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?

Around the House

pre-treating the stain {aka our laundry room}

January 6, 2014January 15, 2014 Rachel Atwell6 Comments

One of my January goals included organizing our laundry room. This is why.

My apologies if that hurt your eyes so early in the new year.

I try to follow the rule that everything in your house should have a place, but unfortunately, things in this room haven’t found there place yet.

The room itself is about 5.5 x 6.5 with half of the space occupied by the washer and dryer we purchased in December. It also has upper shelving along the back and left walls.

My overall goal for this room is to make it as functional as possible {bonus points if I smile upon opening the door instead of screaming}. With those things in mind, here is my to do list for the room.

move small bookshelf into the room for extra storage
move all laundry and cleaning supplies to bookshelf
move miscellaneous kitchen items on left shelf
setup over the door ironing board
adjust the way the dryer door swings open
purchase/make some type of art for the room
purchase glass jars for detergent and oxy clean

Are you organizing anything in the new year?

Around the House

decorating for our first Christmas

December 18, 2013January 15, 2014 Rachel Atwell7 Comments

As I write this, I am wrapped up in a blanket {we’ve yet to turn on the heat}, sipping some hot chocolate with a giant marshmallow, and staring at this view.

Ahhh, Christmas.

I was so excited to decorate for our first Christmas! The only problem – our move fell on December 4, so we had to wait until after our move was complete to purchase our tree and decorations. Booooo. Imagine me feeling like a scrooge when our house had nothing but a wreath on the door for the first 9 days of December.

As it turns out though, it was worth waiting a few extra days because we got some beautiful things – and memories – to begin our Christmas collection!

The Monday after our move, we ventured out for some lights, ornaments, wrapping paper, and a tree.

We found a local tree stand less than a mile from our house and brought home our first Christmas tree!

As for tree decorations, we kept it pretty simple for the colors – golds, silvers, whites – and used just a little over 50 ornaments. Our tree topper is actually an ornament that G carefully placed and made it look like a topper.

I also made one ornament, which has still yet to be placed on our tree. So far its my favorite.

It’s a basic glass ornament with one of our wedding invitations inside. I cut up one of our wedding invitations {white} and envelopes {gold}, “curled” them, and placed them inside the ornament. Now I just have to find some string to hang it.

Another favorite? Our stockings!

Finding stockings that we both liked, weren’t too expensive, and are somewhat neutral was alot harder than I expected. But when I found these and showed them to G after he got home from work last week – we made an order! I’m thinking of getting our monograms in white, but may wait until next year to see if I really like the idea {but let’s be honest, when do I NOT like a monogram;)}.

First Christmas | Atwell Adventures 7

Speaking of white, you may see some white peeking out of the base of our tree. We still haven’t found a tree skirt that we love so right now, we just have one of our white quilt underneath, which actually kind of works and G says looks like snow:)

I love to look at our tree all lit up – especially at night. I only wish we had a pullout sofa so we could sleep by it!