Counting the days.....

I am back from the dead and in the land of the bloggers once again! We've had a very eventful last month or so. Here are the highlights!

• David bought and learned how to play the banjo for Boulder on Broadway's summer production of the musical "Floyd Collins." A unique musical about a miner in the early 1900's in Kentucky. And great for David to get his first taste of life in the theatre. (In fact, after the 3rd show, David expressed his admiration for us crazy theatre actors and the energy it takes to do even a short run of a show.)
• David and I drove from Denver to Durham in 2 (yes that says 2) days for our house closing! Along the way, we got to see David's brother and sister-in-law and our a-DOR-able niece and nephew for a few hours break from "church butt" (the term used to describe the feeling in the rear after sitting for entirely too long.) We also got to see my extended family in Kentucky and have a wonderful lunch there! 2 days of driving + 13 family members seen = awesome for our spirits, not great for our butts. We were thankful to get to Durham and crash with an old friend of David's from high school and his wife and sister for the night.
• We bought the house!! That's right, folks, she's all ours! (Well, not ALL, but you get the idea.) We bought a house and sold 5 cds before 10am. Good start to the day, right? (If you want to buy a copy of said cd, you can do so HERE and see what all the fuss is about. :) ) We drove over and checked her out for a while and could not be more excited. Durham gave us a beautiful day while we were in town, too. All in all we had a great day--explored the area a bit, had lunch at this Indian restaurant right up the street (we were pleasantly surprised at the good food and great price for the lunch buffet), went to Lowes and decided on updating small things around the house (door knobs, light switch covers, outlet covers) to give everything a nice, new, crisp look. We decided to go with a dark bronze finish---we love chocolately browns anyways, and we are hoping to keep the paint in all the rooms nice and light to make the place feel bigger. We are hoping that the contrast with the dark covers and light walls will make for a dramatic and finished effect. We took our furniture measurements with us and taped off where we think we'll place the furniture in each room. I am SO glad we did, because a few things did not fit the way I was hoping they would when I drew out my floor plans. (Yes. I drew out floor plans for every room months ago. When you are daydreaming of a house and not in it yet, what else do you do?) We finished off the day with a bottle of champagne, classily drank from plastic cups, in our gazebo out back. (Side note--the gazebo is bigger than we remember it being! This means we can fit a circular table in there for eating, drinking, reading, etc. I am quite partial to this table on sale!!! Screening in the gazebo just got a LOT higher on my priority list. Awesome.) While out back, we realized we have a few trees that are just begging for a two person hammock between them. I'm digging something like this or this from World Market. We also got to meet one set of next door neighbors and their dogs! They were all quite nice and we look forward to getting to know them better.
• The following day, we did the normal thing for any young couple to do after buying their first house: we took an international vacation for 6 days. (We do know we are crazy, thanks.) We flew down to "the motherland" of Colombia to meet and hang out with a bunch of extended family down there (bringing our total family-members-seen-this-trip total to 34.) It was a great great time--I promise to write more on that in a later post.

When all was said and done, we were gone for 10 days that looked like this:

Day 1: Drive 14 hours

Day 2: Drive 14 hours

Day 3: buy a house

Day 4: fly to Colombia (travel from 7am-8pm ish)

Day 5: see the Catedral de Sal, hang out with mi abuelo, and meet a TON of great family

Day 6: spend the day sight-seeing with the aforementioned family in Bogota

Day 7: Fly to Cartagena (on our second attempt....we missed the flight we were supposed to be on. Oops.) Spend the rest of the day on the beach.

Day 8: More beach and a bus tour in Cartagena

Day 9: Fly back to Bogota and meet more family (on the other side of the family this time! How fun to meet so many great people!)

Day 10: Tearfully leave Bogota at 8am Mountain time and get back to Denver at midnight.

Day 11:.....go back to work very sleepily

We've stayed busy! How about you? Anyone else not want to see a plane again for a long long time?

Abrazos y besitas (hugs and little kisses),

Las VanderdelaCuadraHamm's

Mood Rings.....I mean, Boards

Greetings! All you Coloradans will know that it has been a dreary, rainy few days off and on here, and what better use of time than house-planning? I have a husband next door playing banjo (not my favorite instrument, but I am thankful he hasn't taken up the kazoo or the bagpipes...), a giant dog at my feet devouring a stuffed buffalo (I think she'll be very sad when she realizes she has killed him), and internet browsers galore open on my computer. I've done a lot of browsing, and am starting to formulate some ideas for color schemes and feels for the different rooms of our house. I've started wondering what the best way is to collect all our ideas in one spot--with all the details of working, gigging, traveling, buying a house and moving, I am afraid that if I don't write this stuff down, it might come leaking out my ears pretty soon.

I've been reading a lot about mood boards and am thinking about tackling one, probably starting with our bedroom since that is the room I feel I have the most well-formulated ideas for. We have a cute mint/seaweed green bedspread right now that I would like to keep that has a circle pattern on it of greys and dark browns (perfect palette to incorporate with the grey carpets but still have a good variety of color in the room.) I am thinking about incorporating some white accents into the room (curtains, maybe a mirror and shelves) as well as eventually restaining our furniture a nice dark chocolate color and building/buying a chocolate color headboard for our bed. Since there is a half bath connected to our bedroom, I am planning on continuing the light green/dark brown theme in there as well.

Our bathroom poses an interesting challenge, decorating wise, as the two half bathrooms are connected by the shower room. Here is an idea of the floor plan (NOT to scale) so you can see what I am talking about:

As you can see, you can walk into bathroom 1 from the hallway, go towards the back of the house into the shower room, turn left and enter bathroom 2, which is connected to the master bedroom. I am having a hard time figuring out how to make these rooms flow. I am kind of thinking of using a stencil for at least one wall in all three "bathrooms" for unity, and using the same color base paint in each and then doing a different color for the stencil to help it feel connected but also to not end up having a long, continuous, one color bathroom. Thoughts? I really like this one: Endless Circle Lattice from Royal Design Studio.

Well, that is it for today. Look for a mood board soon (and please leave some tips if you have any!)

With love (and the smell of wet dog),

The VanderdelaCuadraHamms

Diving into DIY?

So, as we are anxiously waiting for the house to close, I am immersing myself in home decorating and DIY blogs and loving it! I feel so empowered and am looking forward to getting my "craft" on. As I look through pictures of other people's houses and projects, I am coming up with my own "to-do" list. At the top of mine--you guessed it! Getting rid of those grey carpets and walls in the front room (see the previous post if you missed it) and hopefully even widening that door way into the kitchen to get some more natural light in from that great picture window--which we hear you can get a mason to help you do for around $100!

Thoughts? Feedback? We were pricing hardwood floors at Lowe's and think we can get the materials fairly cheap, and were mulling over the idea of trying to install them ourselves. Has anyone ever done that? We have no clue what is under those grey carpets--for all we know, we could just be looking at re-finishing wood floors that are already there! Have you widened a doorway in your house? Did you like the effect?

Let's hear it, peanut gallery! Any words of wisdom? Am I being too ambitious or can we tackle this ourselves?

Lots of love,

The soon-to-be-breaking-a-sweat-VanderdelaCuadraHamms

House Time!

Hello all! I am bad at this blogging thing, as evidenced by the lack of posts in the last few weeks. But the bog news to share currently is that we officially have a house under contract! We are scheduled to close June 15, meaning we'll have just over a month overlap of being renters and owners! The house is in Durham County--for those of you unfamiliar with the area, Chapel Hill (where David will go to school), Durham (where the house is) and Raleigh make up The Triangle (three guesses why....)

Here are a few pictures of the house. I am quickly coming to the realization that I have never really had to decorate a dwelling before--living in apartments for so long, there seems to be only so much you can do. The last time I painted walls was before David and I were married. (Love you, old roomies, but dark red in the living room and bright pink in the bathroom was probably not our shining moment, huh?)

So, I am reading up on some decorating blogs (which inspired me to turn to my own blog for thoughts and inspiration). My big beef with the house is that there is SO much grey in all the rooms besides the kitchen. That being said, there is a LOT to love about it! We are excited that it is livable from the get go, but excited to really make the place our home. So....suggest away! Any good tips for a first-time, low-budget decorator?

Front of the house--notice the covered porch and ALL the trees!!

Living Room from the front door---notice all the grey. It looks pretty bright in this picture, but don't be deceived.

Into the Kitchen from the Living Room. LOVE the openness of this room. I am thinking of keeping the yellow paint and white cupboards and adding some blue accents. Thoughts?

Closer view of the kitchen. It will be strange to have a microwave again, but I am glad it won't be taking up counter space!

OK folks. I am in love with this window. What a place to have a meal! This dining space and kitchen open up to the backyard:

That's right! We are on a 1/3 of an acre, and really do have that many trees and...

A porch AND......

...A GAZEBO!!! I think one of our summer projects will be finding a way to put a door on this and screen it in so we can sit out there with a bottle of wine and NOT be eaten alive by mosquitoes. I am also thinking of running a power line out there and putting light in. Thoughts??
There are more bedrooms (and the bathrooms), but here is just a glance. Notice the grey again in the bedroom. Our bedroom colors are pretty earthy--tan, brown and green. Until we can get around to redoing carpet, I am thinking about backing off of the tans and browns and going for greens and greys and silvers. Feedback?

Love to all, especially on this Good Friday. How wonderful to know, as we are embarking on this new journey, that Christ walks both the joyous route of Palm Sunday and the difficult trek to Golgatha with us all.

Peace,

the VanderdelaCuadraHamm's

The start of a new era....

Greetings, all! If you are reading this, chances are you are a valued friend (or at least a nosy one....) and you want to know what we are up to nowadays. If this is true, chances are (nosy or not) you know that David and I are not always the world champions at staying in touch and updating everyone on our lives. In the spirit of staying connected to so many great people, the VanderdelaCuadraHamm blog was born.

Our big news for this first blog post (and, admittedly, the motivation behind it) is to keep our loved ones close as we embark on a new adventure. This summer, we will be relocating from our lovely Denver, CO to the equally charming (and far more "tree-y") Chapel Hill/Durham area while David completes his PhD in Musicology. We just visited this week and truly love the area. While it will be a big move, we are excited to see what lies in store.

If YOU are still excited to see what lies in store, too, keep reading.....

love, the vanderdelacuadrahamms