Simply Knot Photography Blog - Arizona Wedding Photographers

Tools For Your Photo Biz: ShootQ

Denise — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Today’s blog post is geared towards all the other photogs out there (or really anybody that just happens to be curious about how we do things for our business.) We’ve decided to start a new little blog series to share some of the tools that have helped us make our business more efficient (and keep our sanity) over the last few years. One of the hardest things about being a new photographer is figuring out how to run the “business” side of things. Sure, maybe you can take pretty pictures, but what about the rest? We learned a ton from reading other photographer’s blogs, attending conferences and knowing some awesome photogs that were totally open and willing to share with us, so we thought it was about time we started to do the same.

We have learned a lot of things in the last 3 years that could totally help out someone else who’s trying getting a handle on things. Now keep in mind, we’re not saying that all of the tools we use will work for everybody, they just happen to work for us.

First on our list of awesome Photo Biz tools . . .

ShootQ is an online studio management tool that’s designed to meet the needs of photographers. We refer to ShootQ as our office manager cause it pretty much does all the work a real live office manager would do for us! It contains our contact list, accounting information, client records and a ton more. And the best part? It’s all online so we can access it from anywhere, even our iPhones. It’s an A-MA-ZING program and we were up to our ears in outlook folders, excel spreadsheets, file folders and lots and lots of paper before we had ShootQ. Now we’re so much more organized and can lend a nice nod to the environment since our studio is almost entirely paperless :-) Here are some of the features that we use the most:

Calendar Management & Appointment Scheduling

ShootQ syncs our personal and business calendars so we can have an easy snapshot of what we’ve got going on and what’s coming up.

When we need to set up a meeting with a client we can actually send them a meeting request by defining just a few easy fields. Then the client can choose what date and time works the best for them. It factors in any conflicts on our calendars and only allows them to choose from our available dates and times. So much easier than trading dozens of emails back and forth just to schedule one meeting!

Email Templates

I love writing the same email over and over again, don’t you? I THINK NOT! ShootQ has made us a ton more efficient when it comes to keeping our inbox under control and streamlining our correspondence. We just set up a bunch of templates and then do our emailing from within the ShootQ interface. Every email is tracked and linked to the client or lead, which is extra nice with there being two of us. This way we don’t both accidentally email someone about the same thing! A simple click of a button now creates the email we used to retype every time. After applying a template, you can still customize the message based on your relationship with the client or any specific questions they have. Using a template is just a great way to avoid having to retype all the standard info over and over again. The templates can even be designed to fill in the name of the client and other important details for you :-) ShootQ takes such good care of us (sigh).

Lead Management

When ever someone inquires about our services through our website or blog, the ShootQ contact form automatically sets up a lead profile with all the wedding/session details and alerts us via email so we can go check it out and respond to them.

The lead tracking section of the site allows us to categorize each lead, track our correspondence and set up reminders to follow up with them after a certain amount of time has past. Easy peasy :-)

Shoot Details

Once a client books us, their lead profile is converted into a client profile where all the information for their wedding/session can be kept in one place. Contact info, notes and correspondence, workflow tasks, package and billing information and even other vendors related to their shoot can all be accessed from one easy place. There’s A LOT of information to keep track of for every client and this flawless system makes it so easy to make sense of it all.

Client Sites, Surveys & Contracts

Every client gets there very own password protected client site where they can update information about their wedding, track the progress of their album, make payments and interact with us in a variety of ways. The very first thing they do on this site is sign their contract & pay their deposit. No more waiting for contracts or checks to come in the mail! It’s all in one quick, easy, online process that’s super convenient for us and for our clients.

We also use the client sites to send surveys. These surveys are an easy way for us to gather information for planning a couple’s engagement session or confirming all the logistical details, portrait list and schedule for the day of their wedding. There’s even a handy feature that asks our wedding couples to enter the contact information for their other vendors. When they do, it’s automatically entered into our ShootQ contact list, making it really easy for us to connect with their vendors before and after their wedding day.

Workflow (Task Management)

I’m a total checklist person – mostly because I’m naturally pretty forgetful! The only way I’ve found to combat my forgetfulness is to be very organized. Before the days of ShootQ we would spend hours creating tasks in Outlook for each of our shoots so we wouldn’t forget to do anything. It was horribly tedious, difficult to share between both Ryan & I and a huge waste of valuable time. ShootQ allows you to create workflow templates with all the typical tasks related to every shoot. We have one for portrait sessions, weddings, engagement sessions, album production and a few others. You define how many days/weeks/months, etc. a task should occur in relation to a shoot or booking date and ShootQ does the rest. During the process of booking a new client we apply the appropriate workflow and BAM! All the tasks are created for us. No muss, no fuss. And every day when we log in, there is a lovely little preview of what needs to be done and what’s right around the corner so we never miss a beat :-)

Seriously, we don’t know how we were getting by before investing in ShootQ. It has made our business better in a thousand ways. We’re more professional, more organized and can provide much better customer service to our clients because of it. And for us, it’s worth every single penny. Now in case you’re wondering, ShootQ didn’t ask us to write this post. I’m sure they don’t even know about it, but we feel so strongly about what they’ve done to help our business grow, that we felt inspired to share it with you. We highly encourage you to check them out – just click the link below and take a tour!

If you have questions about how we use ShootQ feel free to leave us a comment or email us. Or if you have another photography related question you can ask us over at our Formspring page. Thanks for reading and we really hope that you found the information helpful!

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From Apartment Puppy to Jungle Dog

Denise — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:00:42 +0000

Since she was about 8 weeks old, our pup Molly had been raised as an “apartment dog”. Grass was something that she only really came across on the rare occasion when her busy parents took her on a walk – which, I’m sad to say, was not often. Since we moved into our new home in July she has become a whole new kind of dog. The kind of dog that has a YARD. And not just a yard, but a HUGE yard, far too big for an 8 pound puppy. When we moved in, our un-finished backyard was mostly dead grass, but now, it’s grown into a small jungle. Molly wasn’t too keen on the yard for the first few weeks. In fact, she pretty much preferred to pee on the concrete porch rather than set foot on the dead grass. But as of just recently she’s gotten up the guts to start exploring her new world.

Getting up the courage to go explore the grassy jungle.

I love this next one. She almost disappears in all the tall stuff! Adorable :-)

She looked pretty pleased with herself after her little adventure and even decided to sample a little local cuisine.

We’re so proud of our little apartment puppy! All grown up and acting like a brave jungle dog. We’ve got landscapers coming to cut the grass in a few days so I hope she likes to play in the more orderly version of the backyard as much as she seems to like the jungle :-)

We heart our cute little ball of fur :-) Can’t imagine our lives without her.

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Smart/Collins Portrait Session: Mesa Center for the Arts

Denise — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:40:33 +0000

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Meghan & Matt recently came to us with a complaint about their wedding photos. There were so many photos that they loved that they had a hard time choosing which ones to display in their home. So they kind of ended up EVERYWHERE, to the point where their family and friends started to give them a hard time about it! (Terrible problem to have, right? Too many adorable photos of yourselves! LOL!) So to help remedy this very issue they decided that they needed to get some updated family photos done. Enter their favorite husband & wife photography team – US! So last Sunday we met Matt, Meghan and her sisters Erryn, Molly & Lydia at the Mesa Center for the Arts for a super fun photo session! It’s not too often that OUR sides hurt after shooting a portrait session, but this was definitely one of those times. Talk about a fun group! Lots and lots of laugher and love in this very special family.

(Please sign the guestbook if you’d like to be notifed when the rest of their photos are online.)

Don’t forget to “love” on your favorite images along the way!

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Training for the silly face championships is a lot of work, but sometimes a family’s gotta do, what a family’s gotta do.

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Great lines + adorable subjects = awesome photo

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Every time we’d tell the girls to put their hands on their hips, Matt would do it to and we kept giving him a hard time about it. It’s fun to make Matt feel silly :-) We love that guy!

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Time for some sisterly love :-)

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How cute are they? I just love all the interactions happening in this one.

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We said “fierce” and they pulled it off, big time. Ryan mentioned that this shot could work for their album cover and suddenly . . .

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… a pretty serious “Air Guitar” band was born! HILLARIOUS!

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They came up with the super cute idea to do a bunch of “Brady Bunch” themed headshots. It was a bit of a challenge since we were about 3 family members short of a traditional “bunch”, but the results are pretty fun regardless.

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This is one group that can laugh their way through anything.

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The Beatles fans of the world will appreciate our little Abbey Road throwback :-)

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Love the colors in this next one :-)

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Meghan & Matt also wanted to do some updated shots of them. How cute are they? Just as adorable and in love as their wedding day (sigh). Man, we’ve got an awesome job.

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It doesn’t get much better than shooting these two.

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Showing off a little rawr on the catwalk!

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Thanks Matt, Meghan, Erryn, Molly & Lydia for such a fun time! We had a blast hanging out and laughing with you guys. Can’t wait to see lots of these up on your walls :-)

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And the winner is . . .

Denise — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:50:33 +0000

We had no idea when we launched our “Tell Us Your Love Story” wedding photography give away last month, that choosing a winner would be SO HARD! When it all came down to it, there were things about every single couple that made them totally deserving of the grand prize. I guess that’s really the beauty of love, isn’t it? Every story is totally unique and incredibly special. We’ve felt blessed and honored that all of you were willing to share them with us. We’ve literally spent hours agonizing over our top 5, but of course, we finally had to choose just one.

Meet Becca & Danny!

Their Love Story . . .

“The VERY beginning – New Years Eve of 2005, they met. To say that it was love at first sight would be a gross embellishment. Danny and Becca both spent this night mingling with friends, laughing, and dancing, yet hardly a word was spoken to one another. This night was not a complete loss though, as there was one instance when Becca danced on a table to an ACDC cover band with Danny’s mom, little did she know the woman whom she was clearly not worried about impressing, would one day be her mother in law! (Side note – Becca doesn’t typically dance on tables, and doesn’t like ACDC. Danny may dance on tables, but only on special occasions.) They left the night with not so much as a goodbye. Becca went home to her boyfriend, and Danny moved to San Diego for Graduate School. Later, Danny would admit that he thought Becca was quite cute on this first New Years.

Fast forward two years to the day – New Years Eve of 2007, they met, again. At this point Becca had gotten rid of her lame boyfriend, and Danny was entering his last semester of Grad School. Becca was initially going to spend New Year’s Eve at a good friend’s house, but at a little past 11 her friend got a tad bit sick, and Becca decided to head south to another party. Danny, feeling a little under the weather, debated whether or not to go out on this fateful New Years Evening. Eventually he was coerced into going by a friend.

Within moments of walking into the party Becca gravitated towards Danny and then spent a large part of the evening strategically challenging him to guitar hero, and discussing random bands. When Danny left, Becca reminded herself that this cute fella lives in San Diego, and long distance relationships don’t work. Luckily, just prior to this revelation she confessed her crush to a friend, who unbeknownst to her was one of Danny’s best friends (and future groomsmen).

Within a day of meeting (again) Danny, with the knowledge of the crush, contacted Becca and asked if she would be interested in getting together before he headed back to school. Of course she said ABSOLUTELY . . . the butterflies went wild.

Over the next several months there were many 6 hour drives to and from San Diego, several trips to pizza port (our favorite restaurant), and countless playful hours outdoors. During this time Becca realized that Danny was one of the funniest, kindest, and all together wonderful people she had ever met, despite his baseball fixation. Danny realized that Becca was a total nerd, incredibly caring, and had become his rock, despite her obsession with a border collie named Burton.

After graduating, Danny came home to Becca.

Now 2 years later we are getting hitched!

We can’t wait to spend our lives together traveling, laughing, loving and being completely and totally ourselves.”

I think that last line says it all! Congratulations to Becca & Danny! We can’t wait to learn so much more about you guys and be a part of your wedding day!

A huge thank you again to every single couple that participated!

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#17: Have A Wedding Published On A Bridal Blog

Denise — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:00:39 +0000

We are so excited that Katie & Justin’s incredibly adorable October wedding was featured on THREE bridal blogs over the past couple of weeks! So not only did good old goal # 17 from our 101 list get checked off . . . it got TRIPLE checked! And who do we have to thank for helping us with this accomplishment? Well, Katie & Justin of course! Their creativity in planning an absolutely lovely and personal event on a small budget is what caught the attention of all three of these great bridal resources. You guys ROCK! We feel so blessed to have been able to capture it!

Check out these awesome features:

Yesterday The Budget Savvy Bride featured Katie & Justin as their the Budget Savvy Wedding of the Week! (Click here to view the entire feature.)

Also on August 10, the Recycled Bride blog showcased their wedding as part if their weekly “Wednesday Wedding Porn” feature. (Click here to view the entire feature.)

And on July 20th, The Wedding Yentas (A Guide For The Jewish Bride) featured them as one of their Real Weddings. (Click here to view the entire feature.)

All three of these blogs are great resources for couples that are planning their wedding. Make sure to check them out for tons of great ideas and wedding inspiration!

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New Blog Feature: Image Voting!

Denise — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:00:09 +0000

Over the weekend we added a cool new feature to our blog! At the bottom of every image from our photo shoots, you’ll now see a little check box on the right hand side that reads, “I love this”. You can click on it to vote for your favorite images. You can also see how many people have voted for each image on the bottom left hand side. Vote for as many images as you want.

As our readers vote, their favorite images will be displayed in a gallery of thumbnails at the top of our blog based on their popularity.

Cool, right? It’s probably not near as awesome to anyone else as it is to us, but we really like to hear what our readers love. We can’t wait to see what images people vote for! Thanks for reading and go “love” some images! (P.S. This doesn’t excuse you from commenting so feel free to keep, or start, doing that too. LOL!)

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Jess & Justin’s Wedding: Inspirador, Chandler

Denise — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:23:38 +0000

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Jess & Justin tied the knot on Saturday at Inspirador in downtown Chandler. Now I know what you’re thinking – why would anybody get married in the middle of July in Arizona? Well, the date of their wedding had a lot more to do with their honeymoon plans than it did with the weather in Arizona! As I’m writing this, the happy newlyweds are enjoying their time in beautiful San Diego for Comic Con! Yep. They’re just that awesome! We’ve really gotten the chance to get to know this great pair over several dinner dates, their engagement session, bonding over a mutual love for Apple products and lots and lots of facebook commenting! We couldn’t feel more blessed to have been there to capture their very special day. Jess & Justin are the perfect match and their wedding was so much fun to shoot!

(Please sign the guestbook if you’d like to be notifed when the rest of their photos are online.)

Jess’ wedding dress was gorgeous – classic and beautiful, just like Jess :-)

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She rocked this cute pair of gold sandals.

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The beautiful florals were created by the ever so talented Amy of Amy’s Floral Design!

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Such a stunning bride.

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While I was over with the girls, Ryan was hanging out with Justin. Since it only took him about 5 minutes to get ready, they had plenty of time to goof around for some portraits. Silly, silly boys :-) These two crack me up!

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Inspirador is such a unique venue, and in this case, it was just perfect for a wedding on a hot day because both the ceremony and reception sites were indoors. We really loved the cool contemporary spaces and modern details. Among our favorites were the modern light fixtures and the love quotes that line of floor of the Poet’s Lounge, where the ceremony took place.

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I absolutely love both of these shots we grabbed just before the ceremony.

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Here comes the bride!

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Justin was one happy man as he watched his bride come down the isle.

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This one makes my heart all warm & fuzzy inside :-)

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Mr. & Mrs. at last!

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Since it was like a billion degrees outside, we shot most of their portraits in the Tryst Gallery. The exposed brick and fun art pieces served as a great backdrop. The bridal party was small, but a good looking bunch nonetheless!

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Gotta say, Justin was all smiles the whole day! So sweet :-)

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Rockin’ the gallery in black & white.

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LOVE this shot Ryan took. It just might be one of my new favorite images :-)

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Couldn’t choose between these next two. Loved them both so much!

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Jess & Justin really wanted their afternoon reception to feel fun and laid back. They chose a summertime theme and the guests got to enjoy the music of well known Percussionist Paul McDermand on the Steel Drums.

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There were lots of laughs (and a few tears too) as the maid of honor, best man and both their dads toasted the newlyweds.

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A sweet and touching moment with Jess & her dad as they watched a slideshow of family photos.

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We snuck away for a couple shots of the rings. Don’t you just love Justin’s custom designed ring?

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Instead of a cake, they opted for yummy cupcakes made by The Cake Cafe! Good choice!

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And a bubble filled exit wrapped things up rather nicely :-)

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For more photos from Jess & Justin’s wedding, click on the view slideshow button below!

To the happy couple: you guys ROCK! We had so much fun spending the day with you and can’t wait to watch what God has in store for you both in the future. We look forward to many more hang outs and a long friendship :-) Hope you guys are having so much fun in San Diego! Thank you for choosing us to share in such a wonderful day!

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Your Love Story: Wedding Photography Give Away!

Denise — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:00:45 +0000

We have a very special announcement to make! You could have Simply Knot Photography shoot your wedding FOR FREE! Yes, I said FREE!

So you’re probably wondering, why are we (Ryan & Denise) doing this?

We are two very lucky people :-) We get to do something we really love (take photographs) and at the same time, we get to give our couples the gift of preserving their wedding memories forever. We feel blessed by each and every couple that chooses us to document their day and 99% of the time, we walk away with two new friends in the process. It’s pretty awesome.

Because we are so blessed, we want to spread the love to one very special couple by shooting their wedding FOR FREE!!!!

Here’s a little Q&A for everybody:

What will the lucky couple win?

The lucky winners will receive a wedding photography package valued at $3000. It will include:

8 hours of wedding day coverage with Ryan & Denise
an engagement session
an online slideshow
an online proof gallery with all their photos
DVD of high resolution images

How do you enter?

Our ideal clients don’t just want ”someone to take photos of their wedding”, they want someone to document who they are as a couple and what makes their love story uniquely them. So that’s what we want to hear – YOUR love story! Tell us your love story in 300 words or less and we will choose our favorite as the contest winners.

Here’s what you do:

Fill out the quick and easy ENTRY FORM (Sorry everybody! The contest is closed. To read about the winner, click here.)
Tell us your love story (in 500 words or less)
Email us a digital photo of you which will be posted on the blog if you win ( studio@simplyknotphotos.com )

Are there any rules?

One submission per couple
Your wedding date must be available on our calendar (FYI: We are no longer accepting bookings for Sept. – Nov of 2010)
Your wedding must take place in the Phoenix metro area (weddings in other locations are free to enter, but travel costs will not be covered as part of the prize package)
You can’t be a relative, close friend or existing client of ours – we don’t want to be accused of favoritism!

Make sure to submit your entry on or before AUGUST 15th! We’ll announce the big winner on our blog the following week.

Can’t wait to meet all of you and read all about what makes you’re love story so special!

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Happy Birthday Baby!

Denise — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:53:17 +0000

Happy 30th birthday to my sweet Ryan: my husband, the love of my life and my best friend! You are the best thing that ever happened to me and I am so proud to be your wife. I am blessed every day by your ability to make me laugh, the way that you always push me to be just a little bit better and your sweet heart. Thank you for all that you are and all that you are becoming everyday. I love you so much and I can’t wait to spend our thirties . . . and fourties . . . and the rest of my life with you!

Happy Birthday Baby! SHMILY

How cool was this kid? Some things never change :-)

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Home Improvement 101

Denise — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:32:09 +0000

As new homeowners, we have come to realize that there ARE a few advantages to apartment life. When something breaks, you just call the office and a nice man comes out with a bunch of tools and takes care of it. You don’t really have to own things like ladders, drill guns and lawnmowers cause the “nice man from the apartment complex” does. Since we closed on our house last month, we’ve become quite the regulars at the Home Depot near our house . . . to the point where people are starting to recognize us actually. And our poor dads! They’ve gotten more than a few desperate phone calls like, “Is is supposed to be this hard to get a cabinet hinge off?” or “What do I use to patch up the hole I just put in our bathroom wall?” Needless to say, It’s been an adventure of epic proportions!

The top two home improvement lessons we’ve learned so far: 1) Nothing is as easy as you think it will be . . . EVER! No matter how easy it looks on HGTV (which we now LOVE by the way), it’s not. And 2) keep your receipts. You WILL buy the wrong thing at Home Depot. There’s no point in getting mad, just accept it because it WILL happen . . . over and over again.

A small selection of our many, many new purchases. Our very first purchase was the 8 foot green ladder. Getting that into my little blue Rav4 was entertaining!

We’ve created a little graveyard of the ugliness we’ve been pulling out of the house. Mid 90′s light fixtures anyone?

This little baby was about the ONLY thing that survived the big lighting switch out. It was originally hung in the studio, which has kinda low ceilings to begin with, so rather than put a 6 foot and under height restriction on our clients, we decided to move it into the family room.

I know you already saw the new dinning room light, but it’s just too pretty not to post it again :-)

It’s funny that something as small as changing out light fixtures can do so much to modernize a space. This front room will be our living room with the TV on the left side wall and our couches on the right. To add a some mood lighting, we added dimmer switches for the front pendant light as well as the one in the dinning room. Ryan’s becoming quite the little electrician, despite his deathly fear of electrocution. I’m not kidding people, he gets upset when I accidently shock him in the grocery store. If it does happen, I’m not allowed to touch him until we leave the store.

We’ve had so much help from our amazing families! Here’s a shot of Ryan’s dad Greg working on hanging one of the new lights.

Rather than do vertical blinds for the back door, we opted for curtains. Perfect example of a project that sounds easy and turns out to be a big pain! We had to hang the dang rod 3 times to get it at the correct height. On top of that, it required 3 trips to Pottery barn, the second time for more curtain rings and the third time to exchange one of the panels which was not the same length as the first one even though it said it was supposed to be on the package. A two inch difference doesn’t lie!

My favorite part of the curtain project? The squared finials on the end of the rod. (And learning that these were called “finials”! LOL!)

So the biggest project we’ve completed so far has been repainting our cabinets. There was quite a bit involved in the process for what seemed like a simple change: 1) Take down cabinets doors & remove the hinges, 2) Clean all surfaces, 3) Prime all surfaces, 4) Paint all surfaces, 5) Put hardware back on and rehang everything, 6) Touch up all the nicks we made by not letting them dry long enough, etc. Not only did we do the kitchen, we did the cabinets in both bathrooms as well. It took about 3 weekends to get the whole thing done, but it provided lots of photo opportunities :-)

And the whole thing would have been impossible without A LOT of help! Here’s Ryan & Greg putting the last of the hinges back on.

Here’s Ryan’s mom Lanie doing touch ups . Lucky for us, she’s a fab artist who paints for a living. Experience with a paint brush = a hot commodity during a painting project! Although we were able to remove the doors and use a paint sprayer to do those, all the cabinetry that was attached to the wall had to be hand painted.

Here’s what our previously ugly kitchen cabinets looked like BEFORE. And then DURING – the purple looking color is primer.

And now – the AFTER! We’re certainly not pros, but it turned out pretty well. Much better than living with a kitchen from the early 90′s at least! (You may have noticed that all three photos were shot with completely different light, some with flash and some without. We started out using our little point and shoot camera for the before stuff, but wanted the finished product to be better quality. What? You don’t think that the “before & after” ads on TV do that too? Come on now, you know it’s true. LOL!)

Putting in a dog door was especially fun since it required cutting a BIG hole in our house! Check out the burly man wielding the saw!

Awwwww look – It’s our first HUGE hole. (tear)

A man with a saw sure draws a crowd!

And of course, my Dad (Dan) and I just had to do the old inside-outside trick. Yep. We’re a bunch of dorks.

Our introduction to the home improvement process has had it’s up and downs . . .

But it’s also been a lot of fun and we’ve already built a ton of great memories in our new house with people that we love. Thanks so much to our awesome family that have been such a huge help! Where would we be without your love, support and advice? I think it’s safe to say that we’d be living in a much uglier house. LOL!

Lots of Love from both of us :-)

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