Place You Put Your Clothes

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

Despite having his and her closets in the master bedroom we didn’t have a place to hang our clothes for the first 3 weeks we lived in our new place.

The husband took out the existing rod and shelf from both closets the weekend before we moved in while we were painting the bedroom.  It took some brute force and a little finessing,  but in the end the closet lost it’s “builder” look.

Here’s a helpful video I found one how to pull out builder closets if you have questions. I made the husband watch the video and concurs with the process.

Then we used putty that goes on pink and drys white. This way we knew that it was 100% dry before sanding it down.

After puttying, letting it dry and then sanding it down we were ready to paint.  We used the Origami White to paint the inside of the closets.  The closets took a lot more paint than I ever would have thought of so we ended up having to buy an extra quart to finish it off. I’m not going to lie, we totally hit the ceiling in a couple places and didn’t bother to touch it up.  I mean really, who looks in your closet, up at the ceiling and then stares looking for slight imperfections – no one, therefore no touch-ups hahaha.

Despite being ready to install our new closet organizers, we hadn’t actually purchased anything.  I considered pulling the trigger on a ClosetMaid and a Rubbermaid closet organizer.  I was having trouble deciding on how to design the closets, which was very much impacting my ability to purchase anything.

Memorial day weekend we FINALLY pulled the trigger and purchased our closet organizers.  After delivery, installation and a little unpacking of the clothes we are all set up with his and her closets!!!

Here’s the thing, my husband’s stuff just doesn’t take up the whole closet.  AND since we don’t have a linen closet, my husband graciously agreed to allow me to put a few additional shelves in his closet for the towels, sheets and extra pillows/blankets.  So of course, back to the store we went to return stuff we didn’t need and purchased a few extra shelves.  Although I wish we had them installed prior to move in, I am absolutely loving our closet organizers!!

His and her closets are complete:

Happy home improvements!

Don’t forget to leave your tidbit by commenting and/or add Life’s Tidbits to your RSS Reader :)

Share

A DC Bride’s Wedding Dress with a Side of Buyers Remorse

by ⋅ 1 Comment

The title sounds worse than it is by A LOT, but I thought it accurately summed up the situation.  My husband will tell you I am one of those people who loves something in the store (or online) and then immediately second guesses my choices once the item is purchased and home.  For example when we got our dining room table chairs I obsessed about if the cream went okay with the beige/darker cream couches we have. I think it took a good two weeks for the buyers remorse to dissipate.  I love the chairs and think they look great … so seriously what was up withe the buyers remorse?

If it happens with purchases like a pair of jean or a chair, then clearly the buyers remorse would kick in for a wedding dress, right?

I started watching “Say Yes to the Dress” before I got engaged and once we were engaged I thought heck I will try on 5 or 10 dresses and find the one I want quickly.  Unfortunately I wasn’t a 5-10 dress kind of bride. I think I was probably more in the 30-40 range.  I would chalk a lot of that up to trying on almost any dress suggested so I could narrow down what it was I really wanted.

I tried on a lot of dresses before deciding on THE dress. The day I found my wedding dress I was with my MOH and one bridesmaid.  And just to make things interesting the dress I decided was THE ONE happen to be part of a trunk sale.  This dress was only going to be in the store for that weekend and then it would be packed up and sent to another bridal shop.  There was no way I was going to buy a wedding dress without my mother seeing it. The owner of the store suggested we skype with her, however while having lunch, my sister and I decided my mother should fly from Boston to DC just for the day.

Oh yes I am that crazy and thought it was TOTALLY appropriate to have my mother fly in Sunday morning and out that evening just to see the dress.  After some serious convincing my mother agreed to fly in for the day.  We found a “reasonably” priced ticket and the next day she arrived bright and early to do some dress shopping.  Smartly, she requested that we go to at least one other store so she could have other dresses to compare THE dress too.

We began at Hannelore’s and I tried on two dresses for her.  The first and the immediate favorite at that store looked like this:

Anne Barge, Style 612

The second, which I had liked the first time, but not loved got cut almost immediately. We quickly realized in pictures you couldn’t see the beautiful lace in the boddus.  It just didn’t “pop” to us.  Here’s the second dress:

Romona Keveza Legends 804 – Look at my sister in the background … how bored does she look. hahahahaha. It was because she knew it wasn’t the right dress!

After taking my measurements for the first dress and pretty much talking myself out of the dress my mother had initially flown in to see we headed to Love Couture.

They already had “the” dress as well as one other I had been considering ready for us.  I slipped into the dress and was grinning ear to ear.  As my sister had predicted while we were in Hannelore the Stephen Yearik dress was a better match for the look I was going for.  Here we are trying on the dress at the store:

Stephen Yearick

Two days later the buyers remorse kicked into high gear. I started pulling up the two dresses and comparing/contrasting them. My sister, the MOH, kept telling me I was crazy for doubting my initial decision. I waffled back and forth for the next few months. I started checking out second hand versions of the Anne Barge dress and seeing if I could afford (heck no!!) the second dress I liked as well.

In the end all the buyers remorse was erased when I went to the store to try my dress on the day it came in!  After the alterations, makeup, jewlery and all the other good bridal stuff here’s how it looked on our wedding day:

Photo Credit: Korie Lynn Photography

Thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me.  Buyers remorse be gone because on the day of our wedding I wouldn’t have wanted to be in any other dress!

Happy Dress Shopping!

Don’t forget to leave your tidbit by commenting below :)

Share

Bride & Groom Sweatsuits

by ⋅ Leave a Comment

One of my favorite things about my husband is he always says “babe we are a team”, which is his way of telling me we will get through whatever it is going on big or small together.  I think the team mentality is part of what makes our relationship so strong.  We referred to ourselves, long before we got engaged, as Team Bowen.

We would joke about wearing matching sweatsuits to brunch the morning after our wedding.  The plan was to get bride and groom embroidered on the sweatpants.  On the jackets we would have Team Bowen version 3.0.

Although it was always a joke, in the end we followed through with our plan and had sweatsuits made.  And let me just say I LOVE(D) THEM and so did our friends and family!!!

Photo Credit: My Dad :)

I bought my sweatsuit from Victoria’s Secret and then got his from Amazon.  VS is constantly running specials so I strongly suggest waiting for a sale like I did.

My husband was kind enough to run this very important wedding errand.  He took the sweatsuits to a local chain and worked with the associate to correctly place the wording.  He also successfully chose the purple colored string for my sweatsuit that was almost the same as our wedding color purple.  Serious props to my husband, because he made the perfect choices for the embroidery without my help!

I remembered to pull out the sweatsuits the day of the wedding and asked our photographer to capture a few professional shots.

Photo Credit: Korie Lynn Photography

Photo Credit: Korie Lynn Photography

If you are wondering about the 3.0 reference it comes from us both being tech geeks.  Think of the stages in our relationship like a software release. Dating version 1.0, engaged version 2.0 and married is our latest release.  I suggested to a friend who’s getting married this summer to do Established in YYYY instead of the “versions” for her sweatsuits.

It was nice to have something special to wear the day after our BIG day! I even wore the outfit on the plane ride to Italy for our honeymoon. :)

What do you plan on wearing the day after your wedding?

Happy Planning!

Don’t forget to leave your tidbit by commenting below :)

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Share