch and trimming our hedges. Nikki and Laura sat on the front porch in the rocking chairs and cross stitched a while as I was working. Come evening time, I finally got the swing hung and the hedges trimmed, Laura went home and Nikki and I sat out on the porch for a while until the sun started to go down. It was a great way to spend the evening. 

I would like to share another something special with you. Nikki and I had the opportunity to get wedding portraits done at JCPenney thanks to her mother. We took the opportunity gladly and had an appointment scheduled for February 23rd. We recently got the pictures back. They turned out great! Here is one of our favorites:

That’s all for now. More to come very soon.

Jordan

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NIV

Today as I sat at my work desk, a song came to me by Plumb. I love when God uses songs - they just pop in my head at random moments and I have to say God you are amazing! He speaks to me in so many things. You may know it, it is called: God Will Take Care of You. It is sort of a lullaby, a beautiful tune.

“Be not dismayed what e’er be tide, God will take care of you, Beneath His wings of love abide, God will take care of you, God will take care of you, through every day, o’er all the way, He will care for you, God will take care of you…. “

So as life gets stressful and tough I want to remember to trust in Him. He is my joy, my hope and He is where my peace is.

The wreath Jordan and I made for my mom. She helps us so much with everything, we wanted to show her we appreciate all she does. Using burlap once again, but a lighter hue, beautiful spring flowers and berries with a handmade cross stitched heart button sewn in the burlap bow. Lovely!

After a hard day of working on the house, Jordan and I got crafty… As usual. We made a new wreath for our front door. Love the printed burlap we selected and I made a special cross stitch button “A” to sew into the ribbon. :)

Wednesday night, the 6th of February, Jordan and I went out after supper to buy more milk and go to Lowe’s (Home Improvement). We were in search of a resolution to an itty bitty problem…. Not being able to see who is standing at your front door can put you on edge when you hear a bang at the door. I am sure many of you understand this. We don’t have a door viewer, or as I say “peep hole” in our front door. We have a shiny brass door knocker and that is it. So basically, we have been walking to the front door blindsided. I had already brought this to the attention of my dear husband right after we were married and he agreed we needed a fix. A little story to get this started at how we finally came to be going to Lowe’s this week:

It was Sunday, Superbowl Sunday to be exact - February 3rd, Jordan and I - we don’t watch football, aren’t into sports - decided to watch Taken (the movie with Liam Neeson). Jordan had never seen it before and I liked it, so we borrowed it from my dad. We finished the movie a little after 10:30 and turned in for the night around 11. At around 11:30 we heard shouting very close to our house and then an EXTREMELY LOUD bang at the front door. We both sat up and were completely petrified. After a few seconds we reached for the phone and called my dad - he knows how to handle this stuff. CALL THE COPS. So we did. I asked them to patrol the neighborhood and told them what had happened. The police arrived roughly five minutes later. Finally we got the nerve to go look out a window - NO, we didn’t turn the lights on just yet.  There were FOUR cop cars outside our front door. FOUR! So I called my dad again and asked him if we should go outside and find out what was going on. He nonchalantly said yeah if you want to. Well we decided it was for the best and we’d better check and see what in the world was going on. We started on our way out - finally turning some lights on in the house. We went downstairs and I opened the front door and walked out on the porch and into the walkway and saw a man standing in our side yard. The cops were talking to him - we couldn’t hear about what. I decided that while this dispute was going on it would be best to go inside and go back to bed. Not because we were scared, but because we have to get up at 5AM to go to work the next day. We hardly slept a wink Sunday night or early into Monday morning. Needless to say Monday was a rough day. (Side Note: I asked my dad to come over to the house so he’d be there when I arrived home from work; I wanted him to check things out, and he did. He was over at the neighbors house waiting for me to get home. So I walked over to the neighbors after parking in the driveway and putting my stuff down. We chatted for a bit and then went back to our house - everything was good. Nancy and Bill - our lovely neighbors have a son-in-law that is retired from the police force. They checked with him later that night to see what had gone on in our neighborhood.) To get to the end of the story: what had gone on was this: a woman was trying to run away from her boyfriend and she was knocking on doors in the neighborhood. While she was scared - she scared us —- even more. We have good reason to believe that these people were our neighbors on the other side of us or had at least come from that house. When the police left, they took the lady somewhere else - so she was safe. (I’m supposing alcohol was involved, if I may.)

(Now it’s funny! Jordan said that Taken was a horrible choice in movie for that night and I have to agree. No more Taken before bedtime. Besides the Taken 2 we watched Monday night. My request - sorry. :) )

So no door bell or “peep hole” led to banging on the door and us being unable to see who was banging: which is why we went to Lowe’s on Wednesday. We did buy one of each. 

Saturday, February 9th Jordan and I went on a day trip to Lenoir and spent the whole day with John and Lou Ann. It was a blast. We got back pretty late and did not get a chance to do any house work.

Sunday, February 10th, Jordan and I were very productive around the house. After church we went grocery shopping, came home, and started working with the door bell. Unfortunately, the door bell will have to be worked on a bit more before we can get it to work. We may have to go with a wireless door bell. Which is okay, except for the chimes sound like the paging system in a hospital. Then we moved on to working on the peep hole. It was a success! Easy to install and only slightly too high for me to use. This weekend I am planning on finding a small stool to keep by the front door to stand on when using the peep hole. (Since there was already a door knocker on the door, and Jordan didn’t want to drill more than one new hole in the door, We moved the door knocker down to the bottom hole and put the door viewer in the top hole. Thus leaving the hole slightly too high for me to use.)

Voilà

Update on the Walls! Jordan has taken off the first week in April to work on the foyer/ staircase walls and hallway and my mom will be joining him.  I am so excited to see bright yellow walls in the coming months.

I will wrap it up here. Thanks for reading. Hope you have a lovely evening.

Nikki :)

It’s February 5th now and progress is slow but we are getting somewhere. Jordan worked really hard Saturday January the 26th scraping wallpaper off the walls. He has just about got all the foyer/staircase/hallway done. He is planning on taking a week off from work to complete the task…patching, sanding, priming and painting. We are hoping for that week to be in March. 

As most of you know we had planned a work day earlier in January, but the refrigerator that came with the house, may it rest in pieces, died on us, right after coming back from the grocery store. That same day we made a trip to Lowe’s and bought a new refrigerator and it was delivered the next day, on a Sunday. We didn’t think they would deliver on a Sunday, but were very glad of it, since our old refrigerator was full of newly bought groceries.We have had our new refrigerator for about a month now and have grown very fond of it. It’s very clean and kept so, also I think it gives us a little more room in the kitchen, or so it seems. I would love to get a roll-out island to put right beside it for extra space in the kitchen… something with a couple of drawers and a nice wooden top for added cooking preparation space. That would be lovely. Someday - someday! :)

Back to January 26th …

While Jordan was working vigorously on removing the wallpaper I was upstairs cleaning out one of our spare rooms. We are planning on making it into our art studio/craft room. I filled about two large bags of trash and have about half of the room cleared out. It has been a great undertaking.

Recently…

We have hung a bit more art in the house - two in the living room and two in the kitchen. Two of these paintings have great stories behind them. Most of all because Jordan’s father, John, painted both of them when he was a pre-teen/ teenager.

 Jordan’s grandfather was a minister; he was originally from Gaston County, which is where John grew up… in Dallas, NC. The first painting shown below is the peacock. John painted this peacock when he was 12 years old. He painted it with any means he could find - mostly model car paint and charcoal. He couldn’t afford a canvas - so this was painted on a piece of an old revival tent that he then stretched over an old revival sign. 

The second painting John painted when he was 16 years of age. It is called Los Colores De La Fiesta.  His parents had bought him an oil paint set, his first. He used every single last bit of the paint in that kit on this canvas. John stretched this canvas himself by using canvas fabric and an old church sign. If you flip over the painting you will see the times the church held service and John’s father’s name.

These two paintings are grand pieces of history and we are so excited to have them hanging in our living room.

I never imagined them matching our living room so well until the day Jordan brought them home from his grandmother’s house. It’s like they were painted to be in this exact room. It’s pretty amazing.

The other two pieces we have recently put up are not as grand and don’t have a great story behind them - but they look nice. :D

The one below I found on clearance at Target… not much to tell there. I love a good Target clearance and this one matched well. 

The second one hanging in our in-between room (to the laundry room and the kitchen) is a holder of many-a-thing…. like keys, sweaters, scarves, etc. I bought these individual hangers for Jordan the second Easter that I had known him. Jordan finally mounted them to a very special piece of wood that came from inside his great uncle Lamar’s barn in Dallas, NC. An interesting fact about this piece is that when i bought the alphabet hangers - they didn’t carry the “V” and they still don’t. Crazy, I know! So I ended up buying the “@” symbol and John painted the “V” for us. We think it looks even better than the rest of the letters. AND we are not biased - at ALL. :D

The weekend before my birthday - we had a birthday meal out in Hickory. We went to the Outback Steakhouse. It was a blast. After that we did a bit of running here and there. Then we went to go look at a piece of furniture one of Jordan’s co-worker’s daughter was trying to sell. A fainting sleigh - built of solid wood frame and woven seat. First we thought it was an antique - but we were misinformed and it was actually brand new. We were still very interested in it. It was a beautiful piece of furniture in the picture. We were on our way, not very far away from the sellers house. (Mom and dad followed in the truck, just in case we decided we wanted it.) Well, once we passed the very, very, very, very - EXTREMELY small town of Plateau, which no one had heard of, we started to wonder if we were headed the right way. Then we made it to the end of highway 127, leaving us at the beginning of a cemetery on a road named Hog Hill Road. Not a place you want to end up… if you know what I mean. We turned around - turned out we went the wrong way - - - very, very  much so. We were supposed to go to Bethlehem, NC. Instead we ended up at a cemetery. How ironic. I am pretty sure there is a Biblical lesson there.

We finally made it to Bethlehem, 45 minutes later, saw the piece of furniture and LOVED IT! So we bought it. Now it is sitting in our living room in front of the window. We are looking for the perfect cushion to go on it and then to add a few pillows after that. DREAM seat for readers!! I can just imagine it already… blinds open - sitting on the fainting sleigh reading a good book. How exciting. :D

January 22nd - My Birthday

My birthday this year was pretty epic. I got all of my presents early this year. Not sure how that happened. But it was nice. After Jordan and I got off of work we met at the house - he brought me flowers!! A lovely bouquet he arranged himself. Then we went to Nick’s in downtown Gastonia. IT WAS AN AMAZING MEAL!!! That might be an understatement. We both enjoyed it so much that Jordan made reservations for Valentines day. Can’t wait. If you haven’t been there yet and you live near by, I would highly recommend it. 

Up to Now

The past two weekends we have hosted dinners for our parents. This has to be one of our favorite things to do. Jordan loves to host and I love having family and friends over. It’s nice to have a full house. I got a crock pot for my birthday from John and Lou Ann. It is absolutely wonderful!!! I used it the first time for a pot roast… and the second time I made chicken with veggies for Jordan and myself. The third i tried something new Chicken Provencal. It was really good! Chicken, plum tomatoes, spices, fresh red and yellow peppers and fresh garlic. Oh! and Orange peel. YUM! I served it over angel hair pasta. I am excited to try new recipes. So if you have any that you want to toss my way - I will gladly take them. :)

I didn’t want to forget to mention these cute draft dogs! Jordan’s grandmother made these years ago and recently gave them to use. They are adorable and keep out the draft. We have two - one for the back door and one for the front door.

I believe that is all for now. Hope to have more updates soon. Thanks for reading. :)

Nikki :)

 

 

It’s January 4th, my word… How time has flown, it’s gone in the blink of an eye.
The Christmas decorations came down in two days! We were truly amazed at how that happened. If you by chance saw any of our Christmas decorations, then you too, would be amazed.

I had a lovely week and a half of vacation (seven days not including weekends); Jordan had two days here and there off, equaling four total. We spent the time with our families, and what a grand time it was.

The first married Christmas has come and gone and New Year’s too! We are truly blessed, I will confess it everyday. For 2013, no resolutions were made. We have plans to continue work on the house and spend as much time with our loved ones as possible. In 18 days I will be 26, it is some wonder to me how I became who I am, standing where I do. But I know it was God’s beautiful grace and my parents guidance and patience that makes me who I am today.

Jordan and I had our parents over for a New Year’s dinner: steak, baked potato and salad! It was terrific. After supper we all sat down and played a game, two actually… Fact or Fiction and Don’t Say It. I really enjoy playing group games with my family. I always was one for loving to play games. Of course Jordan won Don’t Say It and I cannot remember who won Fact or Fiction, although I’m sure Jordan can.

Jordan and I have been married two months and two days! Yeah, we are newbies and counting it all. Jordan brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Daisies - dyed blue! I love daisies. He knows this. He is a smart one, that Jordan. I would like to brag on him more because he is truly an amazing person, husband and best friend. He has me spoiled rotten and he knows it too!

This weekend, hopefully, we will begin working on the house again. The foyer is left to be done and also the upstairs hallway. The little bit of what is left of the wallpaper must come down and the walls must be “polished” a bit before painting… BRIGHT YELLOW! I cannot wait. O, how the pictures should be hung and the walls decorated. I am excited, very much indeed. While Jordan works on the wallpaper falling to bits, I am going to start working in our two spare bedrooms to clean them out… boxes upon boxes of stuff we have not touched in over two months. The question becomes do we really need that? O what fun it is the clean and throw stuff out. I actually like to do that. I am bad about throwing out lots and lots of stuff… Just ask my mom. If you want it, you better hide it. Haha. Well, maybe not that bad.

We have added quite a few new things to our living room - decor-wise. Pictures! You say? Well.. Okay!

Our new Ottoman:

New side table:

We have decorated the mantel for everyday….

Not sure if you’ve seen this chair (my chair, hehe, well that’s what I call it. It’s not new but new to us. Jordan brought it home one day, I was very skeptical but after sitting in it once, I fell in love. It’s so comfortable. If you ever visit, this is the chair to sit in!)

I may have forgotten to mention the laundry room. We have it decorated! In THEME! Yes! A themed laundry room!!! My word! Who would have ever thought of it. We have hung three pictures, a mirror and an awesome needlework created by my dear mother. We have placed our “Laundry mat” in front of the washer and dryer. Super cute, if I may say so. One day soon I hope to take the seashells we collected on our honeymoon and create a frame (and add a honeymoon picture to it) or put them in a shadowbox and hang it in the laundry room. (These pictures below are not the best quality, but i took them over a month ago… we’ve done laundry since then! Haha)

That is about it for now. I hope to post more frequently the next few months. Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. I hope you have a great evening!

Nikki :)

(I’ll wrap it up with a picture of our living room…)

Today is November 19th… time stops for no man, or ladies either!

A lot has changed since the last blog. The house for one is becoming a safe haven and place of rest… Well I’m not saying we are done yet, but we are closer.

Secondly, Jordan and I got married on November 2nd. It’s beautiful and amazing how love goes and grows, even more than you ever imagined it to. We are slowly - Jordan more slowly than me - getting into everyday life routine. I have found that I have settled in quicker than him with the morning routine of getting ready for work and coming home from work and making supper.

Our house - yes that’s it, Our House… Sometimes it still hard to believe it is really ours. Last night we were watching a movie in our living room, for the second time!!! And I turned to Jordan and said… We are sitting in our living room watching TV in our house!!! That’s crazy!

Now let me get to the updates and improvements on our humble abode, here it goes:

Jordan, myself and mom - but mainly Jordan - painted the living room our first week of marriage. BURNT BRICK.. or as my dad calls it the great pumpkin room. Okay Charlie Brown! :D

We bought some art from Target to go over the mantle. It really compliments the room. Also, last week we decorated the mantle… of course it will come down in a few days due to CHRISTMAS!!! Jordan calls it our Easter Mantle. We used flowers from the wedding and some pieces we already had in our possession. 

This weekend Jordan officially fixed the dishwasher by installing it to the counter and putting the floor piece back in. No more: HELP! The dishwasher is tipping out of the counter. I am so glad! :)

We also finally added candles to our lighting in the dining room. 

This week we will be preparing our house for Thanksgiving. We are having our parents over and Jordan and I are delighted. Also, Jordan is doubly excited to prepare for Christmas and all that decorations allow. 

We went to Hobby Lobby this past Saturday - bad idea! Haha. We went in for only a couple of Christmas items and came out with a cart full. Including these adorable ornaments… Owls are in, right? I love them. 

 

I have enjoyed making Jordan and myself supper and other delectable foods such as my homemade apple pie (our dessert) and the potato salad, which I made for Jordan’s Thanksgiving work luncheon that was today.

I suppose that is all for now. I will try to update later this week on Thanksgiving and maybe have some Christmas Decoration pictures! But for now I must go make supper: Spaghetti and garlic bread. 

Nikki :)

Today is October 3rd and as you can see I haven’t posted in a while. We are now down to the wire with time. It is officially less than a month until our wedding day. We are winding down on working on the house until after we are married. This coming Saturday will be the last work-day-Saturday at the house. With that being said I will now go back to September 16th in my time-machine….

When I was caulking and dangerous! (In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t caulk anything. Probably going to give it to mom. :))

See! I was right… mom is really good with a caulk gun. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Jordan spent some time on this ladder working on getting wallpaper off the walls above the staircase. 

He did this whole wall in less than 2 HOURS!!!! We have spent weeks on getting wallpaper off when all we had to do was get Jordan to do it in a couple hours. Don’t know what we were thinking! Haha

Great Job Jordan!!! :D Very proud of my sweetheart.

Now It’s Laundry Time!!!

Laundry room painting and fixing up… time, that is.

Mom and I selected this color for the laundry room because it was a supporting color in the kitchen tiles. Morning Breeze is the name of the paint. What better paint color name for a laundry room? I have yet to find one.

We taped, Kilz-ed and then began to paint with Morning Breeze! We also did the same to the cabinets, they were so dingy before we got our hands on them. Now they are fresh and clean!

 

Just for fun… I have a nail polish color called Absolutely Shore. It is very close to our Morning Breeze. I thought this pretty sweet. I wore it the same week we painted the laundry room. (Which was September 19th.)

A mini-break from the laundry room… because Jordan and I have the best / coolest neighbors EVER!!!

Our next door neighbor has many hobbies … one of which is building small houses / buildings. He built and gave this to Jordan and me as an early Christmas present!!! Complete with a leg lamp in the window!!! I love it!!! Cannot wait to decorate with it! It is absolutely amazing!!!! (Cannot use !!! enough. HAHA)

NOW… back to the laundry room…

As you can see the floor looks pitiful. We REALLY wanted to tile it. But when resources are low… where do ya go? (Singing that as a jingle.) PAINT! or LOWES! We decided to paint the floor with cement paint and add non-skid “sand”.

Two coats and the floor looked new again. The color we chose is called Beachcomber. I feel a theme a-coming. Imagine: a beautiful day at the beach in the morning. The sweet ocean air rolling off the tide moving in and out. ALRIGHT! Back to work! (Mantra: Vacation in less than a month…. I really need a vacation.)

So this is the laundry room… 

(A little fuzzy. Sorry.)

I started to put away some of the items we received at our first shower. Exciting!

We bought a micro-wave!!!! It’s kind of a big DEAL. YEP!

Oh, and Jordan, Terry and dad put up the last cabinet in the kitchen!

This is so pretty. I cannot describe how beautiful this is to me. A working microwave in the kitchen!

Words cannot express how grateful I am to my dad and Terry for installing the microwave and working on the kitchen lights this week (October 1-3rd). No, it cannot be words, it will be the hum of the microwave heating and the flutter of the lights and the shadows across the room they bring. I am truly more grateful than I can ever express. Thank you!!

The under the cabinet lights were hung and a pendant light above the kitchen sink this very week!

A kitchen almost complete. (Dishwasher will be installed this weekend and sink too and washer and dryer!)

I want to throw this in because it is a before (well the closest I can find to before pictures without being here all night looking through all of the pictures we have taken since April.)

That’s all for tonight. Thanks for reading. 

Nikki :)