Young House Love

I stumbled upon a gem of a blog last week after I googled "backyard weddings." It's called Young House Love and it can be found here.  The blog is actually about DIY home projects but the couple who author the blog, Sherry and John Petersik, also chronicle their family life in Richmond, VA. Their backyard wedding was a DIY project in itself.  I fell in love with their story and they've also published a book and everything. Not to mention their decor style is near identical to mine (white brick! YES!). Swoon! Their latest post on their family blog is a trip to IKEA (hello!? I LOVE IKEA!). I am so happy I've found it and it'll be a great inspiration when Roy and I get our own place.

Speaking of which, after we shared our engagement news, the first question on the tip of everyone's tongue was, "When are you getting married?" Well, unless you were female, then it was, "Let me see the ring?!"  Roy and I both agreed that it would be best to have something next summer so that we aren't pressured to plan something this year.  We have a few things we'd like to get accomplished and planning a wedding is only going to make us stress out (and broke). Roy is not into the traditional ceremony and neither am I, except I do love the dresses and flowers part! Ideally, we'd like to get our own place and just have a huge celebration in the backyard. Finding and buying a place we both love could take awhile though.

Right now we're giving our young house love to this new rental property we picked up last September. It is located 5 units up from Roy's place and it was priced too pretty to pass up.  We originally planned to have it rented by the beginning of this year but Roy got super busy with work.  Now we've put a strict deadline of April 1st on ourselves (we already have tenants planning to move-in) so we are cranking this baby out.  Here is a sneak peek of what we're doing (or Roy is doing I should say):

Roy is amazeballs - he did everything in this bathroom

Painting in progress - by yours truly (sea foam green and skin color are being painted over)

I'll have before and after pics once the project is over. The upstairs is done and now Roy is working on the kitchen. I'll be painting because that's pretty much all I know how to do (oh, and fetching tools for Roy).

After this I'll hopefully pass my real estate exam (again), broker up and be able to transact our own deals. We're hoping to pick up one more before the year's out then focus on finding our own place.  Once we do, the real planning can begin!