a Craigslist gem

January 28, 2014January 28, 2014 Rachel Atwell1 Comment

A few weeks ago, we started looking for a desk. It was time for G to have a designated place {other than our couch} to study and do his work.

I started looking online at a few of my go-to places for furniture, one of those being Craigslist. After about a week of searching I came across this table and emailed the seller {shhhhh, don’t tell G she called it a ladies desk}.

She replied to let me know she had someone coming to look at it and then I never heard back. Bummer.

Last Sunday I was ~~trolling~~ scrolling through again and the same desk appeared. I decided to email her to check if it was still available and to my surprise she replied that it was! The first person that was interested had been going back and forth with a time to come look, and luckily for me, she never came!

In the email, she let me know that the desk had some worn areas on the top. I told her I wasn’t to worried about worn areas since G would just be using it to study for seminary and that we might be painting it anyways. We then made quick plans to see it that night!

That night we met one of the nicest sellers on Craigslist. We chatted for a few minutes with her and her husband, looked the desk over, and got ready to pay. The desk was in great condition so we were ready to offer the full asking price but when we pulled out the money, she only took $20 and said she wanted to help us as G got started with school!

Now normally when you hear about Craigslist you hear of sketchy places and sellers {both of which I’ve encountered}, but this lady was a gem, and our new-to-us desk is pretty special too!

Around the House

the grass is always greener

January 21, 2014 Rachel Atwell4 Comments

When we moved into our rental property in December we knew there was one area that could REALLY use some work – our backyard.

Ha! Too bad that above picture is not our backyard. I wish! {keep scrolling for pics of our garden of eden}

No, when we peaked into our backyard it was lacking grass altogether but was {unfortunately} abundant in weeds, bushes that were feeling the effects of winter, and alot of dead leaves.

The space itself isn’t that large which we like since this is our first go around at yard maintenance.

With permission from our landlords, this past Friday we spent a few hours clearing the yard out. Gary removed the three large bushes and I tried to break up the ground and get rid of some of the weeds. After about four hours of work, we were finished of “phase 1”.

Even though its just dirt right now, it’s nice to have a clean slate! Saying goodbye to those bushes and hello to those blue skies doesn’t hurt either.

For now, we plan on planting grass and maybe a small vegetable garden. We’re also trying to remember that whatever we do in the yard we have to maintain since lawn maintenance is our responsibility.

Any tips for first time lawn-ies?

Around the House

function over form

January 9, 2014January 9, 2014 Rachel Atwell4 Comments

This past Sunday we bought our first piece of new furniture!

Since we’ve been married, we’ve picked up alot of items for our kitchen and a few things for the bathrooms – mostly all with wedding giftcards. We’ve also purchased a few of things from craigslist and thrift shops.

But since we’ve moved to our new home, our books we’re stacked high in the guest room. We needed a bookcase.

After looking at a few different places online, we decided to go with the Target Threshold Carson Bookcase in White. I also considered the Threshold Windham bookcase, but ultimately selected the Carson for a few different reasons – it had wider shelves {and an extra shelf!}, it was a little bit taller, and lastly Downton Abbey.

What? You don’t buy things that remind you of good characters from one of your favorite tv shows? Well, call me weird.

Our bookcase~~, Mr. Carson,~~ arrived yesterday morning so G had the after dinner task of assembling it. Once he finished, I started to “style” it with all the best tips I could remember from pinterest. And after a few shelves were started, I called it a night and went to bed.

And then this morning G looked at it and said something about it not having any books. haha, touché, Mr. A!

He was right though. As much as I love a “pretty bookshelf”, we had bought it because we needed space to store our books.

Sooooo, back to square one.

This time around, I’ll try to incorporate as many of our books while still balancing it with some of my ~~random~~ favorite pieces {I’m looking at you, ceramic cow!}.

How do you decide what goes on your bookcase?