Elfa Evolution

Well, we got our tax refund this year (Yay for being married homeowners! Shocking!) and we finally were able to make a move on our dream to change the closet space in our loft/office. We have wanted to organize the big closet up here and turn it into a real art storage space. There’s gonna be a place to store Carrie’s straight-edges and portfolios, our laptop bags and art books, and even have good looking “junk” storage. The Container Store is a bit overwhelming, but it’s inspiring, and it definitely makes you wanna get all crazy with the organization. Game on.

So, since we also knew that some really sporty folks who used live across the lake from us also designed their closet Container Store Style, we decided to check out the fancy Elfa system. Man – that stuff is awesome! So many options, so many possibilities. And, its simple too…you just install the upper frame and everything clicks and hangs from there.

We took the dimensions and headed over today (we started last weekend by doing some serious spring cleaning and eliminating a lot of crap) and ended up with a great plan to transform the space. We decided it would be fun to document the process – how Top Design of us – so we’ll begin with Day 1:

The “BEFORE” pic:
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Chiseling out the icky-ugly closet rod and shelf:
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It’s outta there!
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Patching up the nail holes/prepping to paint:
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Try not to laugh, but we are newbies with the home improvement!

Tune in tomorrow for more exciting progress! :)

We’re Grown Ups!

We hosted Christmas Eve Dinner for the Kim Family last night. It turned out awesome. We were so excited to have everybody over and do some serious entertaining with all of our fancy new wedding gifts!

Here’s an aerial shot of the table:
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Carrie wanted to be fancy so she made little placecards with candles for everybody. :)
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The food even turned out good! Thank goodness for Carrie’s mom, she helped out by doing a trial run with us on Friday night. Both Mom & Dad came over and they were our food tasters! Here’s a pic of the finished birds, we can’t believe we made these, it’s way too adult-like. Look out next year, we might be making the Thanksgiving turkey!
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The menu:
Mixed Green Salad
Cornish Game Hens
Wild Rice
Ed’s Special Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Steamed Asparagus w/Bearnaise Sauce

Here’s Ed excited in the kitchen:
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One of Carrie’s family Christmas traditions is having mom’s Ribbon Salad for dessert. It’s made out of lime jello, cherry jello and a middle cheesecake-like layer with lemon jello, crushed pineapple and cream cheese. Usually mom makes it in a jello mold, but we used our fancy-schmancy wine glasses for everybody to have their own individual dessert. They were a hit!
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And finally – the family.
Top Row: Ed, [future bro-in-law] Mani, Shannon, Mom
Bottom: Dad, Imo, Uncle
Yay for Christmas Eve ’06!
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