The other day as the sun was going down I snapped a few pics of my favorite spot in the house. Bury me here when I die. #succulentheaven 

XO, 

Brittany

Oh hey. It’s me again. The worst blogger ever 😌… Anyways, I’m back to share some before and after pictures of the fireplace. The mantle is all spruced up for Christmas and I actually had 5 minutes to spare to take some pictures! We still have to add hardware to the drawers, redo the black metal part of the fireplace, and clean up the inside. (Also I need to put a picture in that frame already #indecisive) well, here they are! 

BEFORE

   
 
AFTER

We plan on making this a little seating area with maybe a love seat and a couple chairs and a big area rug. What do you think?! Love hearing from you guys as always and thanks for being patient with me! 

XOXO, 

Brittany

This year we hosted Thanksgiving in our home. It was a beautiful, sunny, cool day. Here are a few pics! Hope everyone had a wonderful turkey day 🙂 

What a blessing to have so many wonderful reasons to be thankful. 
XOXO, Brittany 

Well, it’s been almost exactly one year since we purchased this home of ours. What a year it has been. When we started I think I was convinced I’d never take a hot shower again, much less, see a finished room. Our lives over this past year have consisted of work, work and more work. We have done so much! We basically tore the house down to the studs and rebuilt room by room. We are still working on finishing up the existing bedrooms, then we are moving on to splitting the giant back room of the house into two rooms. Half will be the living room & book nook area and the other half will be our master bedroom and bathroom. After than we will begin work on the exterior of the house, at least that’s the plan for now. Back to the reason for this post! Our kitchen is finished! (Ok there are still a couple tiny things left to do but I’ll keep them to myself since most likely you guys won’t be able to tell 😉 I, of course, will start by showing you some before pictures then move on to the afters, but if you are anything like me, you have probably already jumped straight to the after pics. Hope you enjoy! I apologize in advance for a few blurry pictures 🙂

And now….!!!!!

Here are a couple side by sides for comparison. These pictures were taken from standing in the same spot

This was the kitchen before tear out and, of course, the finished product

I always love your feedback! What do you think?! Stay tuned for the dining area/ fireplace update!

P.s. In case you didn’t know, this is what we do for a living! (Custom cabinetry and counter tops) you can check us out on Houzz, Facebook and Instagram. Links to all three can be found HERE on our website.

xoxo, Brittany

Apparently I met my allowance for pictures on the last blog post so here is part 2! 

I honestly don’t remember which night we went to Pacific’o first (we ended up going twice because we loved it so much.) the food is farm to table (or ocean to table) and they have an excellent wine list. I got the special which was Seared Ahi and I also got the special drink of the night, a delicious Starfruit martini. Here are a few pics from the first night we went to dinner there

   
    
   
Day 6: 

The boys went golfing while us girls enjoyed massages in the beach cabana and the pool afterwards. Here are some pictures Ben took while golfing. 

   
    
 
Day 7: Cabana day #2 before we flew out at night

   
    
   
Thanks for following along! This week I am starting a cooking challenge of sorts (a challenge because I NEVER cook) I am following the “month of dinners” in the September issue of Real Simple. I am hoping to share a little  on the blog about it. We will see how it goes! Also the backsplash in the kitchen and fireplace are almost completely done so I will be posting about that soon! 

XO, Brittany 

Last year right before we went to Hawaii I started my blog! Can’t believe it’s been a year already. I have not been very consistent about posting thanks to our house that is very much a fixer upper! I hope to post more this year than last. We just got back from Maui on Friday and I figured I’d share some pics! This time our friends Megan and AJ joined us. It was a lot of fun having friends there to do things with! We stayed at The Westin Maui Resort and Spa which is located right on Kā’anapali beach which was stunning. I’d say that was my favorite part about the hotel. The location. The frozen cocktails  were all pretty yummy too. However the pool and rooms were not my favorite, over all though it was a nice stay. We did all of the touristy things that people do in Maui of course! We snorkeled at Mokule’ia beach, watched the sunrise from above the clouds at the Haleakalā Crater, drove along the Road to Hana, hiked to waterfalls, visited Ocean Vodka and Maui Wine, and of course relaxed by the pool and beach. Hope you enjoy these! 

Day 1: Before Megan and AJ arrived Ben and I woke up early and explored the hotel a little and then decided to drive around. We stopped at Mokule’ia beach which did not disappoint. The water was stunningly clear and blue. We saw several bright colored fish and turtles just while walking around and decided that we would have to come back and snorkel. Afterwards we decided to keep driving along the same road we had been on, which turned into one of the scariest drives ever. The road is called Kahekili Highway on Maui’s west side. Basically it is less than a one lane road with traffic going both ways on the side of several very steep cliffs. Google it. I didn’t get any pictures because I was too busy white knuckling my door handle. 😂 we eventually stopped and got super yummy smoothies and then some amazing homemade banana bread. The view from the smoothie bus KIIINDA made the drive worth it.  This first pic is the view from our room. 

    
    
    
    
    
    
   
After the scary drive we picked up Megan and AJ and relaxed by the pool for the rest of the day. 

Day 2: Snorkeling at Mokule’ia beach. We saw 3 eels, 3 turtles, lots of colorful fish and several different varieties of sea urchins

Day 3: Sunrise at Haleakalā crater and Road to Hana 

The sunrise was beautiful no doubt but it was very misty and we only got to experience the beauty for about 15 min before the clouds rolled in. (We were inside the clouds at this height.) I got a couple of pretty shots and on the way down the crater I got a few more. Then we drove the road to Hana. The black sand beaches were the best!

   
    
   
   
   
The Road to Hana

   
 
   
   
   
    
    
    
    
    
    
 
Day 4: Cabana day at the hotel pool and some pics before dinner

   
    
   
   
    
    
   
Day 5: Ocean Vodka and Maui Wine tours

   
 
   
    
    
    
    
 
See blog post ‘Maui part 2’for the rest of the pics!

Hello! Here are some pics of the curb appeal progress! I spent the day landscaping the walkway. (Actually I spent the day sweating, but some landscaping got done in the process 😅)

Before:

After!

In case anyone is curious, we had to choose plants that could handle a lot of heat and a lot of sun. Also we didn’t want anything to grow too tall here and block the sunshine from getting in the house. The tall lime green ones are called Foxtail Ferns, the blueish green ones are Juniper, the red flowers are Pentas (yay butterflies!!!) and the small green ones with tiny purple flowers are called Mexican Heather. What do you think? Love hearing from you guys! We still have a long way to go but each step is so rewarding. Ps Happy Father’s Day!

XOXO,
Brittany

Here are some new progress pics from the exterior. We really really dislike the paint color so needless to say, that will be changing at some point. The first order of business however were a couple of retaining walls. There was a wall filled with dirt and a few palm trees that was built along the entire front of the house. And behind that wall was the walkway up to the door blocked in by yet another wall. Really bizarre, ugly, and what’s worse, the walls were causing water to pool up against the house. NOT GOOD for the foundation. Also the walls prevented light from getting into the dining area and kitchen. (That was my main reason that the walls HAD TO GO.) Below are pics of before, during, after and then at the very bottom are pics of our inspiration for the final look.

Now the “during”

And the “after” (at least for now! We’ve still got a long way to go!)

You might notice that one of the windows in the front is different than all the others, we are slowly changing them out to make them all match and Impact. (Gotta love fl and our hurricanes, impact glass windows are much safer and eliminate the need for shutters) We will be getting a new from door with some sort of windows in it. We’re obviously going to do some landscaping along the walkway and house, also we’re adding a sidewalk from the driveway to the door.

Here are some pictures of the final look we are going for. We have a metal roof (one of the best perks this house had when we bought it) and we love the white look with the metal. We want to do cedar shutters (just for looks ☺️) and we will wrap the posts in cedar or something like it. The walkway up to the house is brick and we are going to cover it in some sort of stone.

We had the palm trees that were in the retaining wall moved to the front of the yard near our front fence. They look really nice there, my dad says they give the house a “grand entrance” 😄… So what do you think? I love hearing from you guys! Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

XOXO,
Brittany