The Patio Furniture is HERE!

Well, after a call to Target, our patio furniture finally arrived on Tuesday. I had to hurry and put it all together before Robin came home because a friend was coming over to work on his car and the furniture arrived on a pallete. Um, wow. Didn't think that one through!

Yeah, we have the most random stuff all over the garage. I have given up completely. I don't even know what the majority of it is so there isn't much I can do with it.

Thankfully, it was super easy to put everything together. Robin and I moved everything to the backyard. This isn't the final arrangement but it will do until we have everything.

Max says hi!

I didn't care for the pillows that came with the set so I picked up some other pillows. I really like the Trellis pattern in Navy so I grabbed them and love them! Now I just need to put together the other side table, find a little table to put between the chairs, find a (cheap) outdoor rug, and find a cute planter for the plant on the coffee table. We also need to drag the plants that have been wintering in the house outside.

What do you think? Any recommendations on outdoor rugs? Anything you have in your outdoor living space that we should add?

The Brookwood Community

Yesterday, my mom, Robin, and I went to Brookwood Community for the day.

If you have never been to The Brookwood Community, you are definitely missing out! The Brookwood Community is off of I-10, past Katy, in Brookwood, TX. Here is what they have to say about themselves:

"Through the Grace of God, The Brookwood Community provides an educational environment that creates meaningful jobs, builds a sense of belonging, and demands dignity and respect for adults with special needs."

The Brookwood Community provides a place for adults with special needs to live as a community. The community members have many different jobs in which they can be trained, such as creating handicrafts, gardening/horticulture, and cooking.

The whole setting at the visitors center is beautiful. We had a fantastic lunch at the cafe (the food will blow you away...really fantastic!) then browsed the gift shop (which is gigantic, the picture at the top only shows part of it) and the gardens/nursery. My mom picked up a purse and a few bracelets while I grabbed 2 jars of jam (meyer lemon pear marmalade and papaya orange habanero jam) and this cool glazed concrete/ceramic ball:

We also picked up 2 houseplants, a clover plant and this really cool variegated plant:



I just stuck these plants near the window for light, though I do kind of like the clover right there. Now I just need to find a pot for it!

We also picked up a great plant that made us instantly think of Robin's mom but we'll be holding on to it until Mother's Day.

All of the plants there are obviously well-tended and the prices are very competitive. I can only hope that my black thumb doesn't kill them!

If you have a free day and are looking for something fun to do, head down to Brookwood for a great afternoon!

Countertops, Check!

Almost a week ago, our new countertops were installed!!!
We chose Black Pearl granite for our countertops. We like that it's black but not just flat black. It's almost a bit dark grey. Grey Pearl was a frontrunner but seemed TOO grey...this one is perfect!

The bad news is that when my dad went to remove the backsplash, he discovered that the builder had installed it directly to the drywall in such a way that required him to cut out the drywall to remove the backsplash. So, we have had open walls in the kitchen! It actually worked out okay because we decided to add lower and upper cabinet lighting so the open walls made hardwiring the lights much simpler.

Without further ado, here it is!

Please excuse the mess you can see around the edges. We are still living in a construction zone and to top it off, we just had a new kitchen table and chairs delivered. The dining room is the current staging area and I decided to purge rather than just shove everything back in the cabinets so it's still covered in kitchen items.

A better view of the granite color and a peak of the backsplash tile:

At my dad's recommendation, we had the corners of the bar area cut at a 45 degree angle. I'm normally pretty good at envisioning things but I wasn't sure. We decided to go with it. Afterall, he's seen way more of these things than I have. Robin and I agree that we are really glad we went with his recommendation. It helps distinguish the bar top a bit and makes it easier to walk around. I would had to be running into a corner all of the time.

I think this might be Robin's favorite thing in the kitchen: our new sink and faucet!



What do you think? Any recommendations for me?

Thanks for stopping by!