Dream project, plan B

OK, so I’m back with an update on our dream plan I wrote about a few weeks back. We had big dreams people. Dreams of extending the back of our house, moving some things around and creating more space where we want it – in the family room and kitchen.

And then we got quotes. First, I need to send out a double chest thump to the contractors who actually called me back. Guess what? It’s rare that a contractor calls you back. Who would’ve thought?

I called about ten businesses, two I talked on the phone and they were great. Most never called back. I only had two actually come out and to give us a firm quote, and of those two only one gave us a true, hard quote on a piece of paper. I’m already discouraged by this process. :)

I understand many charge for the estimate process and I totally understand that and was willing to pay – but out of ten I got one real quote. Thing is, they were all high. Like, CRAZY, you-are-freakin-kidding-me high. As I mentioned, we’ve had friends locally who have added on similar square footage and the price was much more manageable. Of course the contractors they used are no longer doing it. :)

We did have a few different roof lines to work into the plan, which increased the price. And running HVAC gets expensive too but our friends did that as well, so who knows.

ANYWAY. We could have done it – but at the prices we were quoted it just wasn’t a good use of our money. I’m willing to put some money into this, especially since we plan on being here so long. But it just wouldn’t have made sense to spend that much on this house.

So, plan B. :) I told you I wouldn’t give up.

Here’s the family room and kitchen plan I’ve shown you before:

To see our original plan go to this post. It involved pushing out the kitchen and family room quite a bit.

A couple of you mentioned an alternative in the comments and it has crossed my mind briefly over the years – I just didn’t think it would work. The idea was to take down the wall between my office and the family room. The wall to the right:

At first I discarded the idea because I truly do use my office, every day. I do want a space. But a reader suggested the loft and duh, that would work just fine. It would take some getting used to and I like being our main level – but by the time I finished putting things on paper I realized I’d probably have room for a desk in the new family room plan.

The thing is, I took down the doors to my office years ago – so it’s already open to the family room. When I really started thinking about it I realized how the two spaces are practically one anyway. I watch the TV in the family room from my desk:

Hello Charles. :)

And honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea. And I think I would keep the board and batten look throughout the space, because taking all that down would just make me cry a little. I have a plan to just change it up a tad.

I contacted two realtor friends of mine and asked them if it was a good idea. I didn’t know if losing the office would be a bad thing -- I wasn’t going to consider anything that would hurt the value of our home. I sent them photos and both were totally excited about it and said it looked like a great idea.

Whew! So now, I have a new plan. Here’s the current look, as a refresher:

The family room and kitchen table area are the ones that are tightest for us.

Because sometimes I just like to look at things on paper, here’s my rough sketch on graph paper, with the office included on the left:

It’s not totally to scale (but close!) and I forgot to add in a couple current windows, but you get the idea. The triangle in the corner of the family room is our fireplace and the open area on the right is the kitchen that will mostly stay put. 

Here’s the new plan:

Now there’s still an extension, but it’s much smaller and it’s just the kitchen. The bay window would be knocked out about six more feet. Eventually there would be a banquet there with the table.

I’d work with the windows that we already have in the family room and make those into French doors with access to the deck. Minimal messing with the current wall should cut down costs significantly.

Here’s an idea of the floor plan with furniture:

That table area in the kitchen is not final by any means – I’m still considering where I’d put the door, the table set up, etc. I need to make sure we’d have room to move around there. The space would be about 90 square feet, 60 of that new.

The fireplace would move to the back wall of the house. It’s a direct vent and I don’t even think we’d have to move the vent on the back of the house. My thought is to add another window in the corner to make that a double window to balance out the French doors.

The furniture layout would change significantly – and to do this I’d have to move our TV above the fireplace, which I’ve never wanted to do. But it may be the best/only option. I’d love to do some kind of small built ins next the fireplace to hold TV components. The placement of things is a little hard still because the office is only about ten feet deep – so I need to make sure we could place things well and still have plenty of space to walk around: 

It kills me that we shopped forever for a smaller sectional and that thing is still a beast! :)

I’m going to tape off shapes on the floor to see how it will work for sure. I have to say, I’m TOTALLY excited about how this could work. It would make our family room so much bigger and completely change the feel of it. And my office gets GREAT natural light so the thought of all of that in the family room makes me giddy.

The wall that would come down is not load bearing and I actually am considering taking that down on my own. :) I’m STOKED at the thought of that. The gas for the fireplace is in that wall so I’d need to have that moved. I’ve contacted our flooring guy and he says he can patch the floors just fine.

I think I could act as the contractor for that part of this job like I did for the basement. I’d need to coordinate the gas line, the fireplace rebuilding, some electrical work, adding the doors and windows, flooring fixes and a LOT of drywall.

So. That’s the new plan. I’ve already contacted the contractor who actually responded to me, so I’m hoping to get a new quote soon. And I’m going to call a couple more one more time – if you are in the Indy area let me know if you’ve used anyone you liked!

Do you have a TV above the fireplace? Have you ever taken down a wall in your home? Is it as thrilling as I imagine it? ;)

Our dream project

Hey hey! Well, it’s dream time. Dream being the key word, as we look into this further. ;) But it’s fun to think about and I love reading stuff like this so I wanted to share. 

Our house is a great size. Not massive, but plenty big for us. I mentioned in this post about building our house that we often wish we had more space in the areas we use most. Those areas being the family room and kitchen – everywhere else we are golden.

I’ve had this idea in my head for years now. Probably five at least – at first it was just daydreaming (back in the days when we were drowning in $125K in debt). Over the past couple of years I’ve considered it even more – but we’ve never acted on it. Of course over time I had to kind of introduce the idea to my husband – sly-like so he wouldn’t freak out. ;)

But he was actually quite into the idea and goodness, that gets me in trouble. When he’s on board I’m full steam ahead.

So years ago I shared a floor plan of our kitchen and family room – I don’t share many other floor plans of the house for security reasons. It kind of weirds me out you know? But this space has always been one we’ve struggled with, so back when we were buying our sectional I shared this:

The family room isn’t a bad size at all, especially since we moved the TV to the wall on the bottom. Makes a HUGE difference:

But the windows and that corner (curses!!) fireplace make it so that this is genuinely the only way to set up the room and have it function. Over the years I’ve found myself thinking if we only had a few more feet…it would make a huge difference.

The table area in the kitchen is tight. It’s a little better since I changed out the tables from a round to a rectangle, but if the chairs are pulled out you can’t walk around the table or get out the back door. It’s just tight. I am SO thankful we had the bay window put in!

We love to entertain but the longer we’ve lived here the less we’ve done of it because the space is just not conducive to having a lot of people comfortably. (We do use the patio a lot!) But it’s not really even about that – we just wanting a little more space to live. My boy is getting bigger and as our family grows (grandson and six siblings getting married and having kids) we’d love to be the hub for family events.

So. A plan was created in my head. One night I finally went out with a measuring tape and starting figuring it all out:

Sigh. It looks so simple here – if only that was the case. :)

That area in the white is all deck. We want to bump out the kitchen area about six feet. My dream project within this dream project? This:

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It would go perfectly in that spot and would look just. like. this. :)

The middle part would be an extension of the family room with lots of windows. I originally planned to maybe move the fireplace to the end of that space like this:

It was actually this photo that I found a few months back that made the hubby say “Let’s do it.”:

Those are magical words.

But since then, after talking with a few people and considering the flow outside, I’ve changed my mind on that. The fireplace would stay on the wall it’s currently on and would direct vent out the roof. But no. more. corner. fireplace. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of a huge long wall with nothing on it – it needs something to ground it and we would need an easy way to get to the patio.

I do want the pitched roof though. Perhaps with faux wood beams down the line or beadboard:

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And lots and lots of windows like my friend Julia has in her sunroom:

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Hers are extra big – I love them. We would stick with the standard windows we have in the house but I’d want a lot of them.

It looks amazing right? It’s all planned out in my head. What I didn’t have planned was the cost – I had a number in my head and so far it’s been blown out of the water. Like, torpedoed. :)

A friend added on a large sunroom/family room a few years back (actually more square feet than this would be) and it was totally reasonable as far as cost. Same pitched roof, lots of windows. But so far the numbers we’re getting (very rough) are triple that. Whut?

The large numbers are coming from rough estimates over the phone though – we’ve had two contractors come out who are putting together actual hard numbers. I have NO idea what they’ll come back with – seriously no clue. I thought I had an idea of what it would cost and so far that’s not panning out.

We would pay cash for this project so who knows if it will happen. At this point it’s looking like no. And the whole thought of my house being a total and complete disaster for weeks on end is starting to hit me too – I don’t know if I have it in me. :) For real.

Have you (or anyone you know) ever done a project like this? I’d love any advice. Was it astronomical? Was it worth it? Did you go rocking in a corner during the process?

If any local (Indy area) folks know of a reasonable contractor I’d love their name. Feel free to leave it in the comments or email me. I’m not going to get a ton of quotes but if someone has a great resource I’d love to check into it. And I’ll keep you updated on this and let you know what we decide of course! Right now it’s looking like it probably won’t happen but I refuse to give up just yet. :)

HomeGoods quality

Hello all! So a couple weeks ago a reader asked me about the quality of the HomeGoods furniture that I own and I thought that was a great question. I’m sure everyone has different experiences – but I figured it would be worthwhile to discuss here on the blog.

I think HomeGoods is a great option when it comes to furniture. Their prices are decent (for the most part), but finding something specific is kind of hit or miss. If you see something one week it probably won’t be there the next. When I was asked about their furniture and really thought about it, I realized I only have a few chairs and a few other items from there. I know at times it seems like half my house is HG stuff! Even I was surprised when I counted them up in my head.

I do have a couple benches I’ve purchased over the years. One sits at the foot of our bed and I’ve had that one for a really long time. I have a redo planned for it but it’s held up great and it’s surprisingly comfortable.

I got this little bench that used to sit at our kitchen table and love it too:

I took the seats off and spray painted it (I bought it in black) and I still love it.

I haven’t had any issues with anything I’ve bought from there. I’m trying to think but I can’t think of any problems. Sometimes things are a bit wobbly and I’ll have to tighten them up. But overall I’ve been pleased.

I do have a few chairs I’ve purchased and a few of them are brand name -- the one in our bedroom is Lane:

My husband LOVES that chair.

I think the quality is fine, but sometimes I do notice things that are ever-so-slightly off. Like one duvet cover I bought had a button missing. A tufted button on the bench may be loose. The nail head trim on my blue chair in the living room isn’t perfectly aligned:

So I don’t know if they are overstock or if they are sent the HG way because they don’t meet inspections. I suppose it’s a little bit of both. The issues are always so small you wouldn't even notice them. Same goes for some of the clothing I’ve purchased at TJ Maxx – but some of it has little imperfections and some I can’t find any issues with.

And sometimes there are items that are kind of a mess, and you can get them for an even better deal. :) I did that with our side table in the basement and added a new tabletop:

Overall I’m always really happy with what I buy there. I’ve had a few rugs from HG and some hold up great (usually wool), some don’t at all. The rug I had in our family room for years didn’t fair well at all, but the new one is wool and is doing great. But that’s par for the course at a place like that, I think anyway.

You just need to look over the item really well before buying. And some things like sticky drawers or uneven legs can be fixed. I always keep the tags on the item for a few days so I can live with it and take it back if needed.

Generally I’m happier with the quality of HomeGoods items than I am my IKEA pieces – and they are pretty similar in price most of the time. (And I don’t have to drive two hours to get them, bonus!)

What do you think? Have you purchased from HG and are you happy with the quality? I haven’t tried any larger pieces like dressers so I can’t speak to those. Do you have a favorite piece of furniture from there? I think mine is the étagère/bookcase in the photo above. :)

I’ll scratch your back…

Hello all! How are you on this beautiful (chilly!) day? I’ve noticed our plants are taking FOREVER to bloom this year – have you? I’m not surprised but I didn’t realize how late until I looked back at an old post from a couple years back. One of my favorite flowering bushes was in full bloom at the end of March -- it’s just now starting up in late April/early May this year. It’s going to be a short season!

Anyway, I’m on the look out for a couple things and I thought who better to ask for help than all of you? You guys are so helpful when I mention something that I’m looking for. But first I thought I would share some info on a couple things I get asked about a TON, a lot lately in particular.

The first is our family room rug: 

I got it last year and still love it. It’s a 9 by 12 and I got it from HomeGoods. Many have asked for a brand name and when we laid it down I couldn’t find a tag on the back. But I’m a dummy. The brand name is stamped around the edge of the rug. So…the rug is a Broyhill rug, but I can’t find it anywhere online! I don’t have a specific name for the actual design.

When I looked at Broyhill rugs online they didn’t have a lot of this more transitional/contemporary design – so I’m stumped.

Because I couldn’t find it I did some online shopping for you and these are similar:

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I almost got that one for our master bedroom. It looks so plush in the close up photos.

I’ve purchased a couple rugs from Rugs USA and been really happy with the quality. Very pleased really. They’re running a Mother’s Day sale right now, but they do a couple huge sales a year and I wait for those to buy.

I liked the design on this one as well:

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And this used to be in our family room – I still love it! It was just a bit too graphic and too small for the space:

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Those are great options if you’re looking for a similar design. I saw a rug very similar to mine at HomeGoods a couple weeks ago, so there’s still a chance you may get one near you.

Also, I get asked about my starburst mirror over the mantel all the time and I KNOW! I love it too:

That’s another HG find years back and I have looked for a name on it and there's nothing. Usually I’ll find the same design on subsequent trips in there but I’ve never seen this one again. I always have my eye out!

I’ve even looked online for a similar look and can’t find one. I did love these though:

 

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That one is from Pier 1 and I really love it.

This one is Wayfair and they have a darker version as well:

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I love it in the gold finish though.

OK, now I need your help! So a couple months back we had our first toilet issue in the powder room. Of course the first time in ten years happens after we put the hardwoods in, but I wouldn’t have put them in if I wasn’t sure they would hold up:

They did – it was quite impressive. But the rug that was in there wasn’t spared – I thought about dry cleaning it but does that disinfect it? I honestly don’t know. Because it was small I threw it in the washer on gentle, which wasn’t smart. The rug actually came out pretty decent but the backing was all jacked up. It was a MESS.

So I had to throw it out and I’m so bummed. I got it at Target a few years back and from what I can tell they don’t carry it online anymore. If any of you see it or know of one will you let me know?:

The colors in it are PERFECT. Right now we’re just going without one and it’s fine, but I do love that rug and would love to replace it.

Also, you got a peek of this chair earlier this week, but this was another HG find last year:

I may as well title this the HomeGoods post.

Someone asked about the quality of HomeGoods furniture the other day and I’ve been pleased so far. All I have from there are a few chairs and smaller things like benches. Most of the items are brand names that don’t quite meet the inspection process, from what I can tell. Usually I can find something that is just slightly off with the items, sometimes nothing at all.

Anyway, I’m hoping to find one more of this chair. I was considering it for the dining room/library set up but I doubt three more of this exact chair will ever happen. So now I’m thinking I’d like to have two in our living room. It’s surprisingly comfortable and I love the low profile of it.

And the nail head accents, of course. :)

The placemat pillow is my own. :)

There’s no marking of any kind on this chair either, so if you’ve seen it I would love to know! I would love you forever!

I’ll keep my eye out for my items and let you know if I see them too. If there are other items in our home you are curious about, let me know in the comments and I’ll give you resources or brand names.

What I would do differently

Hello! First of all, I know some of you are having issues getting emails with posts from blogger’s feeds lately. From what I’ve read it’s an issue with Yahoo emails – they seem to be going to spam? So if you have Yahoo be sure to check that. Also, the feeds are still working, it’s the email that’s not. So if you want to get all the posts from your favorite bloggers, I suggest you subscribe to them all in one spot like Bloglovin. I used to bookmark all my blogs on my computer and now I love having them all in one place!

So last week I talked about the process of building our house ten years ago. Today I’m talking about what I would done differently when it comes to the finishes and upgrades and layout – all that good stuff.

First up – the things I love about our house! Well, there’s a lot more than this that I love, but these are certainly things I’m glad we did. One was upgrading the elevation, or the front of the house:

I fell in love with those shutters and the design, and when I saw this brick I was sold. I LOVE our brick. It’s just on the front – I wish we would have wrapped at least the bottom half of the house all the way around. Brick holds up better and feels safer to me.

I’m so glad we put in a basement – we got about $12K in free upgrades and used that towards the basement. If you have kids I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea if you have the option and the funds. If you don’t it’s still much needed storage, even unfinished.

I’m also glad we roughed in a bathroom down there:

Even if you won’t finish it off a potential buyer might. And adding plumbing after the fact is not cheap! The bottom line is, the way you live in your home changes so much through the years – space you don’t use early on may be space you are craving years down the road. And rooms you use a lot early on may not be needed as much later (a playroom for example).

We fell in love with this house because it was so open and there are good and bad aspects to that for sure. It’s not for everybody. Sound does carry. :) I was worried our heating and cooling bills would be awful but surprisingly we don’t pay any more than friends with less open houses. Well, maybe a little more in the summer, but the winter is fine.

If could do it again I would do the cathedral ceilings and open floor plan again – maybe just not quite as much in the house. Our foyer, living room, staircase, loft, bedroom and master bathroom all have the high ceilings:

I especially love it in the foyer, staircase and bedroom. Most of those came standard with our house plan. We stuck with the basic eight foot ceilings upstairs otherwise. (And as a side note, I’m so happy we did nine foot ceilings on the main floor!)

Here’s one I wish we had done more of – recessed lights! I love them and wish we would have put them everywhere:

We have them in the kitchen and over the fireplaces (and we installed them in the basement later) and I wish I would have placed them strategically all throughout the house. But I’m weird and I love a lot of light, especially in the winter.

OK. Now, the stuff I would have done differently! Some of it’s big, some small. A biggie is the thorn in my side – the corner fireplace:

I was all, “Oh, it will be COOL and DIFFERENT!” and it’s just ANNOYING and AWKWARD. I’ve made it work over the years but I’d still rather have it on a flat wall. Normal is good, trust me.

Here’s a small one – lights in the closets. All the closets! Linen, bathroom, storage:

Whatever it is. Put a light in it. Just do it.

Also, I’d have a light fixture installed in every room. We don’t have ceiling fixtures in two bedrooms, my office and the living room and I so wish we had them:

If anything have them roughed in and you can hang something you love later.

Our builder did connect light switches in each one of those rooms to an outlet, so we have lamps plugged into those. It’s convenient to walk in and flip a switch for light.

This next one is a biggie and it’s two-fold. Most homes you walk from the garage to the mud room/laundry to the kitchen, right? Ours is weird. We walk from the mud room, past the office, into the family room and then into the kitchen. I seriously sit and think of all of my friend's houses and ours is the only one I know of with that layout. It’s not ideal – especially when you’re bringing in load after load of groceries.

Another big thing is I would NEVER put my HVAC system so close to the family room again:

(Old pic of the mud room but it shows the utility closet.)

You don’t realize how loud it runs until you’re trying to watch TV. :) I love days when I don’t have to run it just because it’s so QUIET in our family room and kitchen. I would move it to the garage or a storage room in the basement in a heartbeat.

And I think it goes without saying if you’ve read this blog for a while – I would never have put the washer and dryer in this room again. Ever. It didn’t work for us. I would put it upstairs (in a tiled/waterproofed room) or in the basement. Or just away from the garage door where you dump all your stuff. :)

Both my husband and I agree – the biggest thing we would have changed would have been to bump out the back of the house, even a few feet. Not the entire house, just the family room and kitchen:

We added the bay window and I’m so glad we did! Otherwise we wouldn’t have much room to move by the table and pantry at all. We are actually thinking about adding more space back there someday but I don’t know if it will happen. It’s just something to think about – where you want more space to live. We have rooms like our dining room and loft that we hardly use and I hate that. I wish we had that space in the areas we use, like the kitchen.

Of course that one especially was realized as we lived in the house longer and longer. It was not something we even considered when looking at models and floor plans. And in general the way we all live has changed over the years – people don’t use formal spaces like they used to. It’s all about your family needs!

So that’s just an idea of what I would do again and I wish I would have done differently. All in all I’m pretty darn happy with what we ended up with. :)

Do you have any thoughts to add to this list? Lights in closets – am I right?? Yes.

Building a house

Hey all! It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood – hope your weather is finally coming around too!

Lately I’ve been talking a bit about a big anniversary that’s coming up next week – ten years this house! I’m pretty nostalgic about it. It means so much to me that we’ve been here for so long. I swear I’m getting the house a cupcake next Monday for the “birthday.”

Kidding. I’ll get myself a cupcake.

Now that we’ve lived here ten years I have new appreciation for the building process, so I wanted to pass my thoughts along. I’ve been wanting to write a post like this for years and I figured the ten year mark would be pretty appropriate. It’s a bit like labor – you forget all the bad stuff and only remember the good. Mostly.

Obviously you have to decide if building a house is for you. The idea of new and shiny everything is certainly a bonus – that is if you like new and shiny. :) If you prefer more character in a more established area then building a new home is probably not for you. (Unless you are going more custom.)

We loved the idea of starting from scratch and getting exactly what wanted. Honestly, we didn’t even look at any existing houses – we knew right away we wanted to build. There are good and bad aspects to the process of course.

The good:

You pick out all your finishes – every. little. thing.
You can schedule the build for when it works for you (we delayed ours for three months so we could get out of our apartment lease on time).
You pick your neighborhood and lot.
Everything is brand new (if you like that sort of thing).

The bad:

You pick out your finishes – every. little. thing. ;)
Your house won’t be ready for three to six months (more for custom). Ours took about five and a half months start to finish. (Eight and a half with the delay.) 
Building can be more expensive than buying if you don’t reign in all the extras.

Deciding on a builder is a biggie. For us it was more about the location and the house we fell in love with than the builder, honestly. We signed our contracts with Trinity Homes and then it was bought out by Beazer almost immediately:

We lucked out. We had nothing but excellent experiences with them the entire time. In the ten years since about half of the builders in our area have folded – Beazer seems to still be going strong.

If you’re like us you find your location before your builder – I think that happens a lot. But either way, as they say, location is everything. My advice to you is to not put too many boundaries on where you build. Of course you’ll have a certain area you’d like to put down roots and if you have kids you’ll be thinking about schools. But I had a very specific area in mind when we were looking and didn’t want to go outside of it. I actually drove out to our neighborhood once to go through the model – and turned around because it felt like it was SO FAR AWAY. (Drama.)

It was about one mile past the “boundary” I had in mind. Later we found our model in another city and realized it was built in this neighborhood. We drove it again and all the sudden it wasn’t so bad. :) Now we honestly couldn’t be more pleased with the location. It’s minutes from great shopping and restaurants but we drive by farmland to get to all of it. I love that.

The easiest part for us was finding our lot:

You’ll pay extra for more land, for a corner lot or for a tree lined backyard. We drove up one street and knew immediately this lot was the one we wanted. The backyard wasn’t big and it was sloped, but not as much as the others. All that mattered to us were the trees and the land behind the house. That land is why we won’t be moving any time soon – it’s just too hard to find anymore. That privacy is HUGE to us. A big backyard may be what is most important to you, it all depends on what you want for your family.

Right off the bat you’ll have to make BIG decisions. The structural stuff needs to be figured out immediately. That includes the elevation of the house (not the height like I always thought, but the design of the front of the home), how you want the kitchen set up (for us we had to decide on things like double wall ovens or a slide in), if you want fireplaces, a basement, all that big stuff: Although sometimes the structural stuff isn’t big and you would never even think of it. So my advice is, before you sign one document -- pour over magazines, pinterest, walk through model homes and do your research! We had no clue what we wanted when it came to most of it. I wish we would have done the double ovens in the kitchen. :)

The stress of this process came when we had to pick out all of the finishes for the house. Again – I don’t think you can plan too much for this part. And again, we did very little of that. You have a very short amount of time to pick out all the finishes for the inside of the house and if you aren’t ready it is extremely stressful. Stressful in a first world problems kind of a way but still stressful.

We had a couple scheduled times to walk through the showroom and decide on our options. This is for EVERYTHING – the great thing was that we had endless options for lighting, flooring, faucets, brick, all of it. That was the bad part too. It is incredibly overwhelming if you don’t have an idea of what you want going into it.

And even then you will sit down to make your final decisions and find out about all kinds of stuff you never thought of. At least we did. A sound system (we added), an irrigation system (we didn’t), a security system (we did). Lots of systems. I hadn’t even considered all of that until we had to make the 100 percent final decisions. Hence the reason I think building can be more expensive than buying outright. If you’re not careful you tend to think you must do ALL THE THINGS to your house right then, instead of spreading them out.

I’ll do a separate post about what we would have done differently, but overall I have a few more thoughts about the process to pass along. The biggest is to be there as often as you can. It goes fast! We had an Amish crew frame our house and where there was a hole, a house was built within days. I would drive out almost every single day after work. First of all -- it was incredibly exciting to watch. Secondly, I just wanted to stay on top of the process: 

Our superintendent was AWESOME and we were in constant communication. If something came up he would call and I’d be out there. A few times I noticed things as well – like that we were supposed to have a gas oven and dryer and only electric was installed. (I noticed it before drywall so it wasn’t a big deal to fix it.)

Don’t be afraid to ask for small changes along the way! At least with our builder we were able to tweak throughout the process. Little things like not having a half wall installed in our front room weren’t a big deal for them to adjust, and our super would often ask along the way what we thought. I was so thankful they were open to it. I don’t know if all builders would but it never hurts to ask.

When you’re visiting all the time, be sure to take photos! I took them every time something big happened – framing, electrical, drywall:

That fireplace is now this one:

:)

I’ve referenced our build photos many times in ten years. I looked back at pics to see if I remembered right about the wood on our stairs before I decided to rip off the carpet:

There are some changes I’d like to make to the kitchen and when I looked at the framing photos I realized there’s a huge plumbing pipe running right through a wall I’d like to change up. Drats. But it’s MUCH easier to study photos than it is to cut out drywall.

And finally, when you’re picking out all the goodies for your home – keep in mind what’s easy to change out yourself. When you buy a fancy sink through the builder it costs more than just buying it yourself (the bonus is that you’re paying for the sink over 30 years). ;)

So my advice is to go builder basic on things like light fixtures (at least ones you can reach to change out), faucets and hardware. (Or see if they will install items you bought instead!) Even a novice DIYer can change out a door knob and I promise switching out lights is not hard. Of course this depends on the time you have to dedicate to this stuff – if changing all that out seems like torture it will be worth it to just pay for what you want!

That’s the whole point, right? You’re building a home to your exact specifications. That’s the best part! That and the new house smell – I swear ours smelled new for years.

So those are my thoughts on building a house. There are definitely some things I’d do differently in our home and I’ll talk about those sometime soon. For us the process was pretty fantastic and other than some stress it was a fun experience. I would do it again for sure.

Have you gone through the building process? Did you enjoy it? Any other advice you would add?

Home, to me

I’m feeling a bit nostalgic lately, so bear with me today. :) I’m coming up on two big anniversaries of sorts – by next month I will be blogging for SIX years. Crazy. And next week it will be ten years that we’ve owned our home. I can’t even believe it. Ten years and six months ago this is what it looked like:

Having my child, marrying my husband and building our house – three of the most exciting times in my life. :)

So every once and awhile I think about what I do, this blogging about houses thing, and I wonder how important it is in the scheme of life. As you can imagine it can feel materialistic at times, because decorating is often about STUFF. Adding stuff, moving stuff, spray painting stuff.

Does all of that matter? No. But I’ve realized over my years of writing about our home and others that your home and how you feel in it absolutely does. It’s nothing compared to our health, well being and family, but to me home means SO much.

I say this a lot but I mean it with every fiber of my being – your home should be your haven. It should be the one place where you feel safe. Our homes are so much more than buildings and the stuff we buy to fill them up. I think people often confuse a love of houses with a love of things. It’s not that at all, at least not for me.

My first apartment out of college.

Sure, the things are fun. (Have you been to HomeGoods??) But it’s the act of fluffing and adding and tweaking that makes me even happier.

The fact that we’ve lived her for ten years is mind-boggling to me. Truly. Before this home the longest I had lived in the same home/apartment/dorm was two years. Well, I take that back – we lived in an apartment before this house for four years. But before that for my 24 years of life I moved at least every two years.

Our first apartment. I dragged that tree up the stairs by myself.

I didn’t mind it as a kid – I’m sure I did at the time but I don’t remember it. The only time I was sad about leaving a house was when we left this farmhouse. And when I was older and had deeper roots and closer friends I wasn’t changing schools when we moved, just houses.

I have no desire to leave this house. It makes me tear up at the thought of it. It makes me wildly happy that my son has been raised her since day one -- that’s how my husband grew up and the thought of it was so foreign to me. There’s nothing wrong with moving a lot – you gain a special set of life skills from it. But if I could choose I’d want my kiddo to live here till he leaves for college. :)

My dorm room for two years. Cat posters rule.

I have a deep connection to our home for many reasons – because everything about houses is a passion of mine, obviously. I could watch, read and breathe house stuff all. day. long. But it’s because home feels like a part of our family to me. It’s the joy of having a home base. That is so easily taken for granted! 

I went through a time of about eight months (that I touched on here) when “home” was my dorm, motel rooms and my best friend’s house. That stays with you forever. There were a few times in my childhood when things hit bottom and my mom was struggling to get back up – one of those time we lived in our friend’s basement. My mom, sister and I lived in their basement (we used a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom) for a year.

As a kid it wasn’t a big deal. It’s only now that I look back and feel sadness for those times. Sadness because I now know my mom wanted so much for us at the time. But I’m also grateful, I don’t wish any moment of my life away.

Our duplex after after the basement.

This little walk down memory lane is just to say that I think our homes matter. Sometimes working on them can feel trivial, but my goodness – it’s not. Home is everything. Home is what you make it. Home doesn’t have to be perfect – making it what you want is the JOY of it! Even if it takes you 30 years to get it the way you want, how lucky are you? So lucky.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be talking about a few things “home” – my thoughts and recommendations on building a house, what I would do differently and the same and reflecting on some of my favorite rooms over the ten years in our home. Lots and before and after pics – my favorite!

Thanks for letting me look back today. :)