Introducing Graham!

Trying to convince Elliott to get a second dog was no easy task. I have been working hard to this end for about 2 years! I would surf the doggy sites and show him pictures, "no that's not the one," he'd say. Finally in May I found a cute little critter at the Louisa County Humane Society (about an hour from Richmond). "Hercules" (his name before we adopted him) and his litter were born under the care of LHS and he was a bit of a genetic anomaly. His mom is a beagle and all the other little guys and gals took after momma. Graham has the hound in him but he was obviously influenced by daddy's genes. We'll never know what Dad looks like (deadbeat) but we love our sweet new pup and are so glad he is a part of our family- right Dooley?!?!

The day we got him. Dooley looks on thinking, "Beat it, kid."

Graham 3, Shoes 0

Sweet sad hound dog eyes! Melts us every time!

Dooley is beginning to warm up to his partner in crime.

Sweet little boys!

Moore Fencing, Inc.

Elliott's taking on a new career. He is going into the fencing business. "Screw the desk job, I want to work with my hands." -Elliott... "Okay, honey."- Lauren

Okay not really, Elliott has said this but it comes from his pride in finishing the fence at our house. He came, he saw, he conquered! Actually, fencers quoted, Elliott balked, designed and built! I am so proud that he did! He saved us boocoodle bucks (like $1500) and it looks better than we could have imagined.
Before we had ugly rotted green painted slats with beautiful chicken wire reinforcement.... *sarcasm*.
Our poor neighbors have asked about the fence "can we help you paint, etc" and we are so happy that we were able to knock it out because we know that they have been tired of looking at our piece of crap excuse for a fence... as well as every other neighbor that drives or walks by the house because of our corner lot!

Elliott began by demo-ing and planning. He designed and executed everything and even purchased a few new tools in the process... lucky dog! I helped by putting my pressure washing skills to use to clean up the columns and prep them for the new posts. A neighbor said "wow I didn't even realize you all had this brick..." 

Don't ask about that all-forsaken corner post. Elliott set it twice. Yes, set in concrete, removed, re-set again. We won't discuss OCD in this blog entry.... love you EMo.

Slats!

Now let's jump into the final product! Thank you Elliott for spending so much time and effort on our home and for making this look AMAZING! 

Check this project off the list! 

Love to all!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Well it is officially time to get on a better schedule here! Part of the reason for the delays is because around Christmas (as we were preparing our Christmas card address spreadsheet)... the computer crashed and we had to spend $100 with Best Buy's Geek Squad to get all of our information recovered and reboot the computer. The bad part now is that we don't have the license numbers for our software and cannot use our microsoft office suite. Computers are annoying! So all of our photos were on an external hard drive (and still are... I don't trust my machine anymore)! The old computer also would not let me post... Elliott and I finally pulled the trigger on a new macbook and we are so excited! Hopefully this means I'm back on the blogging wagon! Here are a few things we have been doing...

We painted our entire living room and up the stairs. These are kind of our main areas and you can see Elliott was pushing his balance and reach getting up the stairs walls and ceiling with the roller. We fought about whether or not to pay a painter... I was fearful E would break his neck and Elliott was fearful that I would break our budget. He won and proceeded to say "told ya so." I'm so glad he didn't break his neck because I would have felt like a real jerk saying "told ya so..."

The next little project was painting the stair backs. Ours were in desperate need but it was one heck of a tedious project. No one would ever notice it but I am so glad it is done!

It's amazing to us how each little project makes our house feel more like a home. It may be taking us a while to pull it all together but we have enjoyed our house hobby and the sense of pride in doing it ourselves is great. Elliott is so handy and I am so lucky to have a husband who puts so much time and energy into our home. The last month or so he has been building us a fence (!!!!) and the pictures will be coming soon once we finish!

Happy Olympic Opening Week!

Love to all!

Updates! (From Dec 2011)

Here's another old one that has been sitting in my blog "drafts..."

December 2011

The holidays, the house, the job hunt have really caused us to slack on the blog! We had a fantastic Thanksgiving week with both of our families and our best friends Lauren and Keith in Nashville. The week started with celebrating Thanksgiving with Elliott's immediate family. For the first time the entire Moore clan was together significant others and children in tow! Emily and Brent flew in from Washington state, we drove in from Richmond and we joined the rest of the family in Knoxville. The highlight of the trip was by far the newest addition to the family baby Trey! Playing Apples to Apples was fantastic as well... first time player Memaw (Elliott's mom) won the game and I came in, embarrassingly, last. Below is a great photo of the entire family all together.

Also here's baby Trey! (AND JEALOUS DOOLEY!)

From Knoxville we hit the road to Bolivar to visit with the Zaller family. Deer hunting is a Zaller family tradition every year, Elliott killed a big 6-point which he was very excited about... but he was more excited about the low key time spent cutting up and laughing with the guys (my uncles Jim and Pat, cousins Paul and Steve, the crew up at the Shack, Grandpa and Dad).

We also got to finally bring back all of our furniture that my parents have been graciously storing for us. Now comes the fun task of putting all of the puzzle pieces together in our rooms to make it all work together! My mom took me to a great little shop in west TN where I picked up a weathered piece of copper to use as wall art... I CANNOT wait to have it framed and hang it up on the wall... the colors are awesome!

God has a sense of humor... Elliott, does not

Somehow I never posted this story... I think I was waiting on Elliott to add his two sense but he never did- We'll see if he tries to set the record straight in the comments section...

Mid November 2011
Yesterday was an eventful day for us... to start we welcomed nephew #4 to the Moore family, David Gregory Blanton, III "Trey!" It was a very long labor for Elliott's sister Elaine but Trey is healthy and mom is recovering well! Lots of prayers for her and David, he is recovering from a broken ankle and Elaine from having baby Trey and both be recovering and tag teaming parenthood with added challenges. We can't wait to meet this sweet boy later in the month.
When Elliott got home from work we headed out to Alexander's Antique Auction (which is becoming a Thursday evening tradition as we acquire home furnishings) only to find that nothing really excited us. No bids, we'll be back Alexander, we'll be back. We grabbed some groceries and then began to trek home. It was raining, dark and just plain gross out. We passed an older gentleman on the road changing his tire and immediately turn around to help him because he had no light, was on a busy/dangerous road and was attempting to change the tire by himself. It was a day to share the love and do something good. Elliott, still in a suit, helped the 82 year old man whose appreciation made it all worth it even though the car ended up rolling off of the jack, lengthening the process... in the dark, cold rain. All was well and the man drove off into the storm. And then I tried to crank our car. Dead battery. Rookie mistake, turning the car off and leaving the lights on for the tire change was a poor choice (I know this). Luckily we have roadside and 30 minutes later Pop-A-Lock (?!?!?!) shows up to help.

Elliott: Do you have a booster pack?
Pop A Lock: Oh yeah I have that.
A minute later
Pop A Lock: My jumper cables aren't long enough for this. (We were nose to tail because of the busy roadway).
Elliott: I thought you said you had a booster pack?
Pop A Lock: No, man, I don't have that. (really?!?)
Elliott grabbed our jumper cables which were, thankfully, long enough to get the job done, only to find that they weren't charging the Burb.
Pop A Lock: I think your cables are bad (as he knocks them together trying to illicit a spark).
Elliott: No, I have used them plenty, they should be fine. Are they on your battery?
Pop A Lock: Yeah, I got them on there.
Turns out that indeed he did NOT have them connected properly. Elliott -frustrated- joked he had them attached to the washer fluid resevoir or something, poor Pop A Lock guy, he's used to poppin' locks. Once the cables were on we charged the battery and made it home with the task of changing the batteries out in our two vehicles and making a mental note to head to AutoZone for a new one this weekend (this battery had been struggling and it didn't take much to drain it).
It is the season for Thanksgiving and we are grateful for roadside assistance even though we were slightly frustrated with Mister Pop A Lock. By the end of the night Elliott was a little (actually A LOT) cranky considering his good deed karma did not materialize the way he/we felt it should. God has a sense of humor. These are things we should do, without expectations, just out of love and compassion for others. It's also possible/probable that we were being reminded to also share the same compassion for mister Pop A Lock that we did for our flat tire friend...

Love to all!

The beauty of paint....

is that you can change it! And change it we did! We were getting really overwhelmed by the yellow paint update we did in the kitchen. It was knocking us out every time we went in there. I guess we thought we were jumping into a much more muted color than what we got...

So we changed it! Here's how we got started. We were planning to paint the dining room and wanted a nice muted grey. We don't get a whole lot of light into the dining room because there are no exterior windows. Also, with the new dining set being dark we wanted to bring some light in with the paint. Our decision was to use leftover blue from the master bedroom project below the chair rail and grey above. We liked the grey so much that we decided to continue it into the adjacent kitchen. We think it ties the two rooms together a bit better.

The last photo is of a rug (Dooley is very happy) that we purchased at the antique auction a few weeks ago. Here's another one we nabbed last week!

In addition to mad painting we have also been pulling up carpet! The sun room is the only carpeted room and when it rained last week I didn't like the smell that was emerging from the carpet. Smelled like dogs had been kept in the room. We pulled it up and are currently trying to figure out whether to re-carpet or tile (the marble in there now is in pretty rough shape, uneven and chipped in many spots).

In non house news, I have some movement related to job leads and feel very positive about what is to come in the next few weeks. As Thanksgiving approaches I am so thankful for this news and for the prospect of a new opportunity here in Richmond. Those that know me know that looking for the next move in my career has been one filled with frustration. My patience has certainly been tested but I am a firm believer that the right thing will come along and I will land where I am supposed to! 

Love to all!



Fun with tables and chairs!

We've been busy the last couple of days! I (Lauren) spent the weekend in Nashville for the bachelorette party for one of my dearest friends, Jessie. It was a ton of fun and a great weekend with friends... and on Sunday on the way out of the hotel... Pat Sajak sighting. That's right, I'd like to solve the puzzle Pat!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Elliott was knocking a lot of things off of his honey do... I mean house project list. :) He repaired and installed all of our storm windows which means extra insulation from the elements and slightly lower utility bills this winter. He also did some tidying inside, repaired the leg to a table that we inherited with this house, raked, mowed and much to my surprise- even did a little laundry!

Monday when I was in my morning routine (i.e. coffee and checking my favorite blogs and websites) I ran across a great dining set on Craigslist. A man recently lost his grandmother and inherited her set which has been very well maintained. The price was right and we snapped it up! Just in time for the dinner we had planned Friday night... which will be nice considering we were planning to dine on a card table!

We need to reupholster the seats but for now it is great! I mentioned Elliott repaired the leg on a table we got with the house. He had to core it out and insert dowel rods... atta babe Al Borland. It was also in desperate need of refinishing and we thought we would give it a shot on our own. We have no money in it so if all fails, no big deal. This is what it looked like at first.

Pretty rough shape. I actually took these pictures to send off to a furniture repairman who quoted me almost $700 to bring it back- which was out of the question, ridiculous. I bought some Restor A Finish with reservations and gave it a shot...

YEHAW! It looks good, I am so excited it worked and that we only spent like $10 as opposed to $700... We still have to buy drawer hardware, but not too shabby! Cheers to progress!

More to come soon. We are lucky enough to have an interior designer friend bringing a student to our house tomorrow to help with "master planning." The student is shadowing her through a professional organization and the designer called and offered to bring her to help us and give the student experience... so excited!

Love to all!