New Year Updates!

It's the new year, and we are in full renovation/updating/decluttering mode. Our list has been solidified on what needs to be done, and the goal is to cross something off our list each weekend. Listing date is just over a year from now, so we need to get on it. I've been working on updating some decor around the house... slowly. Here is our master bedroom. Bryan picked out the color and I love it! A couple of years ago we updated the bedding (IKEA) from blue stripes to the red. I finally, just a couple of weeks ago, picked up this ADORABLE pillow from Target. I think it brings the colors together great. Of course the personal photos will need to be removed and the paint will need to be touched up, but the master is already looking great and needs very few changes!
Next up... the living room. Bryan removed the random hooks that were in the ceiling FINALLY... after nearly 6 years. We're on top of things like that. My mom was AMAZING and got us gift cards for Christmas... we've used one of them for prettying up the joint. Today I popped in to Target and picked up all new throw pillows, a couple of cloth bin/basket things for under the end tables (for toy overflow), and that adorable fireplace guard screen thingy. It's all coming together nicely. I'm slowly coming to the realization that I'll have to remove all of our personal photos of our adorable girls, and I'm heartbroken. Needless to say that will be a last minute change.And finally the play room! I think we're for sure leaving it like this. The girls' toys can't be hidden, and while this is actually our breakfast nook... some things can't be changed. We have kids, and they aren't going anywhere. Future owners are going to want to know they have room for kids... right?

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.