Finally taking care of business!

"Your house must be gorgeous!"....I hear that alot from customers. But sadly, I must admit, I am the cobbler with no shoes. It has been exactly 1 year since I bought my first condo. Finally I owned my first home. A place where I could do whatever I wanted to, to the walls, to the floors etc.. But like many of you - life happened. I had a baby, I had 2 stores to run, a growing Interior Design business and not enough $$$ to create the home of my dreams.

But here we are a year later, the baby is growing fast. Isn't she cute! The business' seem to be on track (both the stores and the interior design), and the money - well, one can still dream. And the home of my dreams? It is finally time to get my butt into gear, and make this condo a home!

I'm not one for new year's resolutions but I do tend to make plans. And my plan is to whip this condo into shape for next Christmas. Because next Christmas Eve, I will finally be able to start my own Christmas tradition for my daughter by hosting dinner.

So here we go! The plan: to make this house into a home. (And to share the process with all of you!) Now, here is a little background...My condo is 2 bedrooms, a small office, 2 full baths and a kitchen. When we first moved in the apartment had floor to floor carpeting-not a huge fan, so the one initial expense was to put down hardwood flooring. And truth be told, we used National Floors Direct and they sucked! They didn't have the flooring we wanted, and then it took them over a week to install. The guys they sent would work for 20 minutes and then take an hour long break. And they missed spots...which they refuse to come back and fix - so lesson learned...NEVER USE NATIONAL FLOORS DIRECT!!! (SPREAD THE WORD). The second expense was building a wall of shelving in the living room. My husband and father-in-law built it themselves..i'm very proud. Finally, I just had to have my grasscloth. As a gift, my favorite wallpaper hanger, hung my favorite grasscloth in my office. I love it! And wish I could hang it everywhere...but sometimes too much is just that-too much. Now take a look at how the condo currently looks....(please no judgements on the mess)

Not horrible, but definitely no poster for Hudson. So please keep reading my posts over the next few weeks and months to watch my progress! I plan on tackling one room at a time, and I plan on sharing everything. I hope to hear your comments along the way! Thanks and welcome to 2011. J