We Are....

Penn State!

In case you didn't know, both Ben & I graduated from under grad at Penn State. And like most Nittany Lions, we have (and always will) a special place in our hearts for Happy Valley (what they call the town of State College, where the university is located). Nestled down in a valley, life is always grand in Joe Pa's town! Actually, most people probably don't know this, but we laid eyes on each other for the very first time at a PSU football game. Can you even image meeting the love of your life amidst 120,000 people? Well ok, the "love of your life" part was unknown at that very moment, but things did blossom a bit later that evening when we reunited at a party, thanks for our little matchmaker (and maid of honor ) Sara Beth!

So lucky for us, Happy Valley is almost exactly halfway between where my parents live in northwestern PA & where Ben's parents live in southeastern PA. Whenever possible we like to make it a stopping point as we travel between our two families. Our holiday trip home in December was no exception. Only this time was extra special because it was Mia's first time!

Check out the highlights.

Meeting the Allen St. piglets

Checking out the old stomping grounds
(aka the cool kids sidewalk that led to my old apartment)

For sure a McLanahan's sub

Meeting old Joe Pa himself....sort of

And of course, a visit to the Nittany Lion Shrine

Our visit was short (and cold) but we had so much fun, we've even chatted about going back for Fall a weekend trip......but probably not on a football weekend. It would be super fun to tailgate with friends and hit another game, but we'd also like to just hang out and chill in town which is pretty hard to do when the entire world is there too!

Snow Day Part II

Yay! Wishes really do come true! Today we had another snow day. Well technically it was more like an ice day, but it's all the same when you're stuck in the house!

At first I was a little bummed as I had planned a big trip to Mary Jo's to purchase some fabric for our guest room curtains (it would have been a perfect day to sew) but then I realized how lucky I really am. A 4 day weekend with my favorite 2 companions? How often does this happen? Almost never!

So I readjusted my priorities and got to work making the most of my day. Since I'm really trying to get on top of things in 2011, I began by paying bills, making phone calls and organizing photos on the computer. I bit the bullet and paid to upgrade my Flickr account so that now I can upload as many photos as I'd like, making it a whole lot easier to share the good ones with friends and family. Since the arrival of my new camera, I've been snapping away just like I used to (before it was stolen). I think I took about 500 photos while back in PA. They certainly aren't all great, but how can I delete photos of our family?

Take a look at Part I of our holiday in Pennsylvania, where we celebrated Christmas with the Finotti/Master family. It was great! We spent Christmas day with everyone together, just like old times. Mia got to meet her cousins and experience snow for the first time and absolutely loved it all. And of course we had lots of quality family time....and lots of good eats!

The whole Master/Finotti Crew!

Pa loves his Quickbread!

Who knew Christopher had a soft spot for kitties?

Our first white Christmas in a while.

QFT. (Quality Family Time)

Uncle Mark sharing some funny "Dadisms"

Our little family of 3.

Mia showing off her tricks!

Sadie Boo in her Christmas collar.

Could it be more socks?

I thought they weren't allowed on the furniture?

Sister & Brother

Our little snow bunny!

That's quite the cooler you got there mom!

Christmas in Pennsylvania Part II, coming soon...........

Snow Day!

I know, I know. I'm in trouble. With you. I've been a bad, lazy blogging girl. I'm sorry. I really am. I seem to have lost all forms of motivation over the holiday break. Sometimes I look at blogging like going to the gym. It's great when you have a schedule, but if you miss one day, it's sooooo hard to get back to it. This is what has happened to me....with both the blog & the gym!

Honestly, I've been thinking a lot lately about taking a break from this whole blog thing. Don't panic - not yet. I love the way this blog has become like a personal digital scrapbook. I dream of printing out all of my Travel/Guatemala blogs and making it a coffee table book for us. If you know of a resource to make a book from a blog without having to copy and paste every single post into a word document, please please please let me know. My original idea was to end this blog upon our return from Guatemala and begin a new one. And actually that still is my plan. It's that whole motivation thing that's getting in the way. Mostly the it's the physical layout of the blog that is holding me back. What should it look like? How should I structure it? And the worst.....what will I name it? Such big decisions. And I'm a terrible decision maker. Not like I make bad decisions - more like I just can't ever seem to pull the trigger. Ugh. I'd love to hear your opinions on the matter. Maybe they'll give me some motivation.

More for my sake than yours, I'm posing a list of "to-do" items for myself in 2011. Mostly things that have crossed my mind and I have aspired to do, but then never pulled the trigger. These days I seem to be overwhelmed by projects with the move & now fixing up the house. It's killing me. I really want to accomplish these things and hope to try me hardest to do so. I really really hope I can do it.

Krista's 2011 To Do List
1. Finalize & print out our Guatemala photo books
2. Create a new blog
3. Find someone to make our wedding album......after 6.5 years! Oh my!
4. Send in our extra wedding photos to make a Together Book
5. Dedicate myself to learning Photoshop
6. Organize design ideas into binders
7. Create an Etsy shop with my mom
8. Remake & print a few photo books (like our honeymoon & big vacations) that I lost when our hard drive crashed.....if there is any time left over!

What do you think? Doable? I really hope so.

Anyway, on to something more interesting for you. Our snow day! I realize I skipped right over the holidays and still owe you some "after" photos of the house progress. How about I dedicate myself to catching up over the next week or two? And you have my word that I will actually do it and not disappear again!

So all weekend we've been hearing about is the impending storm. Well as of 11:30 pm last night when we went to bed, there was not a flake in the sky, but schools were already being canceled. I know, I know.....we are so not in Colorado (or Pennsylvania) anymore! This morning though when we woke up it was like a winter wonderland with fresh powder covering everything! Of course Mia was thrilled (oops you haven't heard about her first encounter with snow yet - she loves it), so we hit the streets to play for a while, all three of us! Ben had to work from home due to the snow. I on the other hand did go into work but only stayed for an hour and then we closed up the store. In that hour we had 3 customers and negative sales! On the way home I stopped to pick up the supplies for our afternoon project. How could we let some extra free time pass without checking another project off our list.

Take a look at how we did our snow day right!

Um, a giant hole in the mudroom wall on the snowiest day of the year?

Nope! A doggie door!


A paint fight on our freshly painted living room walls?
Yep....sort of. I hate it, so I'm repainting it a cool white/gray instead of the too yellow white.
(And that's our new desk turned faux built-in that was delivered Sunday)


A personal chef in our very own kitchen?
I wish! Instead I made the most delicious tomato bisque soup ever.

(Thanks to The Brasserie Fireside Restaurant Jean!)

Here's to hoping there will be a Snow Day Part II!

Our alter egos

Ok, I know, I'm like waaaaay late on showing the "after" photos of the house. My excuse is that I've been too busy to pick up some memory cards for my new camera. But today I will. Sadly though (for you) we leave for Pennsylvania early tomorrow morning which probably won't allow for any photo taking until after we return in January. I know, I'm a terrible blogger these days. I'll try to be better in 2011.

So we're pretty excited for this trip. Not the actual 9 hour road trip, but the being home part.

Here are a handful of things we are looking forward to in random order.

• holding our newest nephew Joel Andrew (born yesterday!)
• playing with our other 4 nieces and nephews
• Mia's first snow!
• time with the cousins
• a Master family Christmas, just like we used to have way back when
• catching up with BJ & Mike
• spending some time with Pa
• a white Christmas (after a few years without!)
• warming up by the wood stove
• tomato bisque soup from the Brasserie
• baking cookies
• designing a bench for our mudroom
• getting the heck out of NC for a while
• play time with Sadie Boo
• Wendy Jo's cookies
• building a snowman
• the annual Lengacher family gift exchange!

There's probably a ton of things I forgot to mention, but as you can see we're going to be pretty busy!

And I know this is a terrible segway, but bring the topic back around to this post's title (Our alter egos), I feel compelled to share a little secret with you all. Back in PA (well, only in Lancaster) we aren't known as Ben & Krista. Sometimes we are Uncle Ben & Aunt Krista, but more commonly we are know as Farmer Ben & Mrs. Ben. Huh? Yep. The Farmer & his wife.

From the Berenstain Bears!

Some how one day one of the little guys got a bit confused about Uncle Ben sharing the same name as a character he watches on TV and the 2 personalities merged. Uncle Farmer Ben. Naturally the Mrs. Ben came along with it. If you don't recall these 2 from the books you read as a child, here's a great character description we found on Wikipedia.

• Farmer Ben, local farmer, neighbor, and family friend. Though good-hearted, he is not afraid to lose his temper when he feels things are unfair or not to his standards. He once hired Brother and Sister, along with their friends, to help with chores when he and his wife were about to lose their farm.
  
• Mrs. Ben, Farmer Ben's wife. It is hinted that she often tells Farmer Ben what to do.

I'm not so sure Farmer Ben's description fits the build since I can't even recall the last time I saw the real Ben lose his temper (although he is good-hearted), but that Mrs. Ben is spot on. Every good man needs a Mrs. Ben behind him, right?


Merry Christmas!! Hope your holiday is filled with love, laughter and lots of joy!

Obsessed: wallpaper

Although I've had paint swatches coming out the wazoo around this place for the past couple of months, I have secretly been obsessed with wallpaper (not paint) the entire time. Paint is great. It's so easy and can really change a room quickly, but it's solid (I suppose unless you go faux) and I love pattern. Of course the rest of the world (aka future home buyers) probably don't love pattern as much as I do, so paint is a smarter decision in that sense. However, we've been trying to come up with a paint color that would complete the look of our black and white bathroom and we just can't find anything that feels right. Perplexed, I thought "what ever will we do?". Ah-hah! Wallpaper. So I suggested it to the husband (prepared to hold my ground in a full out battle), but much to my dismay, he simply smiled and agreed. And life was good again in an instant!

I'll never forget how much we (or at least I) loved the wallpaper in our new house that my family moved into when I was in 5th grade. It was so much cooler than the paint and paneling in our old house. It gave the whole house a sense of sophistication (even back then I had a thing for design!). It was the 3 paper combo type where the bottom half of the room is one print, the top another with a border in the middle. My parent's room had it, my brother's room had it, the bathrooms and even the dining room, but my bedroom didn't and I oh so wished that it did! Over the past 2 decades (wow - I'm old) that my family has lived in the house the patterns have changed a couple a times, but wallpaper always remained, mostly because it is such a nightmare to removed. Now though, with each passing summer my mom painstakingly tackles the removal of our beloved wallpaper in room after room. Out with the paper and in with paint. And I agree, it is time to say goodbye. I suppose all those differing styles in every room did make for a bit too much pattern, but I sure did love it. I wonder if my parents loved it as much as I did? Miss you old wallpaper!


Now for our bathroom project we're not talking about that country kitschy border loving wallpaper that was running rampant in my childhood home, we're talking bold geometric all over pattern. Take a look a few of my favorites that I found while searching for "the one".

A wooded bath.

Oh Imperial Trellis, how I love thee!

My favorite blue with feathers and a hint of metallic.

Again, blue with metallic.
Loving me some bling!

Classic black and white.
Just like what we're hoping to achieve in the bathroom.

Flocked with a dab of color.

Kitschy, in a mod sort of way.
I love that crow, but will the next buyer?

My color palette inspiration for the back guest/craft room!!
(note to self to keep this guy on file!)

Now this is what I'm talking about!
Metallic gold & black, Hicks Hexagon.

This toned down version of Hicks Hexagon was one of the front runners.
(But the gold would have won if this was our forever home!)

And finally, our winner.

White with metallic silver circles.
Just the right amount of classic sophistication with the shot of fun we were hoping for.

We think it will be awesome over our new white wainscoting and a black baseboard, with a black and white hexagon tile floor. The sample has been ordered and now we wait to see if it works.

Tom Petty is right, the waiting is the hardest part.

2 rights & a wrong

Last week I gave a teaser post with some crappy images of our newly trimmed and painted walls and I know that I promised pictures as soon as the new camera was in, but you're just going to have to hold off for a few more days. Sorry!! Yes we did get our new replacement DSLR this week, but we haven't yet purchased the memory cards so there is no photo snapping at this house yet! Plus today is a yucky, rainy, gray day and everyone knows that photos are always better with lots of natural light. In the mean time though, let me tell you a bit about how our weekend has been.

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Let's start with the bad, just to get it out of the way.

Remember when I mentioned in my Lasting Loves post that we were having a custom corner desk built for our home office? Well yesterday it was both delivered and returned. Let me explain. We had hope to create some quality pieces that resembled Pottery Barn's Bedford Office System.

We found a local young guy with a promising portfolio to do the work. We met with him a couple of times over the past 2 months, reviewed the plans and he got to work. Unfortunately even after much measuring and discussing, the base unit pieces turned out way too big - like so big there wasn't even room for a chair!


But being the proper young southern gentleman that he is (he calls me 'mam and is only a few years younger than me), he promised to make the situation right. However, even after brainstorming solutions for nearly an hour we couldn't seem to figure out how to "fix" them to fit our space and still give us what we had wanted. Then it hit me. What if we didn't try to squeeze them into our office, but found a place for them somewhere else in the house?

In steps the unfinished master bedroom. We have been tossing around the idea of built-ins lining the walls where the slanted ceiling comes down. Even though it's the obvious storage solution for the space, we weren't so sure it was worth our investment (built-ins = $$$ & they have to stay with the house). But what if we pushed the end units together, slapped on some doors and added a continuous countertop? A piece that would fit into the space perfectly, but not be permanent. So that's what our "desk" is going to become, a faux built-in for the bedroom. Yay! Even though sleeping up there is eons away, I'm super excited to have the first piece of the big puzzle finished! And of course when it is finally delivered, I'll post it right here for you to see.

Now onto the rights.

We'll soon be delving into some serious tile projects at Casa Lengacher. We're planning to start with the mudroom. Then we'll move onto the fireplace & end up in the bathroom - and that's just the first floor. So considering that neither one of us has done any sort of tile work in the past (laying stone isn't quite the same), we decided it was time to educate ourselves, so we hit up a free class at The Tile Shop here in Charlotte.

We're planning on a matte black 2" hexagon mosaic with gray grout for the mudroom, like this.



And in the bathroom we're keeping it classic as well with a black and white 1" hexagon mosaic print, similar to what Erika did in this amazing Memphis home (scroll down to the first bathroom).


After a couple of hours learning the basics and getting our hands dirty, we feel not only prepared, but excited for our first tile project. I'll be heading back later this week to pick up the supplies.



And finally, we decided to try out another neighborhood restaurant, Loco Lime, after we both got a hankering for some authentic Mexican food.....if there is such a thing in Charlotte! We now consider ourselves in the "very experienced" category when it comes to most things Mexican, so here's how we rate it.

Authenticity: For a "New Mexican" restaurant we were surprisingly impressed with how right they got the Mexican part of things. The menu was full of real mexican dishes described just like they really would be south of the border. An added bonus was that the Spanish was written correctly - something that we've rarely seen, sadly!

Ambience: A bit too warehousey for us, the environment was lacking authenticity - except for the painted concerete block walls (but in Mexico they wouldn't even be painted!). There were a few cheesy sombreros, pinatas and throws that looked like someone may have made a weekend run to Tijuana, but as for "real" Mexican decor, this place had nada. We suggest they take a buying trip to the amazing artisan market in San Miguel de Allende or any touristic Mexican town for that matter, to add some authenticity to the place. Or if they'd rather, I'll go for them!

Taste: Good. Not great, but a solid good. I ordered Camarones ala ajillo (garlic sauteed shrimp) and it was tastely. Not garlicy enough for "real Mexico" but ok. Ben had a veggie burrito (with chicken). He said the flavor was nice, but the burrito was cold. There were several other items on the menu that we are interested in trying though, so we'll definitely be back. The beer list had some great options, and we both were able to have our favorites - Bohemia & Negra Modelo. We were even shocked to see tres leches (my favorite latin desert) on the menu and of course had to try it. Again, good but not great.

Hospitality: Our waiter was nice, friendly and made some helpful suggestions. He wasn't Latin and didn't speak Spanish (which would have added to authenticity), but overall he was nice & not too energetic, pushy or any of the annoying characteristics that a waiter can be.

Value: Of course the prices were like quadruple what they would be in Mexico, but we felt like we got a nice plate of food for the money. Ben would have ordered tacos, but when he saw that the price was $10 for 3 (mini tacos) he opted otherwise. Um, hello. In Mexico it costs maybe 30 pesos ($3) for 3 tacos - and they're good, real good. Again the tres leches really surprised us though. The slice was giant. Enough for 2 and even some leftover to take home.

Overall: We had a good experience overall. Good, not great. We'll definitely go back though and try something else on the menu and maybe even stop in for "All you can eat tacos for $10" some night.

they're gone!

Finally, finally, finally my drywalling & painter friends are gone - well almost, there are still a few touch ups to be done. The past week has not been fun for us. We've been living trying to live in a white plaster dust covered home. It went ok for a while, but when the only bathroom got ripped apart, we packed our bags and ran to our home away from home here in Charlotte, the Drury Inn. Mia was thrilled to be back at her old stomping grounds and Ben & I were so ready to get off of our air mattress. But now it's Wednesday and we're back, but this house is still wrecked and I'm not exactly looking forward to putting it back into a semi-livable state.

There was that one little catastrophe with the living room floors, remember? So this morning the painter (the responsible party) brought by the guy who is going to fix them. Turns out it's going to be more than just sanding them down and throwing on a coat of poly. He's going to need to redo the whole room. Stain & 3 coats of poly. That's 4 days of not living in the living room. I know in the grand scheme of things another 4 days is nothing, but I am so seriously ready to begin making this place a home and not just a big empty house.

The other little speed bump that we hit is with color. For the most part, we I made good choices, but again the living room threw me for a loop. In a moment of weakness, I freaked at how white the white was going to be and ran out for a creamier color (Benjamin Moore's Mascarpone). The floors were covered and I couldn't see any warmth in the room and I got cold feet. But when the samples went up there was terrible lighting (with gray skies for days) and I just couldn't tell. We himmed and haawed for 2 days and finally it was time to decide, so as a compromise we added 20% white to the cream and just went with it. Just my luck the gray skies cleared the next day, the sun came out and I of course, HATED the cream. At that point we couldn't do anything about it, so it looks like we'll be repainting in there. Plus the guys didn't do the crown molding in black like I had wanted. Ben calls it a miscommunication. I call it, they forgot. Oops. So we have to go back and do it ourselves too. And maybe even the hallway too. It's a custom greige that is too blah for me. We'll most likely wait to do it though until we open up the staircase in the spring.

So without further adieu, here are some sneak peeks. I haven't taken any official "afters" yet. I've been waiting for this guy to arrive. Finally after months of missing the one that got stolen, it has finally been replaced! I apologize for the terrible quality of the photos below. The point & shoot that we replace is nothing like the quality of the one we lost, even though it's the exact same brand & a newer model. Ugh!