More back story...

The builder actually lives on our street.  I realize that seems super weird and a little awkward...but so far we think he is amazing and are so happy we'll eventually be neighbors.  He's seriously the most easy going guy I've ever met.  His wife is equally amazing too and so welcoming.  She invited me out last night to a local bar so I could meet some of the ladies of the neighborhood.  Super fun...that is after I gulped down my first glass of wine!

The neighborhood is what I consider picture perfect.  It's a smaller culdesac with all newer homes.  It's walking distance to Olivia's preschool, a huge amazing park, a pond, and a little pizza shop!  What more could you ask for?  I'll tell you...young neighbors and 42 kids!  My parents keep reminding me how crazy the girls birthday parties are going to get...but I don't care.  I will hae 44 kids in my house and yard and love every minute of it.

This house can't be finished fast enough!

Being the crazy person I am...I've already picked out my cabinets and am trying to work on picking out the granite, wood floors and tile.  Each and every time I meet with a vendor...I end up getting laughed at.  Seriously laughed at.  Especially since up until a week ago...we didn't even have a hole in the ground! 

So here is a sample of our kitchen cabinets.  The off-white cabinets will be all the main cabinets and the dark brown ones will be the island and bathroom cabinets.  I LOVE THEM!  We are going with Homecrest cabinets and working with a vendor that the contractor suggested.  So far so good...unless you don't consider going over budget ok...sorry Dave:)  Who knew that white cabinets were more expensive since they are painted? 

Old school desk...sure...why not?

My aunt emailed me the other day stating that she had an old school desk that my grandfather (who passed away) had given to my cousins and now they have out grown it.  So she asked me if I wanted to have it for the girls.  I loved the idea of a little project (like I don't have enough going on!) so I said SURE! 

My uncle warned me that it needed a little makeover...he wasn't kidding...

That didn't scare me since I read so many blogs and knew what a little spray paint could do.  So i bought a can of primer and two cans of aqua spraypaint from Michaels.  My dad offered (or I just told him it needed to live in his barn for a little while until I finished it!) to pick it up and bring it home.  For those of you who don't know my dad...HE HAS EVERYTHING YOU COULD EVER NEED in his barn.  He had a belt sander, 5 different grades of sandpaper, random paper to cover the wooden parts for when I painted, a mask, goggles, you name it!  So I got to work while my mom took care of the girls.  I sanded, covered the wood in paper, primed, painted and glued.

This was after primer and one coat of aqua spraypaint.  It may look crazy in the background...but I swear my dad's barn is amazingly organized and has EVERYTHING!  I should do a post about him and his barn someday....

And here is the almost finished product!

We filled in some cracked wood on the top (it was drying here) and then I still need to put a few coats of poly on it to make the wood pop (yes, my dad even has the poly and brushes in his barn!). 

Great, right?  We plan on giving it to Olivia for her 4th birthday in September.  Hopefully we'll have a house to move it into by then!

I must thank my aunt and uncle (and my Grandfather!) for the desk, my mom for watching the girls, and my dad for have everything I needed to do this project!

UPDATE:
Here's the finished product!  I decided to do 2 coats of dark walnut stain.  I was going to leave it natural with only poly but realized that there will not be one thing in my house with that wood color that light.  So two coats of stain and two coats of poly later...we have a finished product.  Thanks to my mom for putting on the last coat of poly:) 

 

We gave it to Liv yesterday and she loves it! 

 

 

Let there be light

The builders agreed to let my FIL do the electrical work on the house.  This is amazing because we are saving money and I don't have to get builders grade fixtures.  I love lighting...however...picking out lighting for an entire house is crazy!  I have to get all the fixtures and decide where to place them.  I'm recessing every inch of the house it seems.  My FIL is going to really need a break from me by the end of this process!

Here are some images of the fixtures I've already purchased:

This one is for our dining room. I bought this off ebay...new in the original box. I saved over $100!

This one is also from Ballard Designs and it's going to go in our entryway. I'm scared that it might be too small since the entryway is two stories high...so we'll see!

I got one of these for over the kitchen table from Ballard Designs. They are on sale right now:)

 I'm thinking something like this for over the island. Two maybe? I think it will look nice with the light above that will be in the same room.

Here is two options I have for the outside lighting.  I need two by the front door, two by the garage doors, two by the sliders to the back deck and then one by the basement door.  Eeeeek!  Both of these are from Lowes but I am going to go check out a local lighting store to see what they have.

That's what I have so far...



The plans

I got to work looking at over 160 house plans.  The builders gave me a website and told me I could pick any house within the agreed upon square footage of 2,300.  Holy crap it was hard!  I asked at one point for them to help me narrow it down but I ended up finding an amazing floor plan.

The outside was not what I originally was leaning towards but this house grew on me.  I just love the two bay windows and the large window above the doorway.

Here is the first floor plans.  We have made some small changes based upon our builders recomendations (again...they are amazing...I can't say enough about them!).  We are moving the wall where the french doors are into the living room by a foot to make the family room bigger.  Then we are making the wall with the french doors solid and moving the doors to the other opening in the living room.  This is going to be our girls playroom.  I wanted to be able to close off that room and not have to see it from the family room since I'm assuming it won't always be the neatest.  Plus, the colors of little girl everything doesn't really go with my decor!

Here is the 2nd floor plans.  We made a few changes to this floor as well.  We are moving the girls bathroom closet opening into the bathroom (who wants it in the hallway anyways!?).  Their bathroom will also have a double sink.  We are putting in a double shower in the masterbath instead of a regular tub/shower.  TBD if it's going to be tiled.  Then we are putting in a second door in our master WIC.  This will lead to the rest of the unfinished space above the garage.  We have added a window to that exterior wall so that eventually we can finish this space off and it will become Dave's office. 

The only other changes we made to the plans were in the basement.  The builder said they could flip the way the flooring is on the first floor in order to make 1/2 of the basement free of beems.  I don't know the technical terms for any of this...so hopefully you get the picture.  We also decided on a walk out basement since our land slopes down in the back.  So there will be 3 full size windows down there, a door leading out under the deck and we will also have it rough plumbed for a bathroom.  Down the line we plan on finishing it off.  One step at a time...

The builders originally estimating a completion date of August 15th.  Considering they just began digging less than a week ago...August isn't going to happen anymore.

A year in review...

Disclaimer...this is my first blog.  It's meant to document certain things in my life that my friends and family might be interested in.  We are going through an extremely crazy time and my organized, structured world has been turned upside down.  I'm not trying to push my views or thoughts on anyone.  I like what I like and don't like what I don't like.  I type exactly the way I would have a conversation with you and I don't spell well.  There...that's out of the way!

One year ago today we sold our old house and moved in with my in-laws.  I was fully on board with putting our house on the market since we had our eyes on a new house in town.  We went to visit it 4 times...and then...found out that there was another offer.  We still held a glimmer of hope since the offer was contingent on the sale of their home.  Being the crazies that we were (Type A...remember?) we went to the open house of our competitors and believed that our house would sell much quicker then theirs.  Sadly...we came in 3 days behind them in our sale (I'd like to add that our sale only took 3 weeks which was record breaking at the time!).  Still, we found ourselves semi-homeless but still decided to take the plunge assuming our dream home would come on the market any day. 

(This is a picture my AMAZING old neighbor snapped of the family on moving day.  My neighbors are the one thing I will miss the most.)

So we (ahem...I) packed up our small 3 bedroom house in record time.  My days consisted of packing one box at a time, feeding my 4 month old, keeping my toddler busy, working two days a week, and crying.  It...was...awful.  I had high hopes of keeping everything organized.  Fail.  I wanted to label every box on every side.  Fail.  I wanted to just get through the month.  Which I did.

(A little hard to see...but this was the only picture I snapped on moving day.  It's me following the trailer that was piled high with all of my belongings.  Super scary driving behind that!)

We made a smooth transition into my in-laws house.  We are extremely lucky that they have the room to house the 4 of us and Fenway (our dog) plus all of our crap.  And they don't mind us living with them!  We have taken over 1 garage, the entire basement, two bedrooms and every other available nook and cranny.  Space is tight...but it could be a lot worse and we don't have to pay for storage.  Of course I fought to have all of our stuff in a local storage area so we didn't take over the entire house plus I thought it would be easier in the end to move back.  But my husband (being a true CPA that he is) crunched the numbers and wanted to save every penny if we could.  He ended up winning...because he promised me I could buy something for the new house with the money we were saving.  You bet I'm holding him to that.

We started looking at new houses a couple of months after we moved in.  We thought a ton would come on the market in the neighborhood we wanted.  Month after month we were discouraged.  We realized we needed to broden our search outside of the only two streets in our old town we were considering.  Yes, you read that right.  We were only looking on two streets!

Long story short, our amazing realtor found an expired listing for a brand new house in a surrounding town.  We had a meeting with the realtor and the builders and decided to go for it!  I couldn't believe we were actually building a brand new house in an amazing neighborhood.

Here we are on the lot we picked after meeting with the realtors. This picture was taken before we actually made our offer.  My husband shook his head and declaired that we lost all of our barganing power.

Little did we know...there were a lot of changes coming in the next few months.  Changes to our plans, changes to the lot and changes in the time frame.