Lisa Walsh Photography

I’ve mentioned my friend Jen before, and if you go through my tweets you’ll see her mentioned frequently.  She is the most amazingly talented cake artist I know, and if you’re one of my couples you’ve probably heard me talk about her at some point.  Jen’s cakes not only look fabulous, they taste wonderful.  I had asked her to make us a football cake for our Superbowl party, and I totally expected a flat cake shaped like an oval.  When I opened up the door I just had to laugh…not just because she always manages to go above and beyond what I expect…but I guess because I wonder why I thought she’d bring me a flat cake shaped like an oval, lol.

Would you look at this cake?  Our friend Seth thought it was a real football when he saw it.  You can see why, can’t you?

If you’re in the area and want a cake that’s out of the ordinary, be sure to contact her!  She rocks!

Whew!  I’m sorry to keep some of you waiting for this blog post, but I absolutely *had* to get a few more things done yesterday before I could shoot the after pictures.  Shopping and much furniture moving was involved, and I knew if we didn’t get it done yesterday it wouldn’t get done for a while.  So without further ado, here it is!

The tv is hanging on the wall.  The thing underneath it is a huge speaker that mimics surround sound.  Hot Husband and I explored the idea of true surround sound, but that meant speakers everywhere and I’m admittedly more about looks than function when it comes to that sort of stuff.  I didn’t want a bunch of them sitting on book shelves and certainly didn’t want to punch any more holes in our plaster walls then was absolutely necessary, so when we our Best Buy installer told me about this system I was already halfway sold.  I’m very happy with the sound it puts out.

My favorite part is walking into the room and seeing this bad boy hanging over the fireplace.  Our last house had a fireplace, too, and again we had to either watch the fire or the tv.  We dreamed of the day we could have one of these hanging over the fireplace so we could have only one focal point in the room.  I love having an old house mixed with modern touches here and there, and the satisfaction of working hard and achieving your dreams is priceless.

Scarlet and Indi live on either side of the tv in these glass vases.  I’m trying to figure out the best way to light them at night without a bunch of cords showing.  Any ideas?  They would be so cool lit up!

My tumbleweed came while the Best Buy installers were here.  I have to thank them for warning me to check for scorpions before I reached too far inside the box.  One of them had a shipment come from Arizona with a little extra surprise in it.  I never would have thought of that on my own, but luckily my box was scorpion free.  Also, my first thought when I saw it was “the color matches the living room perfectly”!  Because that’s the kind of weirdo I am.  So I went out and bought this cool vase to put it in.  (Now I’m trying to figure out how to preserve it because I love it so much.)  See?  I told you I was strange.

Rocks from the zen garden that sits on the coffee table.  In case you were wondering, it doesn’t bring much peace to my life because I’m constantly cleaning up sand.

Here are a few “before” images of our living room, taken last week. The Geek Squad is in there as I type, installing the tv over the fireplace. After pictures will be blogged this weekend so be sure to check back!

This one is taken from the foyer at the front of the house, looking back. Our furniture has been in this same exact spot for just over 3 years and couldn’t be changed because we had a huge armoire that held our old tv across from the fireplace on the red wall (where you can kind of see the new tv sitting on the table). That was the *only* spot in the entire living room where it could go!

Here you can see a better view of where the tv has been since we moved in. The entertainment center that was there went almost to the ceiling, lol. That first doorway on the right is my office and is where the old armoire is for the time being.

Here you can see more of the fireplace.

That’s all for now!