Puppies and 2015 Faves

Hello strangers! Wow, somehow it’s been 5 weeks! I’ve never gone that long without blogging and honestly it was a great break. Although I’ve had a few of you email and make sure I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, since I’ve been radio silent on social media too. Sometimes you just need a minute to quiet your mind, read a book, play board games with your kids and watch ridiculous reality tv in your sweatpants.

Oh, and also rip out all of the carpeting in your whole house… So, I guess it wasn’t all lazy around here! This is what our playroom looked like 3 days before Christmas, let me give you all a piece of advice: redoing your playroom 3 days before Santa brings you all new toys that need to be put away somewhere is not for the faint of heart!

The biggest news is we got a new puppy! His name is Charlie, he is a Havanese and he has us wrapped around his little paw. Somehow getting a new puppy turned into ripping out all the carpet, turned into a new couch, turned into redecorating basically the whole upstairs…I know, the Mr. is still scratching his head at how I talked him into this one too.

Let me back up a bit and talk about the heartbreaking part (and I promise if you are new here there is actual home decor stuff coming!) you may be wondering what happened to my constant sidekick, our dog Buddy. Long story short, Buddy had been having behavioral problems. Well, he had always had behavioral problems since the day we got him, but we had spent 2 years with different dog trainers trying to fix them. Unfortunately, he is just very high strung and startles easily.

He started snapping at kids a lot so we would crate him during play dates and then he started snapping at our kids too and finally this fall he bit our daughter. It was totally unprovoked, she dropped a piece of paper on the ground and it startled him and he bit her on the hand. It sucked. A lot. We were totally heartbroken, but it was time to find a calmer atmosphere for him to live in, one without kids for sure. Thankfully, we found a great retired couple who adore him and have been keeping us updated, and he is doing fantastic there. Which is great, but also bittersweet, because we still miss him so much.

OK, back to the happy part. After living without a dog all fall and winter, we couldn’t take it anymore and needed a little happy in our lives, so we found Charlie, who is super laid back and nothing seems to phase him. I think he will be a great fit with our kids.

Back to the carpet, it had to come out due to the fact that Buddy always peed on our kids toys in the playroom (which tells you something right there about how he felt about kids I guess) and we didn’t want Charlie getting ideas that the playroom was a great spot to go too, so out came the carpet…followed by everything else! More to come on this big overhaul in the coming weeks…

Now, if you are new here, which a lot of you are, apparently ignoring your blog for a month is good for attracting new readers? Who knew! Not sure what that says about me ha, but anyways, I thought I would share a few of my favorite projects from 2015 in case you missed them!

1. My new Wood Range hood was a popular one and I love how it has transformed our kitchen.

2. Our Master Bathroom Makeover  has lots of fun and inexpensive ideas and it feels so much more “us” now.

3. Oh, the Billy Bookcases in our upstairs hallway are a personal fave, I’m still loving flying around on my ladder up there!

4. 2015 was the year of painting everything grey, including the mudroom makeover.

5. And last, my red buffet table was a fun little makeover that still brings a lot of color and energy to our space.

I promise some new stuff coming up soon, but first I need to finish decorating my house for Christmas (again) for something really fun that I’m excited about! Although having my Christmas tree up from Halloween to basically Valentines day is making me feel half insane. As if that weren’t the case already :)