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Moving in, Valentine’s Day, fun gifts and more! Everything going on at the UDH since I last posted…
Whoosh. Remember how in the last post, I told you guys I was getting ready to attend a big woodworking conference?
Yeah… that was quite a whirlwind! I got the booth design built just in time and will have more on that in a future post to recap the whole thing (P.S., the Rustoleum team was amazing to work with and I am so pleased that everyone seemed to really like my booth, and I even got an attagirl from THE Ben Uyeda himself, and I’ll have an Ikea hack project to share with you from the build, and AND the story will unfold exactly how you would expect a topsy-turvy design process from yours truly to unfold, including theft of half my booth by the end of the conference, ?), but there is still SO MUCH MORE going on here at the UDH that I felt the need to update you on some important personal updates first.
Psst. Affiliate links used in a few spots below.
Moving in!
I won’t keep you waiting in suspense for the whole post. The big announcement? K and his pup Stella are officially moving into the UDH.
As of next month, the UDH will have a total of 4 — if you’re counting Charlie and Stella — which of course, I do. I thought I would feel a bunch of butterflies by announcing it or jumping with excitement or something… but honestly? They have both been around the house so much that it just feels very natural and normal and mellow to make their living here the real deal.
K and I have been dating for some time now and we’ve (naturally) discussed many times over what our plans are with life in general and each other, and it just started to make more sense for us to live together going forward. I’m sure that comes as no surprise to most of you, since he and I have been working on projects together and you’ve seen me mention other changes to some of my design plans (such as wanting to rebuild the closet, designing a Murphy bed for the guest bedroom so it can fit a separate office space, etc.).
The added benefit of us saving that extra dough of separate rents is that we can save up for the vintage camper renovation that much faster. She’s got a name now, and I’ll cover a bunch of details in a future post.
New bed plans
Over this past weekend, K took some time to move his essentials (other than the garage stuff… THAT will be an organizational feat to combine our tool collections, ha!). I now have a king-sized mattress sitting in my living room as I write this, because K and I are building a new bed design together (it’s going to be sooooo cool — I can’t wait to finish it and share!). With the way both of the pups like to take over every square inch of the bed (how does one tiny dog take up so much room???), I decided this was the best solution to giving me a better night’s sleep.
As you can imagine, that chaos is a little uncomfortable (and messy!) for all involved, especially while my attention has been elsewhere on this WorkbenchCon project, but we managed to get through the worst of it so far and have just a little more to go before everything is out of our walking paths.
Stella and Charlie have had their ups and downs (they have both been aggressive with each other with food, so we’ve had to redouble some training and they’ve both improved). But they seem to have come to the conclusion that they are both in love with K and I and at least reluctantly love each other, so we’re all pretty happy with this situation. They both really like that they are no longer alone if we ever have to leave them at home.
Valentine’s Day
But, speaking of K and home and all of that, I wanted to also share what we did for Valentine’s Day (sappy posting alert!). We did the usual nice-dinner-and-gift-exchange thing, starting with a rooftop date at one of my favorite spots in Atlanta (would you guys want to see a list of great date places if you ever visit the city? I have been taking pics from our dates and am planning to compile them into a top ten this summer).
I like to watercolor as a stress thing when I can’t sleep, so I made him a homemade card with some personalized art a few nights prior:
You might also be tickled to see what I got him:
It’s the LEGO Saturn V Rocket! You should’ve SEEN the big eyes and grin K gave me when he opened this up and started organizing all of the pieces (I’m living with a super-nerd). We’ve since spent any nights I have off (rare with this week’s WorkbenchCon stuff, but we’re getting back to it tonight) putting it together. This is just part one, so we have lots more left to assemble!
Putting it together has reawakened the LEGO nerd (in my case, puzzles… the more I think about it, Ron Swanson and I have a lot more in common than just an interest in building) in both of us.
I’ve since found out that there are other huge LEGO kits we might want to put together (like this and this… and this and this). Also, there’s a place in Denmark called the LEGO House (not the Ed Sheeran song). I’ve been known to take a crazy trip or two, so it’s not entirely unlike me to decide to go across the world to see something like a house filled with toys.
K got me flowers and a few gifts, but I think my favorite this month has to be the duckling he had cut out for me at his office out of a scrap piece of Corian. As much as I’d like to have my own CNC machine here at home, I doubt I could find the room for it until the shed is built in the back yard! (And as for those succulent buds you see on the right, that’s a tutorial coming up that I’ve been working on for you this winter… propagating them is crazy easy, so an upcoming video and step-by-step photo guide is on its way).
So, there you have it: lots of little updates, but it’s back to the bed builds this week. Did you have any Valentine’s Day plans? I have covered them in years past, single or not, so if you’d like to see some of those posts, here’s one (and another). And what do you think of the big news? (Hopefully you’re happy for me, but you already know from reading me I’m damn well going to do what I want anyway, ha!). I hope you’re all having a wonderful week!
P.S. If you guys saw the first pic and thought there was something different about my hair, that’s also true but it felt weird to do a dedicated post about it. Here are a few more photos of it down. I absolutely love the change and need a lot of advice on how to best maintain it, so I’m all ears if you know a lot about color care!
So glad to hear about your new roomie and K too. Its about time. You make a great couple
Thanks Mom.
Happy for y’all! Would love to see a top 10 atl date spot post.
Gotcha covered… Taking my camera with me to all of our date spots so we have some good observations (we’ve been flip-flopping with who picks the date spot so we can do a good balance of fun activities and just generally good ambiance places).
I’m super excited for all four of you! Enjoy taking this next step.
Thanks Brittany. :)
Congrats on the new additions Sarah! So happy for you! ?
Thanks Erin!
When my hubby (then boyfriend) and I moved in together years ago I remember my biggest fear was not how we would get along living together but would our dogs get along. It really really had me worried, but thankfully after a little time, they tolerated each other and that’s all I could really ask of them! I hope Charlie and Stella can do the same! Good luck to all four of you!
Thanks Sarah! They do a lot of playing together so we felt pretty good about making the big move. I’ve been taking video periodically of their interactions so hopefully soon, I can share a compilation video so you can see it all. It’s especially cute because of how much bigger Charlie is (and she tries to be so gentle and gets confused as to what she should do, so sometimes she just freezes, hehe).
Love me, love my dog!
100%
Congrats on all your new adventures, for more tools in the garage, and for the masterfull inclusion of Ron Swanson in a blog post!
Thanks John! The tool collection combo is going to be the toughest for sure. :)
Finding closet space and room for another toothbrush is not to hard but combining your power tools with his power tools, hmm that is bit scary ;-)
Haha right?? He’s got a bunch of tools too, just like me. We’re both going to try to make the shed a reality ASAP to make more room!
Super excited for you, Sarah! Sounds like you have lots of exciting things going on :)
Pink hair maintenance, I’ve got you covered. There’s a color depositing shampoo called Viral that works insanely well (it’s pricey, but super effective,you don’t need to use a lot, and you can get on Amazon). At Sally’s, you can buy Ion Color Pigments in Magenta – treat it like a conditioner. OverTone also makes a color depositing conditioner, but it’s more costly, and you have to buy directly from the company so it takes longer to get and I don’t get as good of a result with it.
THANK YOU… I want so badly to keep this color and love how confident it’s made me! Writing all of your recommendations down.
oh my goodness K’s HANDSOME. :o Hehehe Congrats on the move!!!
Haha I agree! He’s my nerdy, handsome bearded dude. Pitter-pat. <3
This is wonderful news, and he looks like a cutie! Congratulations to you both! Xoxo
Thanks Nicki!
Congrats on your next big step together, that’s great!. I cannot wait to see how the murphy bed, and your new king bed shakes out. I am so inspired by your ideas. The hubs and I discussed building our next bed when we buy our house, so I’m curious to see how people do it..
Also, that duckling is so sweet, and very cool! Hope you had a good one! I’ve been following you along on instagram, so I’m a little late here, but still, happy for you!
Thanks Amy! The king bed should be completed tonight, hoping that I get things cleared out so we can get some good video footage too (removing the queen bed obviously revealed lots of dog fur and miscellaneous stuff to clear out first!). I’ll give you a head’s up that the king bed will be an attempt to make it FLOATING so the super-swanky headboard we planned to build will be the standout piece of the room. We just have to find enough great wood from the lumber yard to make it all happen (but the frame will be simple two-bys that just about anyone can tackle). More on that VERY soon!
Tip from one gal to another, Don’t combine your tools until you live together a while. I can handle a lot of things, not putting his dishes in the dishwasher, laundry on the floor 2 feet from the hamper, switching the toilet paper back to the correct way, but when he doesn’t put my tools back where they belong… I. Lose. My. Shit. So many sets that are incomplete now. I can’t even figure out what he did with the very shiny and large red maglite I had. We’ve been married over 10 years now. I still look at my Dewalt drill bit set and get angry that one is missing. It’s a sacred thing. Wait until everyone gets comfortable, then hopefully you won’t have to be like me. Lol
Haha, thanks for the advice, Ang! We’ve been working together and mixing our tools a bit thus far, but a quick tip I picked up a while back was to spray paint your stuff. Even if it’s an ugly color or a simple signature color you pick out, it’s helped MANY people (especially if they bring their tools to work, like in handyman jobs) from getting things mixed up. But in fairness, I’m the one of the duo who doesn’t put things back… so our bigger arguments about tools are because he puts them BACK where he thinks they should go in the garage, and then I can’t find what I’m looking for because it’s not in the spot I left it. Totally get where you’re coming from here! Hopefully when we reorganize the garage this summer, we’ll have a better place for both of our things to have a proper home.
Hey Sarah, congrats on your new addition and woohoo! I’m excited the dogs are getting along. It’s usually a thing of concern when two people are getting in together, with these dogs, you never can tell.
Enjoy the phase. Looking forward to more updates. cheers!
Thanks Ekta!
How sweet ~ congrats to you and K.
Thanks Reenie!
D;awwww!! So sweet!
If you ever do make it to Denmark, you should try to visit Legoland in Billund. The original. It’s amazing!
Jotting that down for places to visit, thanks Tara!