Movin' and shakin'

This weekend was busy busy busy, but in a productive, happy, and delightfully exhausting way.

Since moving is off the table for the foreseeable future, we are now moving forward with plans we've had for the house. Hubs started building us a deck off the dining room a couple of months ago (in between thunder storms, anyway), but it was put on hold for our vacation up to Washington. Since getting back from our trip, we've been busy and distracted and the deck sat neglected for the last several weeks.

Additionally, I've been planning on painting a few rooms in the house and putting my personal stamp on it. My first project was the guest bathroom. It has this fun paisley-patterned shower curtain in it, and I wanted to play off the colors in the pattern. All of the colors are fairly bright, so I knew I'd only do one wall so as to not cause blindness or epileptic seizures in my guests, and I decided to go with a warm, burnt orange color. I had carried the sample paint chip around in my purse for almost a month, but when it became apparent that we may not be here as long as we'd thought, it clearly didn't make a whole lot of sense to spend the time and money putting my personal touch on the house.

Well, now that we know for sure that we're sticking around for awhile, we spent the weekend working on these projects. I finished the bathroom:

Before...

During...

After!!!

Hubs finished the skeleton of the deck:

View from the eventually-to-be-landscaped backyard

Soon-to-be entertaining area

Soon-to-be steps down to the yard

We used reclaimed wood for the frame, since we're hippies from Seattle and that's just what you do. We're going to seal it with a couple cans of Rescue It (I'm thinking either the Timberline or Russet colors, since that'll complement the house), and then use new, pressure treated decking boards for the top. We're also going to get solar-powered post caps, because again, hippies. Weather permitting, it'll be done (or mostly done) by the end of this coming weekend, and we can spend a few weeks enjoying it before winter comes early and ruins the fun.

I'm planning on putting two potted dwarf junipers on each side of the steps, for pretties. I'm also going to repurpose a set of end tables and a coffee table that we have into planter holders, again for pretties. I'll post pics of the finished product!

Besides helping Hubs with sealing the deck, my next project will be to paint the wall around the front door. Our front door is gorgeous, but it sort of blends in with the wall around it, and I want to make it "pop". I'm going to choose a more neutral color for that; probably something in the toasted almond range, since our living room accent wall is a pretty bright red, and while I love color, I prefer any one visual space to not clash and give people headaches!

That'll pretty much be the end of my painting projects until the basement is done. At that point, we'll be painting every surface down there (the older kids are already contemplating colors for their rooms... oldest is going with a Seahawks theme), and I'll be turning the front bedroom into a guest room (which I'll be painting) and moving my little guy into the center bedroom (again with the painting). I also want to paint the master bedroom, but in all honesty, that's the last thing on my list. Mostly because I want to paint the wall that our bed rests against, and our best is freaking heavy, and I'm too lazy to make the effort. Just being honest.

TGIF and other nonsense

It's Friday!

The weekend is officially here, and I am officially stoked.

I love weekends. I live for weekends.

Especially right now, when life is incredibly busy and going to get even more so in the coming weeks.

First, with our insane commuting schedule living so far away from Cheyenne. It's inconvenient, to say the least. Needless to say, we're all looking forward to the house being done and our lives resuming some semblance of a normal schedule.

Second, I start school in a couple of weeks, so once again I will be plunged into the chaos of earning a degree whilst running a household and raising three children and all that brouhaha. But only three quarters left, so I just need to buckle down for...9 more months...

It's depressing when I put it that way...

And third, we're moving soon. Again. Moving is one of the most stressful events in a person's life. And we will have done it twice in four months. Just thinking about that makes my eye twitch.

But we did get good news on the house! I think I mentioned before about how our builders had a very different timeframe than us when it came to the house being done. They had been planning on the end of November. Our purchase contract states our closing date is at the end of October. Slightly big difference, yes?

Well, once this came to light there was a flurry of *slightly intense* conversations between us, our real estate agent, and the builders. The builders came back with a promise that we'd be in no later than the middle of November. Considering our lease ends November 15, that was cutting it a little close, but what can we do?

But then we got a text yesterday from the builder saying that the carpet order came in, so now all the materials are in and ready to go. She said it looks like we're on track for the end of October after all!

Granted, given all the hiccups and headaches we've had so far, I'm not holding my breath on that.

But still. Having that be feasible?

Totally cool with me!

So yes, right now weekends are my solace, my peace, my zen. It's the only time of the week for the foreseeable future that I can do what I want, and according to the schedule that works for me.

TGIF baby!

Good luck not having this song stuck in your
 head all weekend now!

Accomplishing things is exhausting

Oy vey.

Hi internets! I'm back!

This week has been... well, just as tiring and stressful as I'd expected.

BUT!!!!!

We got so much house stuff done yesterday, and it looks like we are on track on be done and close on time! Two months and counting...

(Fingers crossed)

We did our framing walk through yesterday, and picked out where all of our electrical outlets, phone and cable jacks, light switches, light fixtures, propane hookups, etc will go. It was... productive, though slightly frustrating.

But not as frustrating as the rest of the afternoon went.

After the framing walk through, we went with the builders to the cabinet place to pick out our cabinets and counter tops, and that's when things went a bit pear shaped.

As with every home builder, ours obviously have a profit margin built into the cost of everything, and they therefore want you to stick within a certain budget so as to not compromise that profit. However, our builders' budget for certain things is incredibly unrealistic (we're pretty sure they just pulled numbers out of their butts without basing them on realistic, current prices).

On top of that, they are really pushy about their tastes (and it just so happens that their preferences in cabinets, carpet, flooring, and so forth, are also what they get the best deals on, and therefore make the most money on).

However, their tastes are so not my tastes, and we've gone a few rounds in the process of making that clear. The cabinets and flooring they kept pushing on me are blonde oak. As in, totally 1994.

She was pushing for something like these...

Ick.

I prefer darker, more updated wood, thank you very much.

We also preferred the shaker style cabinet doors over their preference for the arched, raised panel doors. It's a far more modern, updated look, and will make our kitchen up-to-date for much longer.

We chose these, only a bit darker...

So after going around and around on that, they finally backed off, and we ordered the doors we wanted, which made me happy. However, they won't include the hardware- the drawer pulls and door handles.

Really?!?

So we will have to do that on our own later on. Which is dumb. But whatevs.

The irony of the cabinet door kerfuffle?

The cabinet guy came in when we were just finishing up discussing it all, and the builders mentioned to him they need to order some cabinets for another house they're building, and he recommended the doors we had just ordered!

And his reasoning?

Because they're a more updated, modern look and more desirable to buyers!

So that little piece of vindication was nice.

After that I had to pick up the kids from school, so The Husband went with one of the builders to Lowe's to start picking out tile and fixtures and whatnot, and after collecting the younglings I met up with them.

After much debate (and more forcing of opinions), we finally chose tile for the laundry room, both bathroom floors, and our shower. We also gave her our choices for the wood flooring and countertops, and then had to go through the process of picking out a new carpet choice because apparently the cost of the padding was supposed to also be included in the carpet allowance (despite me having asked and her reassuring me that they do the padding separately and the whole allowance just goes to carpet)(grumblegrumble).

This was the point where the builder had to go, and I was perfectly okay with that because I was feeling quite frazzled by the carpet snafu. If I'm paying this much for a house, I'm sure as hell not going to settle for cheap ass carpet that's all thin and scraggly and will wear out within a month.

And that was looking like what was going to happen, until the most lovely Lowe's employee ever came to our rescue.

She took into account our builder's contractor discount, she found a carpet that is nice and thick and was on sale at the moment and that had the color we wanted, and she finagled the numbers around until both the squishy carpet and the pad were exactly within budget.

Suffice it to say, she saved me from a mental breakdown!

Thank you Bridgette at the Cheyenne Lowe's. You're my hero!

After that whole saga was dealt with, it was then off to pick out our lighting and fixtures package. The fixtures were easy peasy. Oil rubbed bronze, slightly victorian look. Donesies!

Bathroom fixtures

Bathroom faucets

Kitchen faucet

Sensing a theme yet?

And it only continued once we moved onto the lighting fixtures. Two 60" ceiling fans, five dome lights, two bathroom light bars, two sconces, two hanging light fixtures, two hanging bar lights, and five exterior lights later, we had a definite (though originally unintended) theme. 

Modern, clean, updated, though also classic. Oil rubbed bronze with warm glass. And the sconces have the leaded glass with the pop of color, that will compliment our front door, as well as the lamp I keep in the entry way.

I only hope that when all is said and done, it actually looks good. Because your brain can only handle so many decisions in a four hour period. After that it turns into spaghetti.

And I don't know if spaghetti has been known for it's design choices...

My "red sink" moment

So as I've mentioned before, we are currently building a house. This is my first time building a house from scratch, and there have been many times so far that I have felt overwhelmed, or had trouble believing it was actually happening.

Well it is starting to sink in now!

Yesterday we had a meeting with the builders to go over some of the specs for the house- specifically the windows and doors package.

At first it was a breeze. We knew we wanted the Queen Anne grid, so all we had to do was choose the sizes for each room. The longest we spent discussing any of the windows was in figuring out the size of the rain glass transom for the master bath, and then a quick debate over whether or not to add an extra window in the basement. It's an upgrade, so it's an out-of-pocket expense, but having them order it from their wholesaler and install it for us ahead of time will be a heck of a lot cheaper than us buying it ourselves later on and then having to cut the whole, fix the drywall and the siding, and all that. So we went for it.

Donesies!

Then we moved on to the doors.

Sigh...

The doors were not as easy.

We wound up going with a simple two-panel door for all the interior doors, because they aren't too ornate and have more of an updated classic country vibe, which we liked. When in Rome, right?

Then we had to pick the exterior doors. Choosing the two garage doors was fairly easy. We maintained the same two-panel look, only in the steel, fire-resistant doors. Choosing the two sliders was easy too, as we just went with the Queen Anne grid in those as well.

Then we had to move on to the front door.

And here is where my brain started to hurt.

So. Many. Options.

So let me share a story before moving on. Back when I was probably 10 or so, my parents were remodeling our house. I remember overhearing the discussions about all the different color choices and design options and layouts (something I relate to now!) They needed to move forward with the kitchen design, but my mom was stuck. She couldn't envision it. She didn't know the look she wanted, the layout, any of it.

And then inspiration struck.

We were at the home improvement store, and she was perusing kitchen sinks when she saw it. The sink. It was an enameled cast iron sink. And it was red.

It looked much like this

Yes.

A red sink.

Not everyone's taste, but it spoke to her.

From there, the rest of the kitchen came together easy peasy. My mom found her inspiration in that sink.

Fast forward twenty years to yesterday, and there I am sitting in the builder's office, flipping through a gigantic book of door options.

Too fancy.

Too plain.

Too see through.

I flipped one more page, and I found it.

The door.

Same two-panel design as our other doors. The top panel was leaded glass, much like many of the other doors I had been seeing. It also had matching side light panels as well.

But rather than the fancy schmancy curlicue designs that were not my taste, this door had a cleaner geometric pattern. Squares and rectangles in different textures of privacy glass.

And intermittent in the pattern were ruby red pieces.

It was simple, yet beautiful.

It had a pop of color.

And it spoke to me.

That's my front door. I just knew it immediately.

I had my "red sink" moment.

Similar to this, only with ruby pieces...