Home Improvement 2008

Dave and I went on a home improvement spree last weekend! What started it was receiving a dresser Mom had down in La Jolla (from the Raleigh house) that she generously offered up to us. We have converted it into a bar, which forced us to actually assess our bar (and especially wine) situation with new eyes.

WOW.

So here is the "before" picture.


Yes, that is wine on the floor

I feel like it was one of those situations where we didn't even realize how out-of-control it was until we realized how much better it could be!

We hit up Ikea for a wine storage solution that could fit in our hall closet and are THRILLED with the outcome!


New wine storage solution in the closet - yaay!

The new bar is just perfect for us! We love the piece, as well as the lamp she gave us and the new plant we bought this weekend too.


Ahhhhh....much better


We can finally serve a drink from the bar!

And let's play "eye-spy"...we have some of our favorite spirits on top of the bar in the picture above. Maker's (my dad's fave), Tanq (regular and 10...for Dave), and....what's that in the back? Only the BEST alcohol ever invented (I know...big statement). It's Sweet Tea Vodka, made by Firefly out of Wadmalaw, SC. The drink tastes exactly like sweet tea! We add a little Simply Lemon lemonade to make an Arnold Palmer and voila - delicious. It isn't widely distributed yet, so Dad and the NC Girls have been kind enough to keep my supply flowing by bringing bottles with them every time they visit! I feel like they are drug dealers, but I get all worried if our supply gets low! Yes, it's that amazing.

We have more improvements, such as a new nightstand for me from a neighborhood furniture store where Dave has been dubbed (by me) as their #1 Window Shopper (we look and look, but have never purchased anything). We also bought a new lamp and a new beautiful handmade rug from India. We have to wait a few weeks for that one, but we are thrilled with the new purchases! One final improvement is that Dave, poor guy, never had a dresser in this apartment. He's been living out of a half of our hall closet with this weird cabinet that was included with the apartment (we think it used to be a kitchen cabinet). We never realized we could REMOVE this piece - we thought it was a permanent part of the closet. We took it out this weekend, got Dave a real dresser to put in the closet and he is a NEW MAN! For those of you who are apartment-dwellers, you can appreciate how creative you have to be to "fit" into the space you are renting. No knocking down walls, no removing fixtures...heaven-forbid you paint anything...so these minor improvements are major to our life! The only things left on the honey-do list are a new dresser for me and a new console for the TV...eventually!

We love this apartment and hope to be here for a long time ("long time" is a relative word when you are a renter...anything over a year is considered retirement-quality!). We are 1 1/2 years into this one...I came across this mock-up that Dave put together when we first moved in:


700ish square feet of bliss