Can I please get some curb appeal?

We have been in the new house for a couple of weeks about a month now. In that much time, we have come to the conclusion that it always seems like there will be enough time to get everything checked off that pesky to-do list, but there never is. We still don't have everything out of boxes or up on the wall yet, but I decided that we needed to get some major curb appeal before people came over for our house warming party. Anyone walking by would assume that noone has lived here for the last year and a half. It is an accurate assumption, but not anymore. Time to spruce things up!

Before:

Progress:

One of the great things about moving into a new house of your very own, is that other people who have been there before know how overwhelming and expensive it can be. Ergo, we have gotten a lot of gift cards to Home Depot, Lowe's, etc. from friends. It has been so incredibly helpful, and we REALLY appreciate all the help that we have gotten. We are very lucky to have great firends and neighbors. Last weekend we used one of our gift cards on our weekly trip to Home Depot. Among other tools and supplies, we cam home with some plants to spruce up the front of the house a bit.

Like most first-time home owners everything that we do is on small budget. After doing some research and keeping track of the direct light/sun schedule in the area for the past couple weeks, I found some relatively inexpensive plants that will really help to make things more inviting.

Sedge Evergold - 4-6 hours of sun - $6 each

I love me a good hasta, and like hastas these plants are low maintainence and require little direct sunlight.  ...I think that these are evergreens too. I could be wrong though. I guess we'll find out in 6 months.

Rex Begonia - 4-6 hours of sun - $6 each

same as above. I just found out however that these are annuals. I usually only buy perennials, because who wants to plant again every day?

Buxus Sepervirens Argenteo-Variegata  - 4+ hours of sun - $5 on sale at Bovees Nursery (awesome local Portland family, owned business)

Nabil and I randomly found this nursery when driving around the new neighborhood. I wanted an evergreen shrub that would be low-maintainence, didn't need a lot of direct sunlight, and was easy to trim/prune.

Osmanthus x Burkwood II - 4+ hours of sun - $5, also on sale at Bovees Nursery (picture to come)
I wanted to put something next to our huge ugly cement planter. Our house water valve in under the planter, so we have to leave it here so we can access the valve, but I wanted a little shrub that would help to hide the ugliness a bit. ...maybe to even wrap around the planter. This little evergreen shrub is supposedly low mainatinence, and in the spring it blooms little fragrant white flowers.

Pretty Pink Peonies - 6+ hours of sun - $15

These were the most expensive plant that I bought, but they are one of my favorite flowers, and I make Nabil spend more than $15 every summer "surprising" me with a peony boquet, so I figured I could do it if I only buy one. ...maybe I'll buy a few more next spring. :)

All together now:

So much better! That's all for now. Many more outdoor projects to come.

Emily Otteson in the House!

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to take some pictures of Emily Otteson at her going away concert. I came into this show a little blind. I had no idea what to expect. For a little back story, I met Emily's mom Elizabeth randomly at Sniff, the indoor dog park in NW Portland. We are like two pees in a pod because we both like to talk to random people in the cafe. We talked for quite a while about her awesome store and my photography business. We have been in touch off and on since then. Fast forward a few months, and she needed a photographer to come shoot her daughters last concert before she moved clear across the country to Miami, FL. Enter... me!

Like I said, I had no idea what to expect. No idea what kind of music she was going to be playing. No idea if she was even any good.

I can't even explain to you how amazing this girl's voice is. She's crazy good! Not only that, she was incredibly entertaining. There is nothing worse than going to a show and the singer has no stage presence. Can I get my money back please? In this case, Emily was a true artist. Check her out if you haven't already! Alright, enough babbling, here are more photos.

There were also a few of her friends that played and sung. Needless to say it was a great show.

That fiddle never sounded so sweet!

Below is Alana Kansaku-Sarmiento. You can hear her bangin' voice here when she sang the National Anthem before the WinterHawks final game of this year.

It was such a fun night, and I'm glad I got to share in the bittersweet moment. Bon Voyage Emily. We look forward to future tours here in PDX! :)


Until next time...

The House Tour

I have gotten many requests to post pictures of our new house. It is afterall all I've been talking writing about the past couple weeks, and it has been a lot of sweat already. Luckily, no blood and tears yet. It has been a few months since we first put in the offer. It seems like it has been forever. You may remember my post about our adventures of being first time home buyers. It was a lot of work and effort, but it seems like it will all be worth it. So without further ado, here it is. Get a good look, because these will be the "before" pictures when we do all of our fun improvements.

Welcome!  Here we are from the driveway.

 Here is the front door with our plants in pots that we moved over. There is definitely some work to be done here. You may also notice our cute little kitty spying on everyone from the window.

This is the picture of the front entryway looking back in from the living room. We have some plans this winter to put in a bench and a place for the shoes.

And here we are looking at the living room from the entryway. Nabil is ready to turn some logs on the fireplace. The great wood floors are part of what sold us on the house. Now we just need to invest in a bunch of area rugs to make it a little more homey.

On the other side of the fireplace is the kitchen. Nice and airy with a side of bubbly.

Off to the side of the living room and kitchen is the sunken family room. It was a garage that was converted, and we think that with the exception of the strange 2 x 4 in the middle of the room, it is nice and cozy. Zizou likes it too.

On the other side of the living room is the bedrooms and bathroom. Below is the picture of the bathroom. Our first homeowner project was putting in the light/vent. It was a big pain in the butt for a number of reasons, but we finally have a working vent, which means ...we can finally shower!

Here is the first of three bedrooms. This bedroom is in the back of the house. We are currently using this as the master even though it isn't the biggest, but we don't have drape yet, and we don't really want the neighbors to be watching us sleeping since the real master is in the front of the house.


Here is the hallway looking down from the first bedroom. The other two bedrooms are through door number one and door number two.

The smallest bedroom is behind door number one. It will eventually be the nursery. ...but for right now, that is kinda scary to think about, so we just mostly keep that door shut.

The last room. This is the view from the little nook in the corner of the room. This room is actually the master bedroom, but we would like to get some drapes, a bigger bed, and a different wall heating system before moving in. ...more fun house projects!

And last but certainly not least... our yard! This is one of the big selling points of the house for us. We envision a big patio with a built in fire pit, raised garden beds, maybe even some fruit trees in the back. I mean the yard is huge. If you look hard enough, you can see Nabil mowing the lawn with our new riding lawn mower (we got a GREAT deal on Craig's List)! So much potential!

So there you have it ladies and gents. That is the house. There will be many more home improvement / DIY projects to follow so stay tuned!

Until next time...

Fridge De-Clutter

Okay so this past week we have been moving all of our boxes in and trying to get situated in the new house. The best part about doing all of this is that I actually want to put things in a good spot because we plan on being here for a long time. Normally, in a rental I would just put some random odds and ends in a "good enough" or a "here for now" spot.

I blame it all on the "renting reason", or maybe it is just sheer laziness, but the last couple years our fridge has become a stock pile of random crap. Every year about this time, we get about ten wedding invitations or save the dates. It starts to look like a wedding planner exploded in our kitchen. We put just about every random thing that we get on the fridge because I have just never cared enough to find a better spot. No more! I'm sick of the clutter and decided to use that for motivation to fix the sitch.

I don't know how I came up with this idea. I'm sure it was just a combination of Pinterst / what I had on hand, but I decided to use a cork board and attach it to the back of a kitchen cabinet.

To start, I used some 12" x 12" cork board tiles that I already had lying around.

I also got some fabric that I had in my sewing pile to give it that little somethin' somethin'

I had to cut the cork boards down a bit in order to fit in between the the drawers of our cabinets, then I covered then in fabric using duct tape on the back. I'm sure there is a more effective way to attach fabric to cork, but for this small of a project, duct tape did the trick.

Lastly, I put some foam stickies all along the back of the board.

And that's it. Pretty easy huh?!

And here it is with all that clutter stacked up. We still see it all the time, because we use this drawer at least once a day, but all that clutter stays out of sight of everyone else walking through our kitchen. ...and it makes me feel better about having a clean kitchen. Problem solved! Yaya!

I hope this helps you to remove some of you summer clutter, or perhaps find a spot for the ongoing shopping list. Do you have any other ideas to help organize the random chaos?

Until next time...

Courtney Z in PDX; new and improved

Alright, so I know that this past month, it may seem like I have been slacking. I mean, I only had like three or four posts in April! A little pathetic, I know. The truth is that I haven't been slacking. I have actually been working my cute little butt off. I have had so many little ongoing projects, and it seems like they are all finally coming together. Allow me to fill you in:


Nabil and I bought a house.

That's right, we are old people grown-ups. We have spent so much time and energy looking at house after house. We are officially first time home buyer pros. Take a look at my first time home buyer advise here. The journey has been a mess to say the least, and at times it seemed like it would never be worth it, but I got to tell ya, I am so excited to have a place of our own. Weekend projects (that will actually be work that will benefit us), here we come!


I started my own photography business.

I'm using the term "business" very loosely. After going through what I have lovingly come to call my "quarter life crisis", I finally feel excited about my career future. Now all I need is a steady client base... easy right? Wrong! I have discovered that this adventure is a lot of work, but it has also been so much fun! I can't wait to see where it takes me. It seems a little weird to say write it out loud, mostly because that makes it a little more official, but the last couple months, I have been crazy busy building a website, creating the framework for a business, and trying to photograph as much as possible. ...it is not easy to do while maintaining a full-time job. Here are a few sneak peaks of what I have done so far. More blog posts to come:

Blog re-format
Over the past six months or since I have started the blog, I have really enjoyed what I have gotten out of the experience. I find that I can express myself much better writing than I can verbally. I get tongue tide, and it gets confusing for others who are trying to listen and follow my twisting train of thought. Since starting my photography venture, I have decided to reformat the blog a bit. I will be adding a lot more photography pieces and some work from any photo shoots that I photographed. I will also include some DIY home projects. This is a little unrelated to everything else on the blog, but I like doing these projects, and I like photographing/writing about it, so it stays because it is my blog and I can do what I want. Lastly, and what I am the most excited about is a new section of the blog:

Meet PDX
It's no secret that I love Portland. This city has so much to offer, and after living here for four years, I feel like I have only begun to scratch the surface. There are so many amazing avenues of the city, and I would like to incorporate that into the blog. What I envision is a "who's who" of local Portlanders. I will interview and photograph local business owners, artists, and those who generally make an impact on this great city. I have a few peeps lined up already, so stay tuned because it is going to be GREAT! Here is a little peak:

So that is about it. You officially have the 411. I think that my new and improved posts will not disappoint, so keep checking back! :)

Until next time...