Richmond Related

400

Bowers In Da House

Posted by
October 28, 2011

I promised more Bower visit deets on Wednesday when we dorkily spilled the beans that Katie B and I had been together in a series of photos that can only be described as awkwaaaard (get to the root of that joke here). You know we love a good Bower Visit Breakdown (like this one, this one, this one, and this one of yore). But before we get to all the stuff we did together, we’ll share the little video that we made for ya. Because KB and I always get the same few questions:

So we thought we’d answer them all on film for ya. Warning: you’re about to lose 12 minutes of your life to two giggly girls who incessantly say the word “like” and perform incredibly terrible impersonations of each other).

When it came to the stuff that we did together this time, here we go:

In summary: good times. Katie even used her photog skillz to take some sweet pics:

So thankful for good friends, good weather, and sweet babies. Er, I guess they’re technically toddlers now. Sniffle. Did any of you guys hang with friends this weekend? Or have a weird feeling that KB and I were together? One commenter totally guessed that we were visiting each other while it was happening and we had no idea how they knew about it (maybe they’re psychic? or they saw us around town together?).

Psst- Check out Katie’s sweet post about everything. She even dug up our first email exchange. Love that lady.

A Day In The Life, Caught On Video, Richmond Related
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292

Gone To Pot

Posted by
June 21, 2011

Our (continued) indecision about where our vegetable and herb garden should permanently go at our new place means we missed the boat on planting anything this spring (check out our edible gardens of years past here and here). But in an attempt to grow something this year, we’ve come up with a temporary solution. And it involves this galvanized tub:

We figured we’d just do a potted herb garden this year, with only a few “edible essentials” for our kitchen. Which is why we picked up a foursome of local and organically grown herbs (parsley, oregano, basil, and mint) at the farmer’s market this weekend for $12. Speaking of which, you can read more about our trip to the market on BabyCenter today as part of their “Big Day Out” this Saturday.

But back to the tub. It was about $8 at Lowe’s (way cheaper than any planter of that size) and to turn it into our herb pot, we figured it could use some holes for drainage in the bottom. They were a cinch to make with my little cordless drill.

To make them a bit bigger, I also wiggled a big nail around in them too. Oh yeah, and I made the holes in a heart shape. Maybe I was feeling romantic? Maybe I was subliminally professing my love for galvanized tubs? Or it was an ode to the L in YHL? Either way, this photo is about the most any of us will ever see of it.

Update: A few savvy commenters recommended that we test for lead just to be sure it wouldn’t leech into our food if it was randomly present in the metal. We just used one of those $4 Lead Test Sticks from Home Depoton to test the seams, the inside, the outside, the bottom, and even the holes that we drill and it was negative. Whew. So that’s definitely something to test for if you’re not sure how pure your galvanized tin is (and you’re using it for edible herbs)!

Also for drainage, we put a layer of gravel on the bottom (they were leftovers from the patio project). Hopefully they’ll keep the majority of the soil from dripping out of my hidden hole-y heart.

Before adding any dirt, we did a quick “dry run” of the herb placement. The taller guys (basil and parsley) went in the back, and oregano got some special space on the side – since my oregano tends to get bushy. Yeah… not so sure I like the sound of that last sentence.

Of course, if things do well (i.e. grow big and strong) this tin could soon get a bit cramped. But hopefully we’ll achieve “full” and not go as far as “so full it’s bad.” But if so, we can always transplant things into their own larger dedicated pots. You know if anything gets all diva on us. And we’re keeping the mint from spreading like crazy by separating it in a buried pot (a tip we learned a while back at the farmer’s market from a friendly local gardener).

You can see dirt in the bottom of the pic above. That’s some organic potting mix that we snagged at Lowe’s. It was about twice as much as the regular stuff ($10 vs $6, I think) but we figured since we’ll be consuming these plants it was worth going the slightly more natural route (since they were organically grown up to this point).

We usually would use our nutrient rich compost pile, but since moving our DIY compost bins got a little jumbled while we got settled so we don’t appear to have enough “ready” soil to use just yet (aka: things are still breaking down).

Here are the plants all in and soil-ed up:

Since the patio (which also got a bit soil-ed, as you can see) isn’t very sunny, we decided to put the pot on our balcony-to-nowhere (right off of our living room and kitchen). Despite being between two sections of house, it gets a remarkable amount of light – almost the closest thing to full sun that we have on our mostly shaded property. Plus it’s pretty darn convenient to the kitchen.

The beauty of having our herb “garden” potted this year is that we can move it around to test other sun spots if we find that this one isn’t doing the trick (since we’re still trying to wrap our heads around sun patterns here). Heck, it might even help us decide where to put a more permanent garden next year (gotta find that sweet spot). And if we decide to keep this potted version around, it’ll still look good on the larger deck that we plan to build out here eventually. Maybe even as an oversized centerpiece on an outdoor table?

And since no herb garden story is complete with an artsy close-up of your plant labels – here we go!

If you’re wondering, Colonel Oregano is not some weird variety of oregano. It’s just me being weird. I decided it’d be funny to take our simple popsicle stick labels and give them the Clue-character treatment. You know like Miss Scarlet and Colonel Mustard? Here’s my whole cast of made up herbs / suspect names. Yes, I’m what Sherry’s dad likes to call “a strange bird” (he’s also the man trying to single-handedly bring back the term “sick puppy”).

Next year if we decide to grow peppers it will be tough deciding whether to give it the “Sergeant” or “Doctor” title. Though the idea of a Dr. Pepper plant sounds pretty awesome, so maybe I’ve already made my decision.

What are you guys growing this year? Anything sprouting up particularly well or deliciously? Anything not showing as much promise as you’d like? Anything murdering someone in the conservatory with the lead pipe?

Psst- Don’t forget to check out the rest of our Farmer’s Market adventures here on BabyCenter.

Eco Mania, Exterior Upgrades, Richmond Related
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304

The Big Two Nine

Posted by
March 22, 2011

Now that all the birthday bid-ness is over I can tell you guys all about it. It was sweet. Turning 29 didn’t really feel any different than the past few b-days and it involved everything from a foot massage with shaving cream (John mistook it for the lotion bottle) to Clara taking her “first crawls.” Holy cow it was amazing. Everyone, including the doc, thought she’d just go straight to walking since she has been scooting around on her butt for a while – and even recently started pulling up. But lo and behold she decided it might be fun to give crawling a go (you know, just for kicks) and we even caught it on video:

So yeah. Baby, baby, baby. Sorry if that’s all I talk about but Clara is kind of awesome. Haha. It was the best present ever.

The weather on Saturday was around 70 degrees and sunny (which is funny because it used to always snow on my birthday when I lived up north) so we went on a nice long walk in one of our favorite neighborhoods (look at that gorgeous house behind me) with Clara and the dog.

We even saw turtles in the river (Clara loved it, Burger seemed ambivalent).

And the whole time I was sporting my new bun/thigh toning Reebok Easytone b-day sneaks that the hubby got me.

That’s right, he wants me to firm up. Haha. Just kidding, I begged for them and he humored me. They actually didn’t kill me at all during or after the first three mile walk that I did in them. But the next day I did the same thing and I needed a serious break afterwards. So yes, they do actually burn the buns and legs after a while (although my first trek with them made me think they were all hype, my Reeboks had the last laugh).

What else. We went out to a nice little sushi dinner (we have a thing for it)…

… and I got some pretty fun stuff from J and the fam. Beyond my tush toning Reeboks John also got me an awesome book called Love Life (from a local gift store named Mongrel) with a perfect greeny-yellow cover.

Not that you should judge a book by its cover, but it never hurts if it looks as good on the outside as it actually is on the inside. We mentioned a while back that sometimes we struggle with balance (since the internet is a 24/7 thing, sometimes it’s hard to draw the line and unplug) so the book is chock full of couldn’t-be-more-true reminders, like:

But enough philosophical stuff. What is it about birthdays that make you evaluate where you’ve been and where you’re going? Oh yeah, the whole “I’m aging” thing. We were just joking that we’ll have to change our blog name to Middle Aged House Love. Haha. Somehow it doesn’t have the same ring. Anyway, now for the fun stuff. Look at the home-related booty I got from John’s awesome sisters. We always do “wish lists” when it comes to gifting each other (which makes it easier on the buyer and pretty sweet for the receiver) so I moseyed around the world wide web in search of a few prints that I’d love to add to our soon-to-be-expanding frame gallery in the hallway, and found these beauties:

That one’s from here (we love a good road trip) and this next one is from here (I just think peacocks are purty) both gifted by John’s sister Emily:

This one is from here from John’s sister Katie (NY will always have a special place in my heart since it’s where we met and fell in love):

And John went for extra credit. I begged for those Reeboks and thought they’d be the extent of my gift, but he also surprised me with this adorable bee print (we have a thing for bees too).

So I can’t wait to hang all of my new prints among family pictures and keepsakes in the hallway. Pics when we knock more holes into the other side of the wall and hang that pile of Ikea frames that’s still sitting in the corner of the kitchen. Someday. Oh and my sweet friend Heather sent me these lilies out of the blue:

I love them so much and especially adore that she specifically picked out the lime green vase because she knew I’d flip for it. Affirmative Heather. I went crazy oohing and aaahing and still find myself walking in from the other room just to “visit” my bouquet every hour or so.

So overall, birthday number 29 was awesome and life is good. Who the heck knows where I’ll be when I turn 35, or even 30. I’m just trying to make it count, without going so crazy that I forget to enjoy the little things like baby snorts and puppy sniffs. Man am I still hormonal from birthing Clara 10+ months ago? Sorry if this post is all sorts of personal and corny. I guess that’s just me these days.

Psst- All print images found via the Etsy seller that we linked to above or below them. Love Life book image found here.

Pssssst- For anyone who has asked how we organize Clara’s toys or inquired about the big brown basket next to our sectional, click here to check out our BabyCenter post for the mind-numbingly simple “dump & cover” toy storage system that’s rocking our world.

A Day In The Life, Art We Heart, Good Reads, Richmond Related
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233

Five Richmond “Top Fives”

Posted by
February 25, 2011

Today’s a cool day – it’s marks our 5th anniversary of living in Richmond.

On this date in 2006, Sherry and I woke up on an air mattress in my Upper West Side apartment (she had already moved all of her stuff out of her Soho studio and turned in the keys) to greet my dad, who had driven up in the mini-van that would move us and all of our worldly belongings (hence the air mattress – we had sold our mattresses) to the River City. Seven hours and one stop at Ikea later we arrived at our new apartment in Richmond – unemployed, unwed, and uncontrollably excited about the life ahead of us.

(Gorgeous pic of Richmond’s skyline by doxadigital on Flickr)

But enough about our back story (you can read more about that here), let’s talk about Richmond. We often get asked for recommendations for what to see, where to shop, and what to eat when in Richmond. So we’re taking this 5th anniversary occasion to share five “Top 5″ lists about some of our favorite things in RVA. Are you sensing a “five” theme here? Here’s what we’ve covered:

***5 FAVORITE PLACES TO CHOW DOWN***

Sherry and I aren’t “foodies” by any means, but we definitely love finding an excuse to eat out for those special occasions. Here are a handful of quintessential Richmond restaurants where we love to dine:

  1. Kuba Kuba: A cozy, casual, and colorful spot in The Fan for Cuban food. Sound “in the know” by pronouncing it “Coo-ba Coo-ba” and not “Kyoo-bah Kyoo-bah.” Here’s the Kuba Kuba website.
  2. Bottom’s Up: We took the Bowers to this pizza spot in Shockoe Bottom during their visit last year. Be sure to check out the 6 foot high water marks from when it flooded during Hurricane Gaston in 2004. Here’s the Bottom’s Up website.
  3. The Boathouse at Rocketts Landing: We celebrated the news of Sherry’s pregnancy at this new-ish riverfront restaurant. The food’s great, but the views of the James River and the expansive city skyline are our favorite part (see the picture below). In fact we took Sherry’s mom and stepdad here last night. Here’s the Boathouse website.
  4. Crab Louie’s Tavern: Technically in Midlothian, this seafood restaurant sits in a historic house older than the USA. Among other reasons, we love all of the fresh bread options that you get before the meal arrives. Carbs. Yum. Here’s Crab Louie’s website.
  5. Sticky Rice: We loves us some sushi (read about our sushi tradition here), so this somewhat American hipster twist on it is always fun. Plus, where else can you order “Sticky Balls” and not get a weird look? Here’s the Sticky Rice website.

***5 FAVORITE TOURIST-Y THINGS TO DO***

We don’t have a Statue of Liberty or an Eiffel Tower, but these Richmond “landmarks” should be on your list when you’re in town:

  1. Browse the VMFA: Recently renovated, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts building and the art within it is pure eye candy. And with the exception of special exhibits (currently it’s Mr. Picasso), it’s all totally free to see. Here’s the VMFA website.
  2. See a movie at The Byrd Theatre: This gorgeous movie palace built in 1928 still shows second-run movies for just $2. It’s fun to grab some popcorn, squeeze your legs into the old school seats, and enjoy the cinema in style. Here’s the Byrd Theatre website.
  3. Stroll around Hollywood Cemetery: It sounds weird, but this cemetery makes for a gorgeous afternoon walk. Beautiful views and famous headstones (including two US presidents and countless Civil War figures) totally negate the creepy factor – especially in the fall (pictured below). Here’s the Hollywood Cemetery website.
  4. Shop Carytown: Loads of local shops and restaurants line Cary Street to create Richmond’s iconic and colorful shopping district. You’ll even hit up a few other items on these lists in the process of visiting. Here’s the Carytown website.
  5. Walk (or run!) Monument Avenue & The Fan: Monument Avenue is lined with stunning historic row homes and – surprise! – several monuments. And the nearby Fan district also boasts lots of inspiration. It’s great for walking or running on a nice day, especially if you have time to stop in a neighborhood restaurant or park. Here’s The Fan district association website.

***5 FAVORITE WAYS TO ENJOY A GORGEOUS DAY***

We think Richmond truly shines when it’s nice out, so here are some of our favorite places to soak up a beautiful day:

  1. Pony Pasture: This horse-y name actually belongs to an area of the James River Park System with great nature trails for walking, gentle currents for swimming, and exposed rocks for sunning in the hot months. We always describe Richmond as a beach town, but instead of having an actual beach, locals hang out at the river. (Check out Burger enjoying a hot rock and a long stick in the picture below). Here are directions to Pony Pasture.
  2. Maymont: This park is one of our favorite spots to take visitors. Why? Tons of paved paths, beautiful gardens, a petting farm, historic buildings, a nature center, and even a zoo (sorta – there are bears, foxes, buffaloes, and bald eagles to name a few). And most of it’s free – even the zoo and the petting farm. Here’s the Maymont website.
  3. Belle Isle: Kinda like Pony Pasture, but more island-y and closer to downtown, you can come here to enjoy nature and the city skyline in one vista. Plus it has great trails for walking, running, or mountain biking. This is where Sherry and I went from liking to loving Richmond when we first moved here five years back. Here’s Belle Isle on Wikipedia.
  4. Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden: Call it nature in a more controlled setting, but the admission price is definitely worth the scenery (and the landscaping ideas you can bring back home). We took Sherry’s mom and stepdad here when they first visited – it was a great way to spend the day outside strolling through scenic settings. Here’s the Lewis Ginter website.
  5. Stony Point Fashion Park or Short Pump Town Center: These are spots for a more traditional “mall” experience, but in an airy outdoor setting. So you can hit up Anthropologie or Crate & Barrel, but still get some sun and stroll along cobblestone paths. Stony Point’s even dog-friendly (Burger has visited every shop from Sur La Table to Banana Republic). Here’s Stony Point’s website & Short Pump’s website.

***5 FAVORITE PLACE TO SCORE HOME DEALS***

We couldn’t survive in this town if we couldn’t find awesome deals for our house, so here are some local haunts that we love (besides the national chain stores like Tar-jay):

  1. Diversity Thrift: We’ve found lots of great stuff here over the five years (including the base for our pedestal table in the sunroom and our glass coffee table in the old living room). You can read more about why we love it in this post.
  2. Love of Jesus Thrift: This is another go-to thrifting spot, especially if we’re on the hunt for furniture. My sister scored the amazing console below a couple of years ago there. Read more about that in this old post.
  3. Lakeside Avenue Thrift Stores: A more recent discovery of ours, the thrift and consignment stores along Lakeside Avenue (like Consignment Connection and Pass It On) are where we recently scored our beloved wooden goose.
  4. The Decorating Outlet: This store is where items from local sponsor Shades of Light go to be discounted, and where we’ve been going to buy items like the rug and the capiz light fixture in Clara’s room on the cheap. Here’s the Decorating Outlet website.
  5. U-fab: This discount fabric store is always on our list when we’re hunting for textiles or patterns to bring home. Their selection is more stylish than the big chains tend to be, but they’re cheaper than the fancy designer places. Here’s the U-fab website.

***5 FAVORITE SWANKY & INSPIRING HOME STORES***

On the opposite end of thrifting and discounts are some of Richmond’s most gorgeous and inspirational home stores. Be sure to bring a tissue to wipe the drool from your chin when you visit (even if you don’t have the money in your wallet to buy something):

  1. Williams & Sherrill: Half housewares, half fabric store, this place has more inspiration than we can handle on most occasions (see our photo below). Someday we’ll be fancy enough to actually buy something. Sigh. More on them here. And here’s the Williams & Sherrill website.
  2. Ruth & Ollie: This shop in Carytown is smaller yet a bit more contemporary than Williams & Sherrill. We especially love the furniture and art that abounds. Check out a few ideas that we got from them in this post. Here’s the Ruth & Ollie website.
  3. LaDifférence: Located in Shockoe Bottom, LaDiff is a huge store filled with modern furniture, accessories, lighting – basically, the works. You may remember them from this oft-referenced wallflowers giveaway post. Here’s the LaDiff website.
  4. Shades of Light: Yes, they’re a sponsor of our site, but we couldn’t not include them on this list of go-to home stores in Richmond that we love, especially when it comes to gorgeous lighting (we’ve been obsessed with them since way before their sponsorship started). Here’s the Shades of Light website.
  5. Caravati’s: Unlike the others on this list, you won’t find anything new or pristine at Caravati’s. It’s an architectural salvage warehouse that is loaded with once-loved items for any remodel, restoration, or craft project with a historic and authentic twist. See some more in this old post.

So there you have it, five “Top 5″ lists to celebrate our 5th anniversary of moving to Richmond. Obviously in five years we can’t claim to be Richmond experts, so we invite everyone else who lives here in RIC (or have visited) to chime in with their favorites in these categories (or others). And while we’re at it, those of you in other cities are welcome to comment with a “Top 5″ list for your hometown too. Who knows if we might end up visiting someday!

Boathouse photo by Beth Furgurson found via Richmond Magazine.com, rest of images snapped by us (except for that gorgeous first pic from here).

Psst- We announced this weeks giveaway winners. Click here to see if one of them is you.

Richmond Related
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163

Did We Make A Profit Selling Our House?

Posted by
December 15, 2010

Are you kidding? In this market? Of course not. We managed to sell it for around $5k more than we bought it for back in 2006 (in “the bubble”) and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we spent more than five grand on improvements (we estimate that we spent around $35K on new bathrooms, a new kitchen, new flooring, new windows, a new roof, a new patio, a paved driveway, and upgraded details like crown molding and wider doorways). This is where a “wop-wop” sound effect would come in handy.

But we’re sleeping like babies and are downright giddy about the sale of our house and the purchase of our new one. Why? We’re 100% convinced that the time was right and everything happened the way it was meant to. Are we crazy? Maybe. But here’s our thought process:

Want more details? Sure. You know we like to talk…

We’re not house flippers, we’re house lovers (hence the blog name). We never moved into our old house intending to flip it or upgrade it for any other reason than to enjoy it and make it the perfect home for ourselves in the time that we spent there. And it was. So the fact that by doing those updates we were also able to keep the house from dropping a lot lower into a price range that actually may have made us cry ourselves to sleep at night really does feel like a blessing. And we can’t forget the inexpensive backyard wedding that we were able to host thanks to diverting our venue rental budget into a new paved driveway and cobblestone patio that were around long after our big day ended. Or the kitchen renovation that spawned a blog that spawned a business that now affords us the opportunity to both work at home with our spawn by our side (sorry for calling you “spawn” Clara- it’s a terribly un-ladylike word).

Plus, it’s easy for us to see the rewards that the new house holds. After all, we’re not just sellers in this buyers’ market – we’re buyers too. And boy is it a sweet time to buy. We’ve scored our new larger house in a nicer neighborhood at a serious discount (we paid over 40K less than it was valued five years ago). Plus since interest rates are awesomely low we’re potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars in interest over the term of the loan. And since we had some nice equity in our old house to roll over into the purchase of the new one (and thanks to that lower interest rate) that’s how we got to that lower monthly mortgage payment that we mentioned above.

Plus we figure that when/if the market recovers in who-knows-how-long, there are greater rewards to be had on our new house than if we had waited around to sell our old one (which might have gone for more money in a few years, but at that point our new house might have been waaaay out of our price range just like it was five years ago when the market was doing gangbusters). And of course we can’t ignore the most important facts: that this new house satisfies our passion for DIY, offers more room for our family to grow, and helps fuel our business. Which is really the day to day stuff that helps with the whole sleeping at night thing.

But let’s revisit that whole 35K spent on improvements, only 5K of which we actually made back in the sale price. The good news is that it’s not like our improvements didn’t serve us at all. Similar houses in our old neighborhood are now selling for muuuuuch less than ours did because they don’t have any of the updates that ours has. In fact a similar ranch on our old street (only about three houses away) that’s notably bigger than ours sold this summer for 50K (!!!) less than our house did. Which makes us feel incredibly good about the improvements that we made to set our former casa apart so that it would not only hold its value but would even creep up 5K since the good ol’ days of the bubble. So although on paper it might look like we lost 30K based on what we paid, how much we put into it, and how much we sold it for- we like to look at it like this: by making the improvements that we did, not only did our old house not drop 50K in value in this bum economy, it also slightly improved by 5K. Call it looking through rose colored glasses if you’d like, but thinking about it that way really helps keep things in perspective.

Oh and here’s another interesting house-for-sale point that our lender made. He has noticed that what homeowners aren’t getting back financially from their improvements, they’re getting back in sale speed. For example, a buyer might not pay much more for your house because it has granite counters, but you’ll get an offer a lot faster than a similar house down the street that’s sporting laminate. And that has certainly been our experience. We were on MLS for 2 days before getting an offer while a similar larger house down the road is going on 4 months without a bite. And it’s listed for $30k less!

Do we wish the market were better? Sure. But we’ve got zero regrets. Some may accuse us of seeing the glass as half full (and we definitely don’t think everyone would make the choice to sell at this time), but these are just a few reasons why we’re so glad to be in our new house just in time for Clara’s first Christmas. Speaking of which, we’ve got some boxes to unpack…

Odd little house made of money in a pot image from here.

Our Current House, Richmond Related, Save Some Moolah, Selling, Moving, & Buying
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