Paraoan Home Tour

I can't believe we've been in our new home for 6 months now! Time sure flies. I've been having so much fun decorating and styling it to match our personality. There's so much that we want to do, but we can't afford to do it all at once... It's okay though. I keep reminding myself that we have plenty of time to make it all happen!

I wanted to share some pictures around our house, all of which have appeared on my Instagram, _disneylin and hashtag #ParaoanResidence.

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I absolutely adore this "hello" decal on our front door. It's a small hint to the outside world that they're about to be welcomed into a Disney home, haha. I want to put the Disneyland plaque above the doorbell. I think it's a beautiful welcoming sign to our sanctuary, our happy place. I think it's so important to be able to find peace and solace in your home, something that we were no longer able to do at our condo.

Home Sweet Home

Recreation of Disneyland's plaque

I'm so in love with the fact that we now have a fireplace! I always envisioned having a fireplace and decorating the mantel seasonally. The colors I've chosen for the living room are mostly different shades of gray, white, navy, and turquoise. I can't wait to get new couches. I really love the look of tufted furniture and I've found the perfect set at Baileys. Now I just have to save up so I can get them.

Sean chose his favorite color, red, as the main color theme for our kitchen. It worked out nicely because it was easy to incorporate our favorite Disney characters, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, into our design.

I wanted our bedroom to have a hotel feel to it, so I took the plunge and got a white bed set. I remember hesitating about buying a white set in fear of it getting dirty quickly, but we've never had a problem between washes. I found the set at Target. Someone on Instagram asked me where I got my Disneyland Hotel bedding set and I was a little confused... I found a picture that I took of the hotel room (we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel back in 2015), and low and behold - our bed set looked similar! No wonder I was so drawn to this particular bedding. =)

"A dream is a wish your heart makes, when you're fast asleep..."

As far as our master bathroom goes, I went for a spa feeling. I wanted to have a place in our home that I could quickly find serenity and tranquility, especially after a long day. When I think of a spa I think of bamboo, orchids, greens, and blues. I love how it all came together. I have a healthy collection of bath bombs, bath salts, face masks, and hand cut soaps to help set the tone.

I want to clear an area in the bathroom so that I can fit a chair and footstool. Then my vision will be complete!

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The next spaces I want to style are the office/craft room as well as the laundry room. The office quickly became one of our "junk rooms" and I've finally mustered up enough energy and determination to clean and organize it. Stay tuned! =)

With love,

-Lin

House Projects

I absolutely love how noticeably longer the days are... Pretty soon the snow will melt and summer will be here. I'm looking forward to more sun, picnics, BBQs, days at the park, annnnnnnd check stuff off our house goals list!

This year
Fence
Gutters
Start creating our gym space
Lawnmower - Our lot is small so we're honestly considering just getting a manual reel push mower
Change all the light bulbs to LED
Handles/knobs for our cabinetry

Near future
Install a back splash in the kitchen
Make our deck larger. Our deck is a measly 32 square feet! I want it large enough to accommodate a large grill, firepit, smoker, nice patio furniture, and maybe someday a small jacuzzi!
New couches
A bed for our guestroom
Change light fixtures

Later down the road
Redo flooring - replace the carpet and laminate flooring
Paint the interior
Plant a garden
Jetted tub for the master bathroom

What house projects do you have on your list?

With love,
-Lin

IKEA Shopping Spree

We got to go to IKEA on one of our "free" days in Orlando! I was so excited, especially since it was my sister's first time. I wanted her to understand and relate to my obsession, haha. We ate lunch at the cafeteria and then we began our journey through the intricate maze. Seeing her reaction to everything was awesome! Sean needed to go find new swim trunks, so he walked to Nordstrom Rack while Jenn & I were browsing. I was totally okay with it since I get "in the zone" while I'm shopping. Haha.

I was a little bummed that I didn't really find a lot that we really needed or wanted, but honestly that was good on my wallet! Haha. It's probably because we just went on a big shopping spree at the Las Vegas IKEA just a few months ago. Not pictured below: another LED light strip for an upstairs closet, a new hook for Lucy's leashes, and more napkins for our napkin holder.

I couldn't decide between two different place mats, so I ended up buying a set of both:

ORDENTLIG, $2.99 x4

STILFULL, $1.99 x4

I fell in love with how soft this blanket is. I also liked the fringed ends of it too. You can't beat the price! I'm going to buy another one, maybe in white, when we go to Arizona in June.

POLARVIDE, $3.99 (I purchased this in gray) x1

Holidays at the Paraoan Residence

The perfect ornament we found at Target! We ordered our Christmas cards from TinyPrints for the first time. I love how they turned out. PC - Jenn Velicaria

THANKSGIVING

I had an awesome 4.5 day weekend. We hosted Thanksgiving for the first time! Sean and I made green bean casserole, bacon wrapped smokies, meat and cheese tray, and a cheese skillet fondue. My family brought over turkey, turkey, mashed potatoes, lumpia, and pancit. For dessert Jenn made cupcakes and my aunt made brownies.

On Black Friday we went to Lowe's, Home Depot, Sam's Club, and Fred Meyer's. My favorite purchases this year: an electric skillet, handheld vacuums, a sander, a drill, and a Fry Daddy. As far as holiday shopping goes, I did most of my shopping online this year. I've become less tolerant of crazy crowds and I love the convenience of everything arriving at my doorstep.

CHRISTMAS

We also got to host Christmas. We celebrated on Christmas Eve and relaxed all day on Christmas. Sean and I made rib roast (I got a 13.5 pound roast from Carrs for $75!), green bean casserole, and spinach dip. My family brought over shrimp cocktail, pancit, mashed potatoes, dinuguan, kare kare, sisig, and pie. It was all so delicious! Some of the presents I got this year - various calendars (I Love Lucy, Mickey and Minnie, Moana), a new Clarisonic, Simon & Seaforts gift cards, Glacier Brewhouse gift cards, and Disney gift cards.

I was really excited to decorate for the holidays. We started decorating our home in mid-November. Outside we put a Mickey head projector and  Mickey and Minnie LED sculptures. I also finally bought reindeer and a snowman from Bell's Nursery! Words can't even explain how happy I was to finally have a place for them. I've wanted to buy a set for a long time, but had no place to put them when we were still living in our condo.

We bought a new 7.5 ft artificial tree. I love how thick and full the tree was. We prefer unlit trees because we're very specific on how we want the lights to look, haha. I hate "warm" lights and love the brightness of white lights. We bought new LED strands and put double the lights on our tree. It was SO bright and I absolutely loved it!

We put our old tree in the office and a few small trees around the house. We also started our Disney Christmas village. I can't wait to see it grow! I love Christmas so much and I look forward to 2017's holiday season.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Sean and I went to his friend's house for a few hours and then we ended the evening at my aunt's house. I love ending the year with family and starting the year with family. :)

Housewarming Party - 11.12.16

The perfect Velicaria & Paraoan selfie!

We threw our housewarming party on November 12, 2016. I picked that date for several reasons... It marked 2 months that we were in our new house and we were finally starting to feel settled in. 

I didn't want to create just a generic housewarming invitation. I wanted something that represented us. We're a Disney family, so I wanted to make sure that our invitation reflected that. I scoured through Pinterest and I couldn't find anything that screamed this is it. I eventually came up with this design:

I obviously edited some of the fields for this screen shot, but how cool would it have been if I really lived on a street called Disneyland Ave? Hehe. I was actually really surprised that I couldn't find any "Be Our Guest" themed housewarming invitations! I whipped this idea up using PowerPoint/Publisher and I love how it turned out. I hope to be proficient with using Photoshop someday.

When you go to a Filipino party, be sure to arrive with an empty stomach and be prepared to eat a lot of food. If you walk into a Filipino house and they offer you food, don't refuse. It's rude and anyways, you would have been missing out on yummy food! Haha. We didn't pick a food theme because I didn't want to be limited with our offerings. Plus, I wanted to make sure that everyone would leave with a happy tummy. My family provided most of what was on the menu:

• Pancit
• Lumpia
• Japchae
• Fried chicken
• Pizza
• Turkey sandwich rolls
• Mongolian beef
• Rice
• Ribs
• Chips
• Shrimp platter
• Kielbasa sausage, cheese, cracker platter
• Bacon wrapped smokies
• Fresh spring rolls, eggrolls, corn cake platter from Lahn Pad Thai
• Fruit tray
• Cheesecake bites
• Cookies
• Cupcakes
• Mini muffins
• Various Filipino desserts

We had tons of food! Thankfully we had a lot of guests throughout the day so we didn't have too many leftovers. We actually decided to host 2 parties on the same day. Our first party was from 12-3 pm and we invited family and coworkers to that one. Our evening party was for friends. I wanted to be mindful about parking (I'm so thankful that we have a decent sized driveway and we live in a cul-de-sac) and I wanted to make sure that we had time to mingle with each of our guests.

I looked at Pinterest for ideas of easy activities to do for a housewarming. I found a really neat idea to use a scavenger hunt, but all the ones I found were pretty generic. I decided to create one that had a little more flair. I loved the scavenger hunt idea because it basically served as a leisurely self-guided tour. That freed up our time so we could mingle with our guests that were eating or relaxing. As our guests were arriving, we asked if they wanted a personal tour or if they wanted to do the scavenger hunt. Most of them picked to do the scavenger hunt, and those that went on a hosted tour ended up wanting to do it too!

I made a sheet asking for our guests to write their addresses. It makes it easy for us for when we mail our our thank you cards and also of course for when we mail out our Christmas cards.

 

For favors, I wanted to give out something simple and something that everyone would love. So I settled on chocolate. I bought some yummy chocolates from Costco and I got the bags with ties from Michaels. The chocolates are so delicious! I had to force myself to stop eating them while I was putting together the favor bags, haha.

   

My only regret is that I wish that we took more pictures at our parties! It was such an awesome feeling to be surrounded by our loving family, closest friends, and costars (coworkers). I look forward to hosting more events at our place in the future. I hope you found some of my ideas helpful for when you host a housewarming event! :)

Ikea Part 2

One of my girlfriend's husbands went to the L48 to pick up their new RV. She told me that he was going to make a pit stop at IKEA and asked me if I wanted anything. They were going to fill up the RV and barge it all up here. I could not hold in my excitement, haha! Especially since I had some regrets of not picking up a few more items. I was so happy that he was able to find everything on my wish list!

DINERA light pink mug, $1.99 x 6.

LACK white coffee table, $44.99.

LACK white side table. $7.99 x 4.

I kid you not, I searched all over Anchorage for a simple coffee table/side table set. I found sets at Scan Home and Scan Basics that I really liked, but they're too pricey for my budget. I also found some that I liked on Amazon with Prime shipping, only to find out that they don't ship to Alaska due to the dimensions of the products. I found some on Target.com that I thought were okay, but I wasn't in love with them. As the saying goes, everything happens for a reason! I'm 100% happy and confident with these purchases.

I also asked for another full dinnerware set, 5 more cushion pillows, covers for them, and 2 more LED sensor light strips. The barge left on Thursday and is expected to be here on Tuesday. Once everything comes in I'm going to sell our old coffee table and side tables set. I am really impressed with how fast everything is going to arrive. 

My girlfriend and I talked about going to Seattle sometime next year for a girls shopping trip. We daydream of shopping at IKEA and Hobby Lobby and then barging up our treasure! Haha. Aside from layovers at the Seattle airport, I've NEVER explored Seattle. Hopefully we can make it happen! 

Ikea & Hobby Lobby Shopping Adventure

One of my favorite things about going on vacation is shopping! Sean and I brought down 4 luggage with us to Vegas... We each had our own that were half full and then 2 empty luggage. There were 4 stores I was really looking forward to shopping at on our last trip - Macy's, Kate Spade Outlet, IKEA, and Hobby Lobby. I wish we had these stores in Alaska!

• Macy's - at least Macy's includes Alaska with their free shipping promotions! I love a lot of the different clothing brands they carry, as well as many of their home decor and kitchenware options.
• Kate Spade Outlets - Unfortunately you can't shop Kate Spade Outlet merchandise online. However, sometimes KateSpade.com has really amazing deals and they include Alaska for free shipping. 
• IKEA - IKEA doesn't ship many of their items to Alaska OR they charge an insane amount for shipping. Example - The storage bench I bought at their physical store (pictured below) would have cost me $40 to ship up here.
• Hobby Lobby - Hobby Lobby has expensive shipping fees. Example - I bought $19.98 worth of merchandise (the big fork and the big spoon which are pictured down below) and it cost $16.95 to ship up here.

I want to share some of my favorite finds from IKEA and Hobby Lobby! Aside from celebrating our anniversary down in Vegas, we were also there to buy home goods for our new residence.

IKEA

I've only gone to IKEA once back in 2014. We only bought a few items since we were still at our condo and we didn't really need anything new. I always make a "Places to eat/Places to shop/Places to see" list and IKEA was at the top of all 3! Haha. Obviously we were only able to buy smaller items that would fit in our luggage. I eventually want to use Shop+Deliver by lulu for large pieces like couches and bed frames whenever we have extra money. I'm glad we went down to see everything in person so now we have a better idea of what to order through them.

DINERA 18-piece dinnerware set, $34.99. When we moved into our new house, I originally wanted to buy white square dinnerware sets. Then we went to IKEA and I saw this beautiful blush pink set and I had to have them! This set includes 6 10" plates, 6 8" side plates, and 6 bowls. For $34.99 it was a steal of a deal. My friend is getting me another set plus 6 mugs. I thought it would be perfect to have 2 full sets for entertaining, especially during holiday parties.

Sean has full control of decorating our kitchen (since I pretty much conquer everywhere else, haha), so I was really happy that he was fine with us getting this set. He has our kitchen mostly decorated with red, black, white, and some yellow... These colors are for Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

KNYC napkin holder, $4.99 + red napkins, $1.99. I thought this napkin holder was very stylish! We ended up buying 2 sets of red napkins to go with the napkin holder. I love how inexpensive the set was and how awesome they look in our kitchen and dining room.

MOLGER storage stool, $39.99. Even though it's "birch" I thought it would look great in our master bathroom. I'm going for a spa like feel in our master bathroom so I have a lot of bamboo pieces. I thought this storage stool would fit great in the space. I plan to put extra shampoos, lotions, and body wash in it. I'm glad that IKEA has how much items weigh on the box! I'm even happier that it fit in our luggage with no problems.

VIGDIS cushion cover, $7.00 + 20" x 20" cushion, $5.99. I bought 4 new cushions for our couch and 4 covers for them. I love how the cushions were packaged - nice and tight in a plastic wrap. I was kind of worried that they wouldn't be fluffy, but when I opened them at home they got so fat! It's been difficult for me to find large cushions in simple colors, so I was very happy when I found these at IKEA.

STOTTA LED light strip, $14.99. We needed lights for our pantry and our entryway closet since there aren't any light switches in them. We found similar strips elsewhere, but you have to plug them in. Our pantry and entryway closet doesn't have any electrical plugins either. I was so relieved when we found this at IKEA at a great price!

HOBBY LOBBY

It was my first time going to Hobby Lobby and oh my goodness - I was so overwhelmed with excitement to be there! I didn't really know what to expect. It's like Michael's but 10x better! Everything we bought was half off and I've listed the retail prices below.

Tan Vintage Minnie Mouse Canvas Art, $24.99

Tan Vintage, Mickey Mouse Canvas Art, $24.99

Vintage Mickey & Minnie Metal Wall Sign, $27.99

These art pieces are going behind our bed.

Kitchen Black Wood Wall Word, $11.99. We hung this up above our sink. 

Antique Red Fork Polyresin Wall Decor, $19.99

Antique Red Spoon Polyresin Wall Decor, $19.99

Red Eat Word MDF Wall Decor, $9.99

We bought the Eat sign while we were at Hobby Lobby. Sean found the big fork and the big spoon and we thought it would go great with our kitchen decor. As we were checking out we found out that they weren't on sale, so we regrettably decided not to buy them (I was already spending too much money!). We got home to Alaska and I kept thinking about them, so I looked them up online and found them on sale for half off + $16.95 for shipping. I decided to bite the bullet and order them. I figured the total was less than paying full price and we didn't have to pay tax for them! Haha. In hindsight, I don't think we would have had room for them anyway since our all our luggage was full and almost at the weight limit!

I really wanted the big fork and the big spoon because they're staples in Filipino homes, haha. Plus, there's an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond that revolves around a big fork and a big spoon. If you know us well, you know that Everybody Loves Raymond is one of our favorite shows! These are all going to go in our dining room.

Anchor Wood Wall Shelf, $29.99. We bought 2 of these to go into our half bathroom downstairs. We're going for a Disney Cruise theme in there and I love that these have shelves! We'll eventually spray paint them a different color. We have models of the Disney Cruise line ships that we'll put on the shelves.

Thank you for reading! I hope everyone is having a good week.