Walls.

Good Morning! Please dont hate me for lack of blogging we have had so much going on around here! There have been some great changes since I last wrote... one of which would be our wall! Yes, I know you have seen all the walls in the house but this fancy one is for our outside! 

After an intense day of trenching down through years of roots, they poured the cement deep down in the ground and hauled in all the block needed. 

It honestly was put together very quickly! 

Ah, here she is.

I want it to be known that this is My Husband's Wall. I like it now that its here but it was not something on the top of my "dream house" list. Ha! 

We also got to celebrate our garage door being installed! 

Cuuute!

I could bore you with a ton of pictures going up and down but I wont :) this time at least! I've never heard such a quiet garage door before in my life! This thing is amazing! On the button to open it it tells you the time and temp! These things are so fancy these days haha! 

Its time for us to get ready for our driveway! 

We picked out some really lovely pavers called Deep Sea they have hints of blue and grays but are a beautiful charcoal color! We are still going back and forth on if we should do some stone accents around the front door or to keep it like it is now. Thoughts? 

Our beautiful base boards, crown moulding, and door trim are all installed through out the house! 

The inside has all been painted as well! How exciting! 

Everyday that we go and visit the house I have to take a look at my beautiful bathroom, I just cant help but be super excited about it each and every time! The crown in here is stunning as well! 

We are getting ready for the tile to go in now, we had a meeting with our tile guy yesterday and we were even there when our tile was delivered! I'll update a little bit later tonight with those photos and some of the driveway! 

Oh yea... this baby... going in my master bath! 

I wish I could have these all over the house but sadly this is not a home that has a maid to clean every shiny thing.  :( 

I also have to still pick out some more light fixtures for the rest of the house and watching The Great Gatsby before doing this is not a good idea. Side note: I will be collecting charms and pieces of old or broken chandeliers so I can make a whole dress out of them. I've got quite a few already but probably only enough to cover my lady bits. 

I also picked out and priced a dining room table ((from Pottery Barn)) well... lets just say that I am now allowed to get a table from the local Architectural Salvage because they are more than HALF their price!  

Dear Pottery Barn, I love you but I am as the kids say these days 'Ballin' on a Budget' and I'm going to need you to bring your prices down a few thousand. 

This is how my conversation with The Hubs went about how I want our house to look:

Me: So I want a mixture of new and old!

Him: Right.

Me: So we can pick a few things up from the Salvage and work them into our decor.

Him: Yea, so you want to buy new things that just look old?

Me: No, I want new things and old things. Mixed. 

Him:<makes a scrunchie face> New shit that looks old. Got it. 

*facepalm*

You should have this conversation with your husband or wife before you walk into an Ethan Allen store because thats just overpriced new old looking stuff and thats the prices they will think of when you tell them this. Haha.

I'll try to post more later with some updated pictures of our driveway and any tile work thats done! 

You see that?!

Yes I super sized this picture for you all to see! That folks is work being done on the house... yes. HOUSE! We have brought in about 20 loads of dirt to get this mess of land level and set and we are on a roll! 

This photo was actually sent to us from our lovely contractor Todd. He is super excited about this... the only thing we are waiting on now is the funding of our mortgage. This WAS supposed to be funded the day of our closing but our "specialist" seems to have dropped the ball on this. Calls to her have been sent to voicemail and emails not responded to... yet. I might be making my way to the bank tomorrow morning to pop in an see what the dealio is. 

These beauts are what we will be going with for the laundry room. We were a little worried because we made a trip to Best Buy on sunday and saw there was a returned dryer, then monday we went to HHGregg and saw a returned washer! Putting puzzle pieces together I think they were the same set but I decided to do my research on these bad boys so this wasnt just a freak omen not to get them... turns out they have a A- rating from Better Homes & Gardens and a 4.4 out of 5 on over 40 reviews on Best Buy's website. My only worry was how loud a few of the reviews said the pipes ended up being when the washer was filling up with its sensor. A little bit of padding on these and it shouldnt be an issue at all.

This stainless steel beast is the LG Counter-Depth French Door Refrigerator. Since we are tucking it in to our cabinets it limited how big this guy could be without screwing up the doors being able to open at a full 90 degrees. Fun Fact: Counter depth fridges are more expensive than larger fridges. This is not a fun fact when it blows past your fridge budget but thats okay thats what you have contingency plans for!! This too got great reviews. I wasnt too impressed with the small produce drawers when I first saw it and yes I poopoo'd it a bit since my peppers would be crammed but it features LED lighting and one of the best temp controls. Better Homes & Gardens gave this a great review as well! 

I'll keep you updated on more appliance choices! 

Land Clearing Time

Well its time for us to start clearing the land! After finding out that we have 15 more feet on the side of the property its just that much more for us to clear! yuck! Just kidding! We are actually super excited about this revelation! Since we are fencing off the whole property and adding a gate up front I have been super worried about looking out of the windows on the sides of the house and seeing... fence. Ew. Nope, not anymore we get to have actual plants and such now! Everything with a pink flag around it is set to be removed... this is a total of 20 trees. Todd told us that this was going to cost us anywhere from $12,000 to $2,000 and we needed to keep our fingers crossed. Who knew that cutting down trees was so expensive!? Not only do they need to cut down these trees but they need to grind and remove the stumps as well... needless to say we will be selling firewood for the next few years to make some of this money back! haha! Kinda joking... kinda not...

Again, dont worry we will be more than compensating down the road with new plants, trees, flowers, and other misc landscaping. Thanks to my father I learned a lot over the years and cant wait to hit up the local growers and get to planting! I also have plans for a garden... my lovely garden box that The Hubs made for me when we first started dating is sadly sitting empty in the garage. :( 

Back to what I was saying, we did get quite a few quotes for the land clearing and all I can say is thankfully we did not hit the 12k mark! Woo! Mini celebration! 

With a construction mortgage you have to come out of pocket on about 25% of what you would like to get a loan on... this can include: Land clearing, Contractors fees, Architect fees, Survey Fees, Sewage survey, and so on and so forth. Just posting this so that if you decide to build on your own land... you should just know that the land itself probably isnt down payment enough for a bank anymore. Ew and more Ew to this one. Sucks that we have to come out of pocket this much before hand but glad we are prepared. 

On a lighter note! I dropped off the final check to Jason our Architect yesterday! Do you know what this means?! Do you?! THIS MEANS WE GET TO FILE FOR OUR BUILDING PERMITS! <insert happy dance> 

Yes Ladies and Gents, if all goes as planned we will be breaking ground very soon! This puts a swarm of little butterflies in my stomach! This isnt like your normal cookie cutter builders special house that you found in some neighborhood... this is our dream! This is excitement kept me from tearing my neighbors head off with my bare hands after he took a leaf blower to his "yard" and covered my white dog in dirt and leaves while he was peeing. Let me be clear that the word yard is used very loosely... he  has a busted driveway and stupid oak trees. The landlord cut all the branches off before we moved in so we wouldnt have to deal with his leaves... but thankfully he blew them all into our yard! They just drove away so I'm about to bust out the blower myself and give them back to my very giving neighbor. If I knew where his hose hook up was I'd use that and wash my little white dog with his water too! 

6 more months. 6 more months. 6 more months. 

I think the dogs will soon join us in this chant too... they are hating being in this house... 

well dont look at them right now... you couldnt tell. 

Have I mentioned yet how much this oven sucks? I'm sure that my baby chicken that I am cooking right now will take a good 2 1/2 hours... waaaay more than its used to. grr. time to go baste it again.... talk to you soon! 

Back guest Bathroom

Here we have the floor plan for the back bath and bedroom from here on out we will call this the pool bath. (eventually we will decide if we are putting in a pool first thing or if we are waiting for the initial build) Since this wont be a main guest bath till after we have a child it will only have a shower and not the shower tub combo.

sketched out a few ideas here. I really love the look of a simple pedestal sink for the pool bath. Add some high polished chrome fixtures and it really jazzes the room up. The colors below are what I have in mind for now. I will possibly go with the darker of the blues but then I dont think I would be able to have black towels. (yes I did notice the strange arm chair in that bathroom)  

I would love to have this light fixture... but I dont want to steal my cousins bathroom style. Yes Nicci I am in love with your powder room. 

We might end up with something a little more traditonal bath like... since color really scares The Hubs. (he pretends it doesnt but I know it does... till he sees it then he loves it) 

I found this picture of this shelving over the sink and I think its genius! When you have a smaller since space my worry is always where the soap is going to be located... problem solved. I hate everything else in that bathroom though. 

This guy is most likely going to be my go to for the mirror. He is sleek and sexy ya? 

Master bath

Here is our master bath floor plan. We dont have a ton of ideas for this yet when it comes to colors, but here are a few: 

We love the look of the river rock floor for the shower, its a pretty nice sized and will be glass on the outsides of it so it will have a real clean look. We will be going with 2 shower heads and a bench seat in the corner. There will be shampoo and soap cut outs in the wall so you wont have to look at the ugly metal things that eventually rust anyways. Looking for suggestions for brands of good shower heads. We arent into the massagers with cords or anything like that. Maybe a rain shower head? 

Aunt Patty, The house we are in right now has a roman shower... at first I loved it, its open and brighter than most showers but then I spent 2 years using it. First it has glass blocks for the partition the grout between them is thicker than most tile and has been a bear to keep clean. I think somewhere along the line it also cracked and is leaking next to the tub. (this just could be poor builder quality) I also noticed that I am using much more hot water to keep the temp up while I am showering.  I love the open feeling to it but I think I will pass on it this build. 

We will have separate sinks... This is working for us so far... I need my space in the bathroom. Sure I may not ever use my faucet (because I dont right now) but it will give me my quality make-up/ hair product space that is needed. I did find these above counter shelving that I am in love with, or I think I am in love with them right now... :/ I have never been great at decisions. (except for my husband choice)

This is my side, this sketch was also done before the vanity was moved to the other side. The sinks will end up directly across from each other and I will not be putting on my makeup next to the toilet room. Gross. yea. No built-in Medicine Cabs I really dont like the look of them. (your home pharmacy should not be exposed to the moisture of a bathroom)   

This sketch I was asking for built-ins where the tub is going to be but I would lose my corner units if we did this so I passed on them and will end up doing some sort of shelving here. The bath will also be completely covered on top so it ends up being a flat surface. See photo on bottom. 

Love the look of the marble on top and black mosaic tile on the bottom. Sure the tub is not going to be set in the middle of the room (thats the next house we build) but the tub we have now has this yuck bland tile around it in 4x4 squares. Try washing a dirty dog who tries to escape... yea that grout isnt so white anymore. Wiping down a solid slab will be so much easier! Yes... it will be a soaking tub, I have one now and I love it... I will miss it when we move to our 8 month house. 

We recently went to a home show (never again because we entered to win a home depot gift card and were signed up to win a "free" disney vacation, jerks) anywho... we did find this company called Cambria. Its a natural quartz company who had some very beautiful slabs to look at, its a little less porous than granite so we might be using it here in the bathroom.  click this link to see some of the collection: Cambria Website

We really loved the jewel collection but we will revisit that when we get a little closer to that point. Also Cambria quartz has a lower carbon footprint when compared other companies. It is also American  made so that makes it a huge plus to us!

I have some sad news... 

My dreams of soaking in my lovely tub filled with bubbles while eating oreos and sipping on a glass of wine and leaning back to look at a glorious chandelier have been dashed by The Hubs. He doesnt want this look: 

He hates the look of the light fixture. :( this makes me sad. I will not feel like a queen while I decompress in the tub... This also goes for over the dining room table but I will show you what I found for that fixture soon! 

I found this guy up here tonight that I will spring on The Hubs next time he comes out of the room! Maybe he will fall in love with this... just kidding. He makes fun of me for looking at this stuff for hours on end but I make fun of him for yelling at the video gamers like a fool ;) The silly man would probably be okay with pot lights all over the house if it were up to him. 

Kidding again! He's a good man for letting this huge project of this home be my baby for a while! He trusts my decisions (for the most part, we all know I can get a little sparkle crazy sometimes).