New Apartment

and now the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the new apartment :) It’s come a long way since the night we moved in and our suitcases exploded- that was literally all we had!

This is what it looked like around Christmas time. We have given the coffee table a much needed face lift since then.

The wall above the chair is empty now because that’s where the projector displays. (If you’re thinking.. what projector? that’s because we forgot to mention that’s our alternative to a tv here! Hello 100” HD screen for movies and online tv shows, not to mention the biggest screen imaginable for playing the wii!) We left up the blue strings that held the cards at Christmas. They are currently boasting some Valentime’s cards and wedding invitations :)

Yes, in case you were wondering that IS a saarinen side table with the lamp and my laptop on it! It’s been loved a little but we don’t mind. We got it for an amazing price. It’s got a white base and a black/white marble oval top. Never thought we’d have marble toped furniture in our scheme but we really like it!

In the far left of the picture you can see another project for the living room. Right now it’s serving as the projector stand but eventually it will be where we keep wine and liquor- a little bar cart of sorts. We got this off craigslist for $30 and gave it a good steel wool scrub and a coat or two of spray paint.

Here’s the office/guestroom. the only thing it’s lacking is guest! Get over here and visit already!!

If you’re wondering where the dining table is- we keep it on our lanai. (Hawaiian for balcony or porch) We don’t eat every meal out there but it’s nice to have the option!

I’ve finally got my craft area set up, after some lucky finds with the table (It was free! It just needed a little paint love) and the Uten Silo we found on Craigslist for $20 bucks!! Would cost $400 new! We got this from the same person we got the Saarinen table from. The ABS on the front had yellowed quite a bit from sun or cigarette smoke, but thanks to my good friend Google, I found and mixed up a solution and now it’s much whiter than it was! Here are some of the projects that have kept me busy these last few months!

I saved this little drawer sample box from the office.

with plans of making it into this:

The mirror is from ikea (garage sale) it’s great because it has storage in the back of it so this area serves as my craft table and a place to do my make up in the morning! I’m happy to say that I took this photo last weekend and the table is still that clean! That’s a big accomplishment, I’m known to have a crazy messy crafting area, especially when I’ve been projecting. There’s nothing wrong with a little organized chaos- just so long as things have a place they should go.

In the bottom corner of the picture you can see our bed, yes my craft room is also our bedroom, but I don’t mind! It’s been so nice to have a real bed, when we first moved here this was all we had:

Why yes, that is an air mattress- you might recall here we learned our lesson very quick that air mattresses are not meant to be a permanent bed solution!

Hope you enjoyed the little apartment tour- we didn’t bother showing the bathroom, laundry area or kitchen. nothing special there!

Happy long weekend for those of you that get President’s Day off! I’ll be enjoying the day here at home, unfortunately John has to work.

Old Apartment

We’re coming up on four months in Honolulu, I can’t believe a third of a year has gone by already.  We’ve been working some this weekend on sanding down our dining chairs, getting them ready for some paint and new fabric! We thought it would be fun to share our apartment with you, and since we weren’t blogging much at the old apartment in OKC we’ll share that apartment first.

Our apartment was on the top right.

Here are a few before vs. after pics

living room/dining room pics above, guest bedroom pics below

Valentimes- the Whitaker Way

John suggest I change the spelling of the title to the way I actually pronounce it.. Yes i know it’s Valentine’s Day, but Valentimes just rolls off the tongue easier…

As I previously mentioned here this was our third fourth Valentine’s Day together. Rather than buy a bunch of gifts that America says show our love we opted to make each other gifts this year. Every year John hand makes me a valentines card, no chocolates and flowers for me. I’d rather get those randomly throughout the year, plus we keep a stash of dark chocolate around already.

So this year on top of the card John designed me this beautiful poster from a photo he took:

Looking past the words at the image- Fog rolling off the ocean- to me this image symbolizes that the rough times are past us, that things are changing. Last year was a really stressful first year of marriage. Not for our relationship, but from the hardships of John’s really demanding job, to losing his job and struggling to make ends meet for almost 6 months. We sort of lost out on that blissful newlywed stage and skipped right to the realities of life- bills, student loans, long hours and eventually unemployment.

Even though it was a challenging year I wouldn’t change a thing. We grew a lot this past year and learned that together we can overcome those struggles and we’ll be better because of it. We had no idea what was in store for us this year much less that we’d both get great jobs within a week of moving to Hawaii, find a great first apartment here and find ourselves with an abundance of time for just us. So in a way we are getting back all that time we lost.

I wanted my gift for John to document where we are literally and geographically without being tooo cheesy. I found thiswebsite where you can have your designs printed on fabric for a really reasonable price. So I pulled a few images and designs together and sent them off to be printed. In just over a week I got this:

After a little ironing trimming and sewing they were finished!

The back on the left is an image of Waikiki. This is the most famous view of downtown with Diamond Head and the ocean. The right pillow is just a wood grain, I’m really happy with how these turned out, I even mastered sewing a zipper into the seam so they can be washed!

I love that we were so in tune with our gifts this year, with both of them mentioning happiness. We’re feeling really blessed with this new opportunity and new year. We look forward to whatever is in store.

Happy Valentines :)

In honor of Valentine’s Day I hope you will all enjoy this little video as much as I do. It makes me tear up every time. So powerful :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Swa9CYgRk

Time flies when you're having fun...

Apparently that saying is true… on the way back from our hike yesterday evening we got to talking about Valentines Day- how we couldn’t believe it’d be our 4th valentines together.. which means I was wrong in our last post! It wasn’t 3 years ago… it was 4. funny that neither of us caught that until now. Ooooh well, be back soon with some before and afters and apartment pictures!

...the story of us. thanks in part to the SUPERBOWL

 

 

HONEYMOON