A Look Back on 2022
At the end of each year, we love to look back and recap some of our favorite moments and memories for a special tradition. It’s hard to believe that it’s already that time again because it feels like I was just writing about 2021…but time flies when you’re having fun and we’ve had a lot of that this year!!
January
In January we celebrated 3 years of Harbor + Pine!! And now we’re coming up on 4! I don’t know how it’s been FOUR years, but I do know that we are so grateful to be chasing our dreams together and we couldn’t do it without you!! So thank you so much for joining us on this journey!!
Bryana re-painted her whole upstairs (kitchen, dining, living, and entryway)! And it looks SO good! She went dark and moody with Sherwin Williams Anonymous and it compliments her floors and all the pieces in her home so well.
We wrapped up one of our more unique design projects to date with a styling session and design reveal of the Ahola Funeral Home Project.
At the end of January, we rented a cabin near Traverse City with some of our best girlfriends for a winter weekend getaway! We stayed up late painting our nails and playing games and slept in and cooked dinner together, it was the best!
February
We were just about wrapping up renovating one half the duplex while building our new house in the middle of winter. The duplex took much longer and costed wayyy more than what we ever expected, but that is pretty typical to how projects go, right? To see more of the BTS of our duplex reno, follow us on Instagram and checkout our story highlights called “Duplex.”
Blog links: Affordable Kitchen Sconce Lights and Our Favorite Small Bathroom Vanities.
Jason and I went to Green Bay, WI for Valentine’s Day weekend for a little shopping trip getaway.
March
In March we flew down to Dallas, TX for a home goods and clothing trade-show! We had so much fun getting to see the city and so many cool shops and stores, we came back with so much inspiration and inventory on order for a spring refresh at Grace + Gather!
After the show was over, we traveled to Waco to visit Magnolia Market for the second time!! SO MUCH had changed and had been added onto since we were last there in 2018—the coffee shop, home store, food trucks, a baseball stadium, the church, and so many little gift shops. It was the best way to end our girls trip!
We also FINALLY finished the duplex renovations (on one half!) and shared the full reveal here.
Another blog post from March that you don’t want to miss, I shared a round-up of some Affordable Light Oak Laminate Flooring and the one we chose for our duplex and house!!
April
When April rolled around, our new house was finally feeling like an actual house! All of the windows were installed, all of the walls were painted, and the flooring was in! I started sharing our design mood boards for the spaces as we got closer to installing the furnishings.
First up: Kitchen Design Reveal and The Bathrooms Design Reveal.
We hosted our first ever Spring Market at Grace + Gather and it was so fun! We had a handful of local makers and vendors: Petaja Fiber Works, Teach to Taste, Aura Design Co., Vaalia Ruthia, Aina Jane Art, and Cedar & Sage Skincare.
We love any and all reasons to get together with our friends and family and eat good food, so we decided to have a cook-off competition with all of our friends!! We all made a different kind of soup and then voted on our favorite! Jason and I proudly took home the golden ladle.
May
Just when we thought things were moving along smoothly, (though slower than we originally thought) Jason stopped by the house build one morning and noticed that our whole house flooded due to some heavy rain and our sewer lines not being hooked up yet. And because we didn’t want to risk our house having mold, we had to rip our all of the trim and flooring and replace almost every single piece of it.. Talk about a bummer!! But thankfully our insurance company covered the loss and cost of it, so we were able to hire someone to install it and that made it a little bit easier so Jason could work on installing light fixtures and tile while the new laminate was being taken care of.
I shared our Master Bedroom Design Reveal. This whole space has been truly one of my favorite parts of our whole house!
Bryana and Brett flew down to West Palm Beach, Florida for a family wedding. They hung out with family and friends, enjoyed the warm weather, went on a boat tour!! It’s their favorite area of FL to visit, so they try to go every year!
June
We officially moved out of our home and into my first ever home aka my parents house. Haha! We were still waiting on our sewer lines and natural gas to be hooked up, as well as the inspections and approval to move in. Everyone kept telling us it would only be a couple more weeks, so we expected to be at my parents for 3-4 weeks max, but ended up staying two whole months. They graciously let us stay in their master bedroom so we could have the whole upstairs to ourselves with Little Miss and our own bathroom. I honestly CRIED when we moved out because it was such a special and unexpected blessing to have so much quality time with my parents again. Thankfully we are just down the road, so we still get to see each other often! But man, I couldn’t be more thankful for my parents and all of their help during such a crazy time.
Blog you don’t want to miss from June: Dining Room Design Reveal and Laundry Design Reveal.
One of our best friends, Alyssa, is getting married next fall so we flew down to Detroit, MI to go wedding dress shopping with her for the weekend!!
July
Bryana and Brett were officially living the van life all summer long while they rented their house on Airbnb for the second year in a row!
While we were waiting on the inspections and everything else to happen at the house we were still working on getting all the things setup. It felt kind of funny because all of our things were in our house like our couch, rug, chairs, dining table and chairs, some of our clothes were in our closets, the only thing missing was us! And our natural gas. Haha!
In case you missed these blog posts from July: Living Room Design Reveal, The Best Affordable Gold Hardware, and The Best Affordable Black Hardware.
August
This month we finally moved into our new house!!! It felt like a day that would never come!! I remember looking around our house when it was nothing but studs, when the flooring was flooded, and when were stuck waiting on all of our hook-ups, thinking “we’ll never actually live here, it’s going to take forever!!” But the day finally came and it was the best feeling ever waking up here for the first time.
We styled and shared one of our biggest projects to date—The Seppala New Build Project! This was the first new build project (other than our house) that we got to work on designing and it was amazing!!
Don’t miss these blog posts from August: Our Favorite Vintage Style Lamps and New House Build: The Exterior Design Reveal.
Bryana was busy this summer with photo sessions and weddings! Her little sister also got married in August!
Little Miss turned 3 in August!! She’s so easy to love and celebrate! We’re so thankful to have been able to watch her grow over the last year.
September
The Up with The Sun Cottage project was officially complete (after over a year and a half) and we couldn’t love this cozy little cottage more! You may recognize it from of our home goods and styling shoots!! We’ve been a part of this project for over a year and a half now and it’s so cool to see it all put together and ready for guests! It’s the perfect place for a relaxing getaway on the shore of Lake Superior! Click here for the link to book a night to stay.
October
We spent the first half of this month prepping for our biggest design install and project Reveal: The Nordic Talo — Master Suite, Guest Rooms, Family and Dining Room, and Great Room. It was so much work, but in the best way possible!! You can also rent this beautiful home on Airbnb if you are planning to visit the Houghton area and need a large space to rent.
Bryana shared her Top 5 Tips for Hosting on Airbnb, if you’re thinking about possibly starting a short term rental!!
Last year around Halloween we hosted hosted our first movie night at Grace + Gather with all of our friends for a Hocus Pocus themed Halloween party! So this year we invited our husbands and had a Grease themed party!! We all had a blast and I think the guys even did too. Haha!
Our bestie and business partner, Asia, took us to visit her hometown in New Hampshire! It was my first time there and it was so similar to the UP, but the historic buildings and winding roads were so incredible so see! Especially during the fall! You can see more of our trip highlights on Instagram under “New England.”
My mom turned 60 in October, so we celebrated with a trip to Petoskey, MI just the two of us! It was the perfect weekend to do all of the of shopping and eating! If you’ve never been to Petoskey, I highly recommend it! The downtown is so cute and quaint to walk around, and visiting in the fall was like being in Stars Hollow (IYKYK).
November
In November we started tackling a few more projects around our house starting with our home office that doubles as a storage and exercise room.
Most of November honestly feels like a blur because we were so busy getting ready for the holiday season at Grace + Gather. But I did enjoy getting to decorate our home for Christmas! I shared some Affordable Winter Art for your TV so make sure you check that our if you need some art this winter.
We had another cook-off competition for our Friendsgiving party, but this time we each made a different appetizer! Bryana and Brett took home the golden appetizer fork with Joanna Gaines Buttermilk Biscuits! We’re thinking our next competition will have to be cookies or some sort of dessert!!
December
This month started out crazy and thankfully is ending on a slow(er) note. There’s so much prepping that goes into owning a retail business during the holiday season, so once the holiday rush is over, we enter a bit of a slower paced season with the new year. We will gladly welcome the rest, relaxation, and slowing down this time of year. We’re both excited to read (and listen to some new books) and catch up on all of our favorite shows this season!
Some things we did in December was a mocktail party with our girl friends earlier in the month and also had our 7th annual Ugly Sweater Christmas party. We ate all the snacks, played some holiday themed games, and laughed a ton!
