Oy Vey and Oy Yay!

It's been a while. We are busy little bees and things are only getting busier. After a lot of discussion, Bryan and I have realized that getting our current home ready for a Spring 2011 listing is unrealistic. We traveled tons this Summer and lost too many weekends, Fall is jam packed with football season weekends, and the Winter is when Bryan gets disgustingly involved at Alpha... there is just too much going on, and we didn't manage our available time very well. Then here on the home front my dining room has been turned into a Kindercare. :) Right now I'm just not willing to hide these things in order to show a home. We're enrolling Reese in Montessori school starting this coming January, so this decor is sure to slow down.... until Summer at least... when we can use the garage as an option. :)

We have, however, made some progress in looking into what we want. We've looked at hundreds of layouts online and ended up buying a home plan book from Lowe's. We have our list of must haves:

~ at least 2000 finished sq ft. (per covenants, but we're planning on more)

~ an option for an unfinished basement (which does not count in the 2000 sq ft and is something we will finish on our own... family/bar area w/spare bedroom/bath)

~ master bedroom on main floor w/other bedrooms upstairs

~ space for playroom

~ large laundry/mud room

Not too crazy... at least we don't think so. :) This is what we stumbled upon in the book. It's the only house out of the hundreds of homes listed that filled all the requirements, and we love it. A sign perhaps?

Changes... we really like the contemporary craftsman style homes.... particularly the color combinations and pillar options. We'd like to swap out the lighter siding and darker shutters/trim for a darker siding and lighter shutters/trim... like the one below... just maybe not the green.

And the pillars on this home are beautiful! Craftsman style, but not as chunky as on the one above.Here are the floor plans for the main and upper floors... this home does have a basement as an option... and it has additional unfinished living above the garage.(Hopefully you can click on the images to get a better view.)

Now as long as this home isn't going to cost us 30 million dollars we're good to go. Only time will tell. We really need to get the biggest bang for our buck in our current home. We won't be able to even pretend to afford a home like this if we don't take our time, do these projects right the first time, and show how great our home is now. And that my friends is going to take us AT LEAST another year. New goal... listing Spring 2012. :)

Updates

Hello world! We've finally returned from 2 months of sheer chaos. We're talking vacations out the wazoo, baby showers, baby births, 1st birthday parties, regular birthday parties... you name it, and we've done it the last 2 months. We've even managed to get A FEW of the items on our renovation list crossed off. Don't get me wrong, there are still SO MANY things left to do, but we've made some progress.

Let's start with the kitchen area. Our current kitchen has a really cute breakfast nook built into it. When we first purchased our house, we used it as a sitting area. Then came our daughter and a play room. She quickly collected an obscene amount of toys, and the nook became the dining room, while the dining room became the playroom. With this whole house selling and building thing that is currently underway, we knew we needed to convert the dining room back to the dining room and the nook back to the play room. Here is the nook as the dining room.


And here it is converted into our girls' playroom. Our oldest has pretty much reigned control in here, while our youngest has all of her toys currently in the living room, but you get the idea. We're really happy with the way it all turned out

From the nook, we naturally move into the kitchen. Here are the before and after photos of the kitchen.

Again... we're really happy with the way it all turned out. I miss my rusty color tremendously, but there is something about a fresh new light color that makes it look larger and most importantly... clean! Well, minus the dishes that are piled in the sink.

While we've: repainted the sides of the cabinets, painted the walls, added window treatments, repainted the baseboards, replaced the faucet, and removed and repaired the hooks in the nook... we still need to: repair the floor, make a final decision on whether or not we'll replace the dishwasher to match, replace the lighting, repaint the ceiling where if you remember there was a leak from our upstairs bathroom, and repair the silverware drawer.

We're also nearly complete in the dining room... pictures to come!

Seriously?

So the renovation in the kitchen has been going remarkably well. Perhaps that's because all I've done so far is prime and paint. :) Bryan is currently in search of the flooring, so we can repair a section in the breakfast nook. Thus far the only place we've successfully found it is in Arizona, and they think it's humorous to charge nearly $170 for shipping. BARF. We've chosen lighting fixtures that we'll be updating but haven't chosen a new faucet yet. We're also still playing with the idea of replacing the dishwasher... just so things will look cohesive, but we're not completely sold on that idea.

On to my bump. Sooooooo I've basically spent the last two weeks priming/painting one wall a day in our breakfast nook and kitchen. Today's wall was the one over the kitchen sink... note the above picture. Nice color huh? So anyway... I've been doing the first coats on the walls while the girls are down for their afternoon nap, and then the second coat comes when they go down for the night. The coat at lunch time went up without a hitch... or so I thought. It was difficult to reach the portion of the wall above the cabinets, so I stood on the countertop. Fast forward to 630 this evening when I was removing my soup from the stove only to hear a dripping sound. I opened the cabinets below the sink to find this:

EGADS! That perpendicular pipe is supposed to be STRAIGHT... not all jacked up like ours currently is. Apparently you're not supposed to stand very close to the sink for an extended period of time. Needless to say there was water and garbage disposalled food all over everything that was underneath the sink. A grand time was had by all.

Now as I type this, Bryan is returning home from Abingdon A DAY EARLY because his wife is a moron. Thank you and good night.

On a lighter note... I can't wait to show you what everything looks like completed. While I miss my rusty red color, this nice calming khaki brings a sense of freshness. It's so much airier in there. I can't wait to have the windows open once it's warmer outside! SIGH.

Houses Houses EVERYWHERE

Bryan and I do quite a bit of driving around searching for exactly what we want. We have quite a few floor plans that we acquired from a recent home show and have also bought a book full of floor plans, but honestly... it's more fun to actually see homes in person even if we don't get to see the insides. We recently discovered this Craftsman style home to the right. I love it! It's in a cute little neighborhood, and I'd love to just uproot it and place it right on our land. :)

Then there is this bad boy. It's a monstrous house literally the size of 3 of our houses currently. Again the Contemporary Craftsman style is so clean and period looking. Ahhhhhh... I just want to be building already! HOWEVER we are busy little bees over here at 311. I'm currently priming the breakfast nook/kitchen with the hopes it will be completely painted by the end of this weekend. I can't wait! Bryan is in search for some replacement pieces for our floor. There are light fixtures to be bought, ceiling touch ups, and then the nook will become the girls' modified playroom. This place is going to look beautiful! :)

The perfect dining room

So while the girls have been napping during the days, and I've pretended to get my "chores" completed, I've been looking at pictures of different rooms on the Internet in hopes of getting inspiration for our home here (to show) and for our nonexistent new home. :) The first room we'll be attacking here at 311 will be the breakfast nook/kitchen. We're currently using the nook area for our dining room and the dining room for the play room. We'll probably continue to use the nook as the dining room until we get closer to show time just because the dining room is right off of the living room, and it helps me when watching the girls play. As a whole, I'd say our style is modern country... if that makes sense. I love certain aspects of country like things looking aged/used, nothing is too matchy matchy, things are just kind of thrown together but look great, and I love that it all looks warm and homey.

The last couple of days I've found the following photos, but only likes bits and pieces of each. So basically if we put all of these together... PERFECTO!

Basically our dining furniture now is a honey color, but we'll soon be finishing it in distressed black. I'm not going to take a hammer or anything to it, but I think some sanding in some of the "natural ware" areas will look awesome. We also have a pie safe that is buffet level. In this photo I loved the buffet table with the two shelves above for personal family photos. TO DIE FOR! It's a wall that would make a huge impact on the overall room, and we would seriously need to buy two shelves, and call it a day. I already have the black frames currently hanging in our living room.
I also liked this wall of pictures. It's neat how they are all different frames, but they share that center line. Maybe an idea I'll use in another room.

I love love love this next one, and we have that exact corner hutch in the same honey finish as the dining furniture. This just seems like a great corner to me... just maybe not in white.

This next photo is kind of blah, but I LOVE THE GREEN HUTCH!

The chandeliers in the next two photos are awesome! How nice would dinner be with candles lit?

This next one is super homey looking... I love that buffet table, but again... we already have a cute little pie safe.

This is actually something I've already done in our current house... framing 3d objects. In our dining room now I have an old feed sack framed, and it looks awesome. I need to find more of those frames this summer.

Now to sell some of these ideas to B. :)

The goal

So Bryan and I have been driving around for what seems like months... actually it has been months... trying to get a taste of what we want in our new home. This is a custom built home in a neighborhood very close to where we live now. It was actually built by the developers who sold us our land. While a home like this is laughably out of our price range, I heart the design.

We've agreed that we're looking for something in the Contemporary Craftsman style. We love the bright colors, the columns, the stone... the list is endless. We have probably close to 10-15 floor plans that we're looking at currently. None of which are Craftsman, but have a lot of the same features on the exterior that we're sure could be switched out for the style we're looking for.

Sure...

So, there hasn't been too much to report lately. We're waiting on some renovations until the weather is nicer and vacations/baby showers/birthday parties slow down a bit to get started. First on the list will be the breakfast nook/kitchen. I had my list set up and ready to go until this happened.

Our spare bathroom doesn't get much action unless it's football season or the girls are taking a bath. Even when the girls are in there, they AREN'T taking a shower. Well, my brother Aaron has been staying with us the last couple of weeks, so the shower gets used daily. One day last week, he finished showering... getting ready for work... I went in to the kitchen to get Reese some juice... nothing out of the ordinary. For some reason I glanced up to the ceiling and saw the yucky mess pictured above. I immediately yelled for Aaron to make sure he turned the water off. He already had. I then called Bryan and told him to race home because my ceiling was sure to collapse. :) After some thorough investigation, we discovered the leak.

We have one of those shower caddies hanging on our shower head with the girls' shampoos and whatnots in it. Basically the water coming out of the shower head was hitting the bottles causing the water to dribble down the front of the shower where the spouts are. The water was then leaking behind the faucet (which apparently was not all the way caulked) causing the leak, which then caused my ceiling to look tragic. Oy.

Luckily we caught it in time and are able to fix the damage without calling in a plumber! Hopefully a little securing and some paint will make it all super swell again. Here's to NO MORE silly problems! :)

Hurdle crossed!

We are landowners! It's so super exciting and relieving! There were issues with the land being divided but apparently not according to the town... that was putting a damper on the appraisal. They ordered the appraisal anyways, appraised it according to the plat on file... everything seemed to work out because our loan went through! We're now the proud owners of 2.4 acres. I'm already so proud of us. A big goal of mine was to own my own home that wasn't attached to someone else's. It's amazing to me that we've done that and are now moving on to build our very own home.

There are SO MANY things to get done around here. As soon as I think I have some sort of plan, I get overwhelmed and change my mind. First it was "let's declutter the kitchen, fix the floor, paint..." blah di blah di blah. After I box things up, the box goes into the garage for storage until Bryan can get into the attic to organize. As boxes seem to be piling up, I'm realizing that I need to box up the things that are already in there to be able to better organize bins while I'm decluttering the rest of the house. Because we used our garage as another room of our house and not an actual garage... there is tons of stuff in there. So basically what I'm saying is... I'm working in the garage FIRST. :) We're packing everything into the 18 gallon plastic bins as opposed to boxes... of course that's a lot of bins, but we are forever using bins for something, and it's much easier to store things. Today I managed to pack up 2.5 bins worth of Hokie gear from the garage while Emma Grace was napping and Bryan was entertaining Reese... and that's not even all of it.

Hopefully as the process continues, we'll have more pictures to post dealing with both projects throughout this house and a couple things we'd like to get accomplished on the land this summer. Did I mention WE OWN LAND?! :)

Home Organization Update

I heart my new home organization plan. It gives me just a few tasks to complete everyday, and it's so super manageable... I feel liberated. :) Dorky? Maybe, but I honestly feel like I have control, and in my world full of chaos... this is awesome. There are certain days I can't possibly get them done with the girls running around 24/7, but there are built in "catch up days". I'm still working on the bathrooms from a few days ago. ;)

I wouldn't say our home is messy, but I definitely think we could take more pride in it and our belongings. Getting our home ready for selling has been a huge wake up call for me. We are lucky enough to have a BEAUTIFUL home and really BEAUTIFUL things, but some days you wouldn't know it. :) Going through things has enabled me to see what we have, to see what I "had to have" at one point, and what we just don't need anymore and definitely what's not important.

This new organization plan has allowed me to really organize things, consistently manage the everyday chores, and fit in the completely off the wall chores. How often have you even considered wiping down the light switch plates and doorknobs? I mean seriously... that's some of the off the wall stuff I've been doing. Such little things, but they add up, and I sincerely notice a difference around here. Also... because I'm doing these ridiculous things, I tend to keep up with the larger everyday things better because I'm working so hard... I find myself getting uber annoyed at Bryan when he leaves ANYTHING laying around... it's kind of funny. :) I figure this'll be great when we start showing because the small details will always be done. It's also going to be a great set of plans for taking care of the new home when it's all said and done. :)

March 9

March 9th, put it on your calendars baby because that's when we close on our new land! HOLLER! Bryan and I had been scoping out this piece of land for about a week (we looked ALL OVER Blacksburg, and couldn't find anything that fell within our parameters, and then we stumbled upon this piece and knew it was it), when we finally got with our realtor. She was something special, but I think it's all going to turn out just fine with her, and she could potentially be the one we go with to list our current home when it's time. Bryan was able to come in from being out of town, so we were able to meet with her last Thursday to put an offer on the land. After what seemed like years, we finally heard back today, and our initial offer was accepted! We're super excited, and we are praying that everything goes as smoothly as possible until we close.

Everything you see in the picture will be ours. It's 2.4 acres just outside of town. The surrounding homes are NICE to put it lightly. We'd have to sell each of our children in the black market to even pretend to be able to compete with them, but we'll have a lovely home nonetheless. :) (I've been searching blueprints online!) There is a bit of an eyesore across the street to the bottom left of the property back behind where the photo is taken from (shady house with goats!), but we'll be putting a privacy fence up and planting some more trees.

We're one step closer! :)

Home Organization Plan

Rachel here. Soooo... it's no secret that I HEART BLOGGING. It's a great outlet for me, and not to mention... as hard as it is for me sometimes to be a stay at home mom... I love being able to document my children's lives whether it be a first word or a first tantrum. Not only do I love writing my own blogs, but I also love reading others' blogs. I have what feels like a ton of blogs that I keep tabs on. Some belong to friends, some friends of friends, and some belong to complete strangers. I get some really great ideas for art projects to do with my girls, places to take them or visit, AND some great ideas/links for things to do around the house. This is where this post becomes relevant for this blog. :) While looking at a friend of a friend's blog, I stumbled upon this great website called "Just Mommies." It's full of tons of great resources, but my favorite is the "Home Organization Plan."

It basically provides you with a monthly/weekly/daily breakdown of chores to do around your home. Sad... maybe?! But for a stay at home mom who spends 98% of her day playing playdoh, watching "The Little Mermaid," doing happy "I peepeed in the potty" dances, and changing diapers... chores usually get thrown onto the back burner. Last week I literally spent the entire week decluttering the kitchen. I packed up/got rid of tons of stuff that we're not currently using or never used at all. The result... filth. Who knew there was nastiness under all that "junk?" :) It's very easy to get overwhelmed when you have tons of things that need to be done around the house. This site provides you with a little bit to do everyday. It also gives you a chance to catch up on all of your chores every 3 days. For example, here are my "chores" for today:

Monthly: Wipe down kitchen cupboards and pantry
Weekly: Laundry, change linens, and change bath towels
Daily: AM... Make beds, wipe down bathrooms, set out dinner
Afternoon... Chores, afternoon tidy
PM... Kids bath/brush/bed, and clean up the kitchen

Then you also have a "Monthly Challenge"... you have ALL month to work on this chore... this month's is to declutter/clean children's bedrooms.

I figure if I'm doing a little bit of everything everyday, we'll have this place in tip top shape before we know it! Then again this is my first day. :)

Bump

Ugh. We've hit our first moment of frustration. I hadn't planned on posting anything about a potential piece of land until we had some great news in hopes of not jinxing anything. Then again... I have this blog so we can document the whole experience, so that trumps all. :)

Land in Blacksburg is LIMITED. There is not a whole lot of it, and there definitely isn't a whole lot worth writing home about in our price range. With that said... we found a piece. :) It's a great piece right outside of town limits very close to our home now... meaning it's on our side of town, which was a big must. Bryan's drive to Roanoke is already long enough, we didn't want him to have to add 10-15 minutes on top of it. I won't say anything more about it for now, but I will comment on our realtor.

I've been getting some GREAT and extremely appreciative tips from a high school friend of mine. She's a real estate genius, and I love her dearly. :) With that said... the woman we are currently working with isthisclosetobeingfired by ME. Bryan contacted her last Friday in hopes to work with her on getting this land. As far as I know she specializes in land. She told Bryan she would pull the comp. prices for us and get back to him immediately to start discussing an offer and whatnot. That same day he began working with a local bank and was able to solidify our loan approval. We have yet to hear back from the agent! WTF?! Frustration has more than set in. Bryan has called the woman and emailed her twice. We're at the point where if we do not hear from her in the next 24 hours... we're on the search for a new agent. Until then we keep our fingers crossed that there isn't anyone else looking at this land. Argh.

Declutter

So I've been watching HGTV now for YEARS, and they have this great show on there called "The Unsellables." I've started DVRing it because they have some really GREAT ideas on how to stage/show your home. One of their big things is "decluttering." Well, duh! I know no one wants to buy my home with baby toys and dirty spit cloths all over the floor. :) Buuuuut what I'm learning is that you have to be able to show that there is plenty of room for everything. Everything should have a place. Well, for those of you that have been to our home... we have A LOT of stuff, and frankly if everything had a place we wouldn't be moving. ;) Fact of the matter is our house is plenty big enough if we (okay mainly me) could just quit bringing things into the house, but for the record... that's hard to do with two growing children who need stuff.

During this past week, I've started going through some things. Cabinets in the kitchen, drawers in the living room. Purging stuff/organizing stuff/and even packing stuff. It feels good to be getting rid of things we're not using and packing things away that we can hold onto in storage until we have a bigger home.

The kitchen has definitely become my first project. Here is the list of "projects" that need to be done. Besides the obvious cleaning and decluttering:

1. add wainscoting to side of cabinets and repaint
2. fresh neutral wall paint
3. window treatments for both windows and sliding glass door
4. repair laminent floor boards
5. replace dishwasher to match other appliances
6. replace sink faucet
7. remove/repair ceiling hooks
8. replace lighting
9. silverware drawer- repair/replace
10. repaint floorboards (won't be done until right before we show)

As you can see... I'll be nothing short of busy, and this is just the first room... hence the starting a little over a year before our listing goal. :)

Land

We're actively seeking land! Yeehaw! The plan is to get some great land ASAP, finish some projects around our home, put it on the market and sell, break ground and rent until our home is complete. HOPEFULLY all of this can be done by Spring 2012. :) Besides looking for land, we've made our list of projects to finish around here. It consists of everything from repainting walls (I have some gnarly colors currently going on) to fixing floor boards in the kitchen to repainting baseboards. We're going to be busy!

We are proud to announce...

... after a lot of discussion... we are going to build our dream home! While we are in the VERY EARLY stages of even beginning to comprehend what we are about to get ourselves into, we want to document the entire experience. From preparing our home to sell, to probably renting a home, to breaking ground... it'll be an adventure! :) Having Bryan constantly being out of town, a jam packed Fall season, and two small chitlins... we realize this isn't going to happen over night, so stick with us over the next couple of years. Watch us laugh... and probably cry... scream with excitement and with frustration... it's going to be awesomely nutso! :)