ReStore goodies

Habitat ReStore is one of my favorite places for DIY home stuff.  They recently posted on facebook that they had received a large donation of new carpet. We were able to pick out a couple rolls that looked pretty good together, and voila! The unfinished basement is now a cozy playroom for the kids. We also got some carpet squares for the steps. It's not all the same pattern, but it goes together pretty well.  

I was also finally able to get these guys out of my mom's garage - my blue lobster chairs!

Another Habitat ReStore find, these came out of a Red Lobster of all places.  They had blue, green, and red chairs to choose from and I fell in love with the blue for my coastal theme. They have kind of a blue stain over the wood.  We had to wait 30 days before putting anything on the wood floor, so I was really excited to finally use them for dinner last night. They're super sturdy and comfy. The table is my splurge.  It came from Pier 1. It was too perfect and I was able to get a little bit of a discount, so I went for it. The area rug comes tomorrow and the couch on Thursday. Then I think we'll be ready to commit to hanging some decor on the walls. It's fun to finally be in decorating mode!

fast forward

I got caught up in all the craziness that was our May/June and haven't posted any house or kiddo updates in a while.  But if you fast forward to now, Em is two and can sing the alphabet, Big E is seven and finished his first season of machine pitch baseball, and we're all moved in! Ta-da! We celebrated our 11th anniversary by moving into our new home.

[Actually, we did a little pre-celebration the night before with a box of wine at our new kitchen island (known now as the Buckshot Bend Bar).  Note to self: don't drink half a box the wine the night before you move.]

The past week as been a blur, but we're finally settled in.

Thank goodness for paid help! All our stuff was out of storage and into our house in an hour and a half.

The lovely stair carpet. 

Formal dining still needs some help with decor.

If I could marry a refrigerator, it would be that GE with french doors over there.
However I might cheat on it with that pantry.

Obsessed with my beachy mantle!
Vase, candles and rope knot from target; mini trunk from my garage-saling mom;
and tropical plant from our first house guests!

This past week (other than unpack and clean) we watched fireworks almost every evening from our front porch and back deck. We went swimming three or four times in the community pool (aka grammy's house). And sometimes we just sat and just listened to the frogs, birds, and wind.

So happy we were able to keep focused and make this dream a reality.  It wasn't long ago (Thanksgiving Day) that we were standing in that empty field thinking what it could be. I wouldn't move to the country with just anyone, but with this crew? Heck yeah!

deck, trim and cabinets! [weeks 17-19]

In the past couple of weeks we have had some big updates! We now have a deck, trim, interior doors, hardwood floor and cabinets!  There were two brothers who did our trim work and they were amazing.  Their work is so seamless and smooth.  And they moved fast - completed the whole house in about four days!

covered deck with a view

the mantle: just add stockings

the kitchen and hidden pantry.
the corner cabinet has been left open for seeded glass.
if you look closely, there are some hardwoods down as well!

my favorite upgrade so far - the center stack in the master bath!

drop zone - so i can be pinterest approved!

the banister with metal balusters

drywall in a day [week 16]

I seem to have lost track of what week it is on our house updates because we've had a few weeks of little activity.  There have been some updates, but nothing too exciting.  HVAC, electrical, inspections, septic pond, water line, blah blah blah.  All very important for sure, but I'm ready for the pretty stuff now!

So I counted and we're at Week 16!  Insulation and drywall.  The crew managed to hang all the drywall in one day - impressive! The enclosed walls make it look even bigger for some reason.  People keep telling me it's all going to move really quickly now.  That is a good thing since we're moving out of our house in six weeks!

living room: bring on the paint and flooring!

entry: railing cannot come soon enough

We found our first couple of issues - light switch on wrong side of door and smaller tub than planned - but I think we can live with both.

While planting some tall grasses around the septic pond this weekend I noticed that our little easter redbud is sprouting leaves! I hadn't expected to do anything this year or maybe ever, so this was a very exciting discovery!

leaping

We have found an awesome renter for our house. (yay!) However, she's set to move in approximately two weeks before our new house is complete.  The good news is that we'll be able to save a month or two's worth of mortgage.  The not-so-good news is that we'll be displaced for a couple weeks. But the saving grace is we'll be staying with my mom and she has a pool.

This whole process has been one giant leap of faith.  It's been a while since I've done something that has scared me; it's good for the soul I think.

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Ok it's kid story time...

We're out for Sunday errands and Big E yells from the back seat: "Hey the balls fell off of dicks!"

What's that son?  Well, sure enough.  The balls had fallen off of our local Dick's Sporting Goods sign.  I don't have an actual pic, but here's a visual for you...

They just fell plum off.  Of course we also just bought his "wiener helmet" (aka jock strap & cup) from Dick's.  The size? Peewee large. Ok I'll stop now.

Week 12-13 house update & Easter recap

These past two weeks have gone by so quickly that I missed last week's house update.  As of week 12, our garage doors were installed and the house is officially dry inside. Bring on the snowy weather! Oh wait - it's nice outside now.  Oh well that's good too.  I'm glad we sprung for the window inserts in the garage doors because they look fantastic and let the natural light in.  

Week 12: garage doors!

Week 13 brought the HVAC, electrical and plumbing installation. We also got our septic pond dug and the water/sewer lines trenched. Not a huge fan of the septic pond, but we didn't have a choice, so we'll just have to plant tall grasses and trees to camouflage it.

Speaking of trees... we planted our first one on Easter!  It's a red bud sapling we dug up at mom's house.  I don't know at this point if it's going to survive or not, but we've made several trips out to water the twiggy little thing.

Easter red bud

And speaking of Easter...  we had a really wonderful day.  Morning egg hunt at our house and then lunch and afternoon egg hunt at Grammy's house.  The weather cooperated and the kids had a blast.  Em only wanted to pick up eggs; she would scoff at a little toy or anything that wasn't egg-shaped.  My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew all joined us and it was one of those days where everything felt right in the world. 

Easter 2013

week 11 house progress

A lot of progress on the house last week.  They finished framing the roof and added the gable over the entry.  The gable isn't quite like the original drawing because the drawing wouldn't structurally work, so there were a few moments of going back and forth and uncertainty on what to do.  The builder suggested closing the triangle in to keep birds from nesting in the beams, but we decided to go with our original idea of keeping it open. And I'm so glad we did! It's perfect!

The covered deck overhang also got put into place.  Can't wait to see the deck on it.  As my dad would say, watch that first step, it's a doozy!

Week 11: Entry gable & covered deck

We stopped in mid-week this week and took some more pics.  How about a roof in a day?  Those guys move fast!  They also have all the windows in place now.  There are 25 windows just on the back, plus two doors you can't see. Helloooo pretty creek and pond view!

Week 11 1/2: Shingles

close-up of entry

Looking out of Miss Em's room to see a couple of funny guys in the guest room.

so much room to run!

I'm a little late with this, but March 7 was the 13-year anniversary of the night we met! It was Spring Break. We met at some swanky place called Charlie's in South Padre Island. Young MC was headlining. I was wearing a tube top. We danced to Mambo #5. I thought he looked like Bill Clinton. Who would have guessed how it would all unfold.

(Yes I still have the tube top. No I haven't worn it since.)

 so excited for our next chapter!

a roof, a color palette, and flooring selections

We have the beginnings of a roof!  After raining all weekend, it'll be good to get that bad boy covered up and dried out.

Week 10: the start of a roof

You can now see the shape of the house on the front and the back.  I love how the back has a lot of character.  You can see it from driving down the road, so it's nice that it looks good from a lot of angles.

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We took Friday off to make some paint and flooring selections.  We spent about an hour and a half at Sherwin Williams picking out our paint colors.  Below is our house color palette!  I think it looks quite pretty all together. 

Top: Warm Stone SW7032 (with Rustic Red SW7593), Creamy SW7012, Tiki Hut SW7509
Bottom: Sand Beach SW7529, Smoky Blue SW 7604, white dogwood SW6315

Warm Stone is our exterior color, with Rustic Red on the door and Creamy for the trim (inside and out). It's a little bit gray and a little bit brown, and a lot warm and inviting. It's also a darker version of our garage door color (which has a lifetime guarantee on the finish if you don't paint it!)  

Tiki Hut is for our island retreat of a bedroom.  We were drawn to this color, and it turned out to be the color from the model's master bedroom. Kismet.

Sand Beach is our main interior color (living, dining, kitchen, hallways). It's a pretty neutral and will go great in what I'm hoping is our beach cottage-y living/dining room area. 

Smoky Blue is for Big E's room.  His current room is a denim color and it really looks great with his furniture and bedding. So we're sticking with what we know and love

On the flip side we're going pink for Em's room!  White Dogwood is a beautiful soft pink, which will match her shabby chic floral decor perfectly.  She currently has a light blue room, which is what I was searching for again, so imagine my surprise when the hubs pointed at the pink and said "I really like that."

I love seeing all the colors together! Special props to the hubs and his eye for color!

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On to carpet and tile! Apparently it's a Midwest trend to carpet your stairs different than the rest of the house.  Works for me!  The brown/black/tan stair carpet with a vine design is super durable and it'll make a big statement when you walk in the front door.  The living area and bedrooms will have the carpet in the bottom of the photo.  We'll also have a hardwood floor for a lot of the downstairs.

Carpet for stairs (top) and rest of house (bottom)

The kitchen backsplash tile is very similar to what we have now, however I want to make a pattern out of 4x4 and 6x6 tiles.  We needed a light color since the cabinets will be stained walnut and our granite is dark.  The pattern and texture of the tile will give it some depth.

Kitchen backsplash tile

The backsplash for the downstairs powder room is a little cray-cray.  The photo doesn't do it justice. It's made of silvery/rusty metal pieces, frosted glass, and stone.  It's a small area so we wanted to do something a little different.

Powder room backsplash tile

The master/hall bath tile has a lot of tans and grays in it.  The photo here doesn't do it justice either.  The deco piece is mixed with stone and glass.  The brown glass should look great with the wood stained cabinets.

Master bath & hall bath tile

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We also managed picked out doorknobs before going to pick up our sick baby at day care.  Vacation days aren't quite what they used to be! Still, it was a good productive day.

house update & basketball recap

This week's house progress pics don't look a lot different than the last ones.  Oh yeah, except for another foot of SNOW!  Geez, you can't even see the front door.  They did get the second floor framed in so you can kind of tell where the rooms are. Should have some good weather this week, and it's take two at the flooring place since we got snowed in last time. Is it spring yet???

Week 9: second floor framing

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Saturday was Big E's last basketball game! He improved a lot over the season.  He found some focus and urgency to his game.  He figured out his favorite thing to do is defend and was able to get several jump balls during each of the last few games.

And while he got some shots in the air, he didn't manage to get any in the basket this year.  I think he might have made one during his last game, but he took a hard hit from a linebacker who mowed him over. I have it on video. It's not pretty. Apparently there is crying in basketball.

E and one of his best buddies.

Good season boys!

it snowed in my house

[week 8]

The guys were able to make some progress before the snow hit.  This past week we got the start of our second floor with the front and side walls.  

week 8: front & back

A roof would have been helpful.

It snowed in my house.

Luke spent Saturday shoveling the snow out of the house to protect the plywood as much as possible. Of course we're getting round two beginning this afternoon.  Guess what we'll also be doing next weekend?  

Perched up on the second floor.

Snowy view from our bedroom.

framing

[weeks 6-7]

Framing has started and man do those guys move fast!  In two weeks, we have a first floor and the walk-out basement framed in.  Snowy weather is moving in later this week, so hopefully it won't slow down progress too much.

week 6: back of house

week 7: front & back

We picked out our lighting a little over a week ago. Now that's a process! My neck was sore from looking up and my feet hurt from walking all over the showroom.  I'm happy with our selections, and we almost managed to stay within budget. The sales guy said we did better than most!

After much back and forth about the shower doors, I have finally settled on... clear glass!  Who knew this would be one of the harder decisions? I was mostly worried about keeping it clean, but from what I read online most people do not have issues with it.  And as for the feeling of being on display? Just another little incentive to stay fit!

Next up: picking out flooring & paint!

flatwork

[week 5]

This week they poured the concrete floors in the basement and garage.  It was coooold so not much more got done.  But they did deliver some lumber! Super excited to have some walls next week!

standing in the garage, looking at the basement

basement side view

backfill

Week #4 update on the new house!

Last week they backfilled the dirt along the foundation. Today they're pouring the concrete floors in the basement, garage and porch.  And we're lucking out with a 70 degree day at the end of January. Woot!

Checking out the garage floor.  (that view makes my heart so happy!)

My thoughts this week have been clear vs. frosted shower doors (deep, I know).  All the models have clear glass doors, and the more I try to live with that decision, the more I feel like I need that privacy during shower time. Plus how the heck do you keep it spotless?  I know, Rain-X and squeegee, but I don't know if that's a lifestyle I can keep up. So I think we're opting for frosted.

Until next week!

foundation

This week we have a foundation for our house!  

We took a day and visited a bunch of vendors: lighting, plumbing fixtures, granite counter/sink, exterior stone, shower glass and appliances. It's exhausting but fun!

Here is our exterior stone in Sante Fe and our granite in Tropical Brown:

It'll be so exciting to see all our selections come together! 

groundbreaking!

Big news!!! After months of dealing with county zoning, surveyors and shady builders, we finally broke ground on our new home last Friday!  I think it's the prettiest hole in the ground I've ever seen.

Dig dig dig!

Here's the view to the Northeast from our future walk-out basement.  Looks can be a little deceiving: those are all thorn trees and cows have destroyed the pond.  We heard you can burn off the thorns, so nothing a blow torch and excavator can't fix!

View to the Northeast

Em didn't want to get down in the dirt, but she finally figured out how fun it was to stomp on the dirt clods. Here she is standing in the garage.

Testing out the soil compaction. Good hard clay!

This weekend we picked out our garage doors, fireplace and windows, and visited the model to look at every little fixture, outlet and pull. So many decisions to be made in the next few months! But so fun!

Em testing out the new tub.

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Saturday was also Big E's first basketball game!  His first words when it was over? "I don't get it." He's still working on the concept of offense and not defending your own teammates. But he still had fun!

Here's his highlight reel!