Be sure to check out the Hous.Love.Dog.Blog Facebook page and LIKE it to see when I put up new posts! I am going to try to keep my personal facebook page as "blog free" as possible so as not to annoy all of my friends {mostly the males :)}.
I would really appreciate if you could LIKE the page and SHARE it if you like my stuff!
Here's the link:
https://www.facebook.com/HousLoveDogBlog
Peace,
Allison
Friday, October 18, 2013
The Dairy Barn: Picking our Wedding Venue
Last September we did not have a single wedding related thing planned. Oh, that day feels ages ago... In fact we were still deciding what state to have our wedding. You see, my dad lives in Charlotte, NC and my hometown is in a small town in PA, while Brandon's family is basically all in the Ohio/ PA area. Our first thought was to have the wedding in PA where it would be closer to the majority of our families and friends. But then, I realized how hard it would be to plan a wedding over 600 miles from where we live in Columbia, SC. Sooo, I started looking more locally. The one thing that was for sure was I wanted to have a rustic barn wedding. Both of us love old, reclaimed items as well as the outdoors so it seemed like the perfect pick.
Could you blame me for falling in love with it?!
We got to the end of our tour and started talking $$$ with the staff. And by $$$, it was more like $$$$, which was MUCH more than I was expecting. In fact, the price of this baby for an 8 hour wedding day was $3,000 not including chairs, tables, linens, etc which would cost a good $2,000 more with the company The Dairy Barn has a partnership with. My dreams were shattered. When imagining how much our wedding would cost in total, I was already planning on DIY'ing a lot of it and hoped that would keep us around $10K total for the entire wedding. At this point, I could not imagine how we could make it work.
Long story short, when my dad offered to help us out with the barn cost as well as the majority of the wedding, I would be lying if I didn't say B & I sighed a HUGE sigh of relief seeing as I still had not gotten hired by any of the positions I had applied for at this point.
Calling The Dairy Barn and telling them that we would take it for 09.28.2013 was the first gigantic step on our wedding planning journey and as great as it felt to have an amazing venue, at this point I knew we had a LOOONG way to go.
Peace,
Allison
.: If you like this wedding post, check out our Rustic DIY Barn Wedding tab above or click on the link!:.
So I researched and searched for a barn that was nice enough to hold a wedding and at least 130 guests. Who would have thought that it would be hard to find a barn with all of the Pinterest pictures of barn weddings, right?? ...Wrong. Barns are hard to come by. However, I was able to find one that was just a half hour South of where my dad lives called The Dairy Barn in Fort Mill, SC. Brandon and I made a weekend trip up to see the barn and meet with the staff and see my dad as well.
When we pulled up the gravel road and saw The Dairy Barn, I knew it was love at first sight. This was where we HAD to have our wedding. It was perfect. The upstairs level of the barn was open wood beams and needed no extra decorations to make it beautiful enough for a ceremony. And the downstairs was the perfect size for our guests as well as an awesome dance floor.
Could you blame me for falling in love with it?!
We got to the end of our tour and started talking $$$ with the staff. And by $$$, it was more like $$$$, which was MUCH more than I was expecting. In fact, the price of this baby for an 8 hour wedding day was $3,000 not including chairs, tables, linens, etc which would cost a good $2,000 more with the company The Dairy Barn has a partnership with. My dreams were shattered. When imagining how much our wedding would cost in total, I was already planning on DIY'ing a lot of it and hoped that would keep us around $10K total for the entire wedding. At this point, I could not imagine how we could make it work.
Long story short, when my dad offered to help us out with the barn cost as well as the majority of the wedding, I would be lying if I didn't say B & I sighed a HUGE sigh of relief seeing as I still had not gotten hired by any of the positions I had applied for at this point.
Calling The Dairy Barn and telling them that we would take it for 09.28.2013 was the first gigantic step on our wedding planning journey and as great as it felt to have an amazing venue, at this point I knew we had a LOOONG way to go.
Peace,
Allison
.: If you like this wedding post, check out our Rustic DIY Barn Wedding tab above or click on the link!:.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Fall Craftiness!
.....And I'm back! For good, I promise. It has been over two months since I last posted if you can believe it. Life took me on a wild ride these past two months and I am joyful to finally have the time and energy to blog again. In other news, we are MARRIED! Our wedding went so well and it was such a beautiful day. We couldn't have asked for better weather, venue, and people to celebrate with.
Another wedding craft I am reusing is one of the chalkboard picture frames I had made for the Bar Menu at the wedding. Basically, I just added a Fall quote I found on Pinterest and am using it above the kitchen cabinets to bring some appeal to that boring area. Pretty simple I know, but I think it brings a little more Fall into our home.
I will be posting a ton of wedding related posts very soon but for now I will give you a sneak peek with a picture one of our friends took during the ceremony.
 |
| Photo Credit: Jen Reyes |
Isn't the venue just spectacular?! And this was just the upstairs of the barn.
Anywhoooo, despite being MIA the last two months on here, I have been crafting like a crazy woman and since the wedding we have made a ton of progress in the house.
This last weekend, we finally purchased a full sized kitchen table with some of our wedding gift money!! We used to have this miniature specimen if you may recall...
And now we have this beautiful wonder of wood from World Market that can actually seat 6+ people with their plates unlike our old table where we could only hardly seat four people let along their plates of food. We do have a bench for one of the long sides as well (to seat 6 people), but we grabbed the wrong color at first so we still need to exchange it. The best part about our first big furniture buy for the new house is that World Market was running their friends and family sale so it was all 25% off!! Gotta love a bargain! Also, it is the Verona Dining Table Set if anyone was wondering.
And we finally got to break in the new table this past Sunday when we had our friends the Reyes' come over for the first annual Friendsgiving!
We prepared our stomachs for Thanksgiving with some turkey and all the fixings, carved pumpkins with their daughter Bella, and played some corn hole on our Wedding Corn Hole Set (a project I will be updating you all on with the wedding posts that are in the works).
So needless to say, I am in full swing for Fall. In fact, I had my first Pumpkin Spiced Latte of the season from Starbucks today which definitely got me in the Fall mood.
Okay, I know I promised some fall crafts!
Last weekend I updated a set of antlers I had gotten at a flea market on our Mini-Moon in Southport, NC. I had been looking for antlers for the LONGEST time and so when I finally found them, I jumped on it and bought 'em. I have seen some really nice looking painted antlers and some really NOT so nice ones (ie. tacky paint jobs). So I was set on making them look classic and chic. I used gold, light blue, and white to make this happen in a very similar style to one of my favorite bloggers, The Jolly James'. Here's my end result and I'm pretty psyched about how they turned out.
For now here are the antlers' new home on the window sill between the kitchen and living room. Once my brother brings the industrial style bookshelf he made us as a wedding gift they will have a permanent home below this window but until then I will continue to admire them here.
I also updated a tin container I bought originally for the wedding photo booth props. My goal with all of the wedding projects was to buy and create things that could be used or re-purposed in our home once the wedding was over. So while I bought this tin with the purpose of holding the photo booth props in mind, I also had the idea to use it as a s'more stick holder as well after the wedding! Especially now that it is finally getting cooler out at night, I am sure we will be using our firepit a lot more and this little bucket will come in handy!
Another wedding craft I am reusing is one of the chalkboard picture frames I had made for the Bar Menu at the wedding. Basically, I just added a Fall quote I found on Pinterest and am using it above the kitchen cabinets to bring some appeal to that boring area. Pretty simple I know, but I think it brings a little more Fall into our home.
Although I did this weeks before the wedding, I also have upgraded the front door from just the painted "F" to a full on Fall (or really any season for that matter) wreath.
It was actually very cheap to make, costing just around $10 to make. I got the vine wreath at Walmart for about $5. Then I got the flower stems at Michael's on sale for about $2 a piece. The burlap ribbon I already had on hand for wedding projects so all in all it was a cheap update that makes the front door look much more approachable.
Finally, since gold and chevron are some of the current trends, I updated the lamp shade next to our TV using an idea I found on Pinterest. Amy from The Blissful Bee had shared this cheap and easy way to update a boring lampshade here. So when I looked up at our tripod lamp from Lowe's with the boring off-white shade, I knew exactly what to use this idea on.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
No, it's not the most "finished" looking project I have made to date, but I do like the hand painted aspect of it and I have to say even though I was skeptical at first when I completed the lamp shade, it definitely has grown on me since.
Finally, since gold and chevron are some of the current trends, I updated the lamp shade next to our TV using an idea I found on Pinterest. Amy from The Blissful Bee had shared this cheap and easy way to update a boring lampshade here. So when I looked up at our tripod lamp from Lowe's with the boring off-white shade, I knew exactly what to use this idea on.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
No, it's not the most "finished" looking project I have made to date, but I do like the hand painted aspect of it and I have to say even though I was skeptical at first when I completed the lamp shade, it definitely has grown on me since.
Okay, well maybe they're not quite all "Fall crafts" so much as "crafts made in the Fall" but I think they are making our house look a lot more like a home.
It feels so good to finally have posted again and I can't wait to share our Wedding detes as well as a few room makeovers we have been working on. In fact, our laundry room is actually FINISHED so I will be revealing the before and after very soon.
Peace,
Allison
It feels so good to finally have posted again and I can't wait to share our Wedding detes as well as a few room makeovers we have been working on. In fact, our laundry room is actually FINISHED so I will be revealing the before and after very soon.
Peace,
Allison
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