play your cards close to your vest

i really hesitate to post things i think my house is going to look like. because 1) it's never really going to come out like that and 2)chris will probably shoot me down faster than fish in a barrel, but yet i pursue. i will simply state that i have always adored this house, Water Color (see more pics here) as many people have.


wouldn't it just make you soo so happy to walk into this everyday.... i love the wall color. its benjamin moore blue seafoam. how fabulous does that sound??


images from House Beautiful

so that being said. we shall see who wins this hand. i have some other options for when i get trumped*, but this is what i'm showing for now....

the number of these "keep on dreaming" posts will be directly related to when the money truck shows up. so if you are the type that likes to live in a fantasy world like me, then keep on reading. if you are more of a reality based type, then you keep your fingers crossed that we wake up to moneybags one of these mornings.

*i know just enough about cards to use the terminology in what i suspect is a very loose interpretation. in other words, just enough to get me in trouble.
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i think i'm making her grow up too fast

as i think about the finishes i am picking out for our house. i am realizing that this is the house our little girl will really grow up in. the house she will have birthday parties in, the house she will bring her first date to, the house she will have most of her Christmases in. and when she is my age i want her to remember and love all of the little details of her home. i want to make sure she has the perfect tile in her bathroom. the perfect sink. to look at a kitchen floor that reminds her of her home and smile. i may be putting too much pressure on this house, but it really is our forever house.

i wonder if the littlest building inspector

would approve of a bathroom something like this...

image from Domino Magazine

check, check, re-check, check, rescheck, what???

confused? me too. in order to get a building permit you first have to hand out a lot of checks, do some re-checks on things you already did, check off some more things and then do a rescheck. whats that you ask? well its fairly complicated but what i can glean from the rescheck website is that you have to know the dimensions of your home, what windows you are using and your construction type. then you must know trigonometry. seriously. and you use all of that to prove that your house is going to be energy efficient. lets hope i got the co-efficients of the u-factor and the r-factor right for the shgc rating. know what i'm talking about? me either. needless to say, they love me over at the building inspections office. keep your fingers crossed.

some things i DO know about are pictures of the site. i'm fairly familiar with where we are going to build and can find my way there on most days.

here's a straight on view of where the house will be, just across the pond...

the view if you were sitting on the "front porch"....

now all there is to do is wait. currently i'm waiting on no less than 3 people to do things to get this show on the road. i made sure we can use the bathroom out there. what else do you want from me?

anybody need an ambulance?

so we got an address! that makes it seem a bit more real. in actuality all it really means is that if i called 911 and told them that address, they could locate me in the barren field where our house will be.

for those of you who don't know, you don't just prance on up to the building inspectors office to secure your permit. oh no. i went to the building inspector, to a notary, to the clerk of court, to the tax assessor (911 address people) and then back to the building inspector. THEN i went to the health department to draw them a pretty picture of what i think my house will look like on the lot, so that they can come out and let me know if we can use the bathroom and garbage disposal at the house. that my friends is a good way to spend a friday morning. and i'm still not quite done with the building inspector yet.

oh! and i almost forgot i visisted the surveyor and the appraiser yesterday. i am not sure how many actual businesses i have patronized in the past two days, but its a lot.

the very friendly health department workers (really! they seemed to love their job) suggested we stake out the house so they can locate the septic tank. or else i can pay them some more monies to come back later. note to self: stake out house this weekend.

also this weekened, i will probably continue my stock piling aka "rat packing" of things for the house, such as all of my exterior doors which have already been bought (amongst other things)...

so maybe i'm feeling a little bit better about things, since i hopefully got a lot accomplished today!

p.s. lee anna is super excited for the groundbreaking.

and so it begins...

so apparently my husband chris and i are going to build a house. i say apparently because its been a long drawn out process and nobody has shown up at our door yet to deliver a load of moneybags to us. but, we will consider those things trivialities and forge ahead. several of my friends (and by several i mean ONE, and then her husband agreed) suggested i should start a blog about it. so going on the assumption that there is a huge demand out there to read about this, i decided why not?

first off you should know that this is going to be one complicated project. most couples say they don't agree on things. well this is severely true with chris and me. i have dedicated months of research to this house. i have a huge notebook full of ideas and colors and layouts. i have talked to every cabinet maker, tile expert and window supplier within a 200 mile radius of our home. i have poured over every volume of cottage living, house beautiful, southern living and architectural digest since 1982. i have had numerous meetings with my own personal architect (more on that later) and i have delightful ideas of a modern, interesting and funky home floating around in my head like fireflies. chris has one magazine in his arsenal. a 1998 edition of "log home journal" or something along those lines. so you can see where ideas may collide. we are both opinionated and stubborn so things could get interesting. we have settled on a house plan and we are both happy with it. thanks to my super architect boss, who has dedicated lots of his time and ideas into getting us the perfect house.

now to execute the plan. we have a sign up sheet (literally) for all of our friends and family to donate their time and skills to this project. so if you are wanting to contribute, you just contact me.

you will meet all of these players later on throughout the project. for now, meet my husband and current arch nemesis, chris: farmer. man's man. lover of log cabins and burgundy and green. sure he looks innocent enough here, but just wait until somebody mentions white granite counter tops and blue ceilings.

you see where this is all going?

in the event that nobody shows up at our house with loads of moneybags, we will turn this blog into the "how to remodel your cute little house on a cute little budget" :)