Progress

A lot has been accomplished this week at the new house.  Lots of demolition and mess-making for most of the week, but then at the end a little bit of reassembling.  It had to get really ugly before it started to get better, but I think (and hope) we are rounding that corner.  Evidence of the mess is here in our lovely dumpster:

I was in charge of this project alone this week as Brett was in NY for work.  Each time I went to the house to check in (I try to go twice a day) I had AT LEAST one child with me (in a construction zone).  It was very hard to take decent pictures while making sure Grant didn't tumble down the stairs or stick his hand down the exposed sewer pipe or play in the insulation or step on a nail... you get the picture.  Toddlers and construction zones don't mix!  So I do have a few pictures to share, but not as many as I'd like and most of them aren't that great (since I had only one eye on the camera and the other on Grant!).

A few updates:

1.  We decided to put hardwoods in the entire house.  It'll cost us about $2,500 more upfront than high quality carpet, but in the long run it will save a lot of money because they will never need to be replaced (we could never replace 1300 sf of space with even the worst carpet for $2,500).  Plus, we do prefer the look of hardwood and the cleanliness factor. In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to write that check for such a large amount of money for basically a disposable product. Short term pain for long term gain here!  Plus with young kids, the inevitable potty accidents, throwing up, spitting up, spilling paint, dropping pens, and other incidents will not cause permanent damage!  Yay for that!

Here are some pictures of the hardwoods installed in the master and kitchen (unfinished).  They look great.  We are considering leaving them natural, but will try a few light stains on them as well and decided once we've seen our choices on the floors.

2. Once we saw (and mentally processed) what a MESS taking out tile creates, we decided to go ahead and start the remodel on our master bath also.  We were going to do it in 3-6 months, but the messy reality of demolition changed our minds.  Envisioning all that dust and noise and strange people in and out of our personal space for weeks while we lived there just became a very unappealing prospect.  We have an idea of what we want to do in there, but now we need to make some decisions and order some tile and fixtures.

Here is the tile removing mess I am referring to (serious noise and serious dust, people):

3.  Although last week I was thrilled to see the demo and the cleared out space in our kitchen, I must admit that I did have a brief but powerful moment of panic this week in the face of all the mess.  I was walking in the house with Pierce and Grant.  Pierce had to go potty (bad!).  We tried the half bath - no toilet.  Tried the master bath - people in there doing demo work.  Tried to go upstairs to the kids bath - no stairs!  Moment of panic.  I thought, "What have I done?  I have a house with no accessible toilets, no stairs, and a bunch of people I don't know inside.  Agh!!!"  Then Pierce reminded me to try the back stairs and go through the attic space connecting the two separate upstairs spaces.  So we did.  And we arrived a one functioning toilet.  I think I am over my panic.  It caught me off guard.  But it has passed and I hope it won't come back.

4. We did decide to open up the closet in the playroom to create more usable space.  And it is awesome.  I am so glad we did it.  The pictures don't do the space justice (according to Brett who was not impressed with the pictures I texted him this week in NY, but when he saw it in person was also thrilled).  The kids agreed to model for us to give a little bit of perspective on size.

Before:

A wall with a closet behind it.  Hi, Sydney!  Hi, Pierce!

After:

A serious addition to our formerly SMALL playroom.

Ignore the pipe running down the middle of the space - an unfortunate discovery that will be rerouted.  And the hanging wires and missing drywall will be remedied also.

That's all for now.  Next time I'll show you our totally trashed master bath!  Agh!!!  Will anything be put back together???

Demolition!

A LOT of demolition has occurred during the one week we have owned this home.  Wow.  I cannot believe how much was accomplished and I also cannot believe how excited I am to see it all in action.  I was a little bit concerned that I might freak out when I saw things being torn out and walls being exposed and moved.  But I was NOT!  Yay for that!  I was actually thrilled to see the house this way.  Seeing it without dated colors and fixtures and old carpet allowed me to really envision the plan we have for it.  Our contractor has been excellent, so we are lucky in that respect.  I think it is at its worst today, so I will share some demo pictures! 

The kitchen one week ago on closing day:

And today:

We are slightly altering the floor plan.  We removed the utility sink from the laundry room in order to gain 2 more feet of space in the kitchen for better flow and more cabinetry.  The pantry was taken out and moved down two feet and reframed.  We are going with a pocket door for the new smaller laundry room to save space.  The opening to the dining room was enlarged so the counter-depth freezer can fully open without the door hitting the doorway to the dining room (no picture of this angle - oops).

Here's the demo'd version of the future playroom:

I am thinking of opening up that large walk-in closet you see on the left in this picture to enlarge the playroom and create another little play space.  Later on, it would make a great area for built-in desks for a homework station.  We don't really need the storage in this room, and I personally think open spaces are always better.  The opening would go about as far down on that left wall as you can see in this picture (in both directions).  This is the fun of demolition - you get to the bare bones and you can see the possibilities.  Once you've had your contractor move one wall (in the kitchen) and realized its not very expensive to do, it's a bit addicting!  What do you all think??  Should we open it up?  (I'm on board, my mom thinks it sounds great, Brett likes the idea, but I could tell by the tone in my contractor's voice that he's siding with the painter and I am crazy.)

On Wednesday new hardwoods will be laid downstairs, and as soon as we can muster up the courage to pay the gargantuan bill for our carpet we have selected (who knew carpet was so expensive!), we will schedule that to be installed.  Any carpeting advice out there?  Is it worth getting the better quality product to avoid having to replace it in less than 10 years?  I know the horrible builder grade carpet at our house in Cary was nearing the end of its useful life after only 6 years of shoeless petless use.  So, we have selected a nice wool carpet (all natural) for the upstairs. It's not much more expensive than standard carpet, but when you multiply it out by square feet and add padding and installation and taxes...OUCH!

More photos next week, hopefully it will be in a better state then.

Thanks for everyone's facebook input on the "white" saga.  I feel even better about my "crazy" choice.  Although I still have not settled on my white.  I'll let you know what I choose!

White, right?

Ok, so the all white thing is not so simple as it seems.  Do you have any idea how many “white” color swatches there are at all the different paint stores?  Hundreds.  Seriously.  Hundreds of swatches that look white or at least white-ish and have “white” in their names.  “Decorators white,” “Ultra white,” “Simply white,” “super white,” and then the more creative ones, “popcorn,” “polar bear,” and my current favorite, “du jour.”  It’s a crazy white world out there.  And speaking of crazy, I must be crazy.  I talked to the painter we have hired to paint the entire house (white!).  After walking him through the house and talking about what we needed done, I mentioned it would all be one color, so a relatively simple job in that sense.  I told him it would all be white.  “White?”  he asked.  “All of it?”  “Really?”  “Pure white?”  “Not cream?”  Ha!  You should have seen the perplexed look on his face.  I think he would have been less shocked if I had said, “Black.  All of it.”  Or even, “Hot pink.  All of it.”  After an awkward moment of silence (well, he was silently pondering my decision and I was actually laughing out loud), he said, “I’ve never painted anyone’s house all white.”  “Well, wait a minute, I take that back.  I did paint one lady’s house all white one time.  But she was crazy.  Really crazy.” 

So, there you have it.  I am crazy.  We are going to try the white, because I just can’t help but be drawn to rooms like this:

And this:

Even kids rooms in white are fun and refreshing.  The toys, books, fabrics add all the color you need

 

 

 

When you come to visit, I think I will have a tally going on the chalk board wall I plan to paint in the kitchen (Aha!  There will be one small wall that is NOT white - it will be BLACK!).  And you can vote for or against me once you've seen the house.  Check "Crazy" or "Genius" when you come. Thanks!

Ideas

After six months of searching, we finally bought a home in Wilmington!  It is a charming home with good bones and the right floor plan for our family.  With three kids and Brett working from home, finding the right floor plan proved to be a real challenge.  We needed 11 rooms, and not many homes had that, but this one did.  And all in the right places.  Kids needed to be upstairs, office needed to be far away from the (loud) living, playing and cooking spaces.  Kitchen needed to be at the back of the house with a view of the back yard.  Backyard needed to be large and well-positioned.  Lots of things we wanted to get right!  And we did!  And under budget!  This house was actually the least expensive house we looked at – and we probably saw 25 homes over a six month period.  And we bought the cheapest one!  And liked it better than some homes priced $200,000 MORE.  That’s a lesson for you home buyers out there – look high and LOW when you are shopping.  You never know.  So, keeping our home purchase way under our budget means that we can remodel it and get it pretty much exactly the way we want it (in theory, at least).  The fun begins tomorrow.

I have so many ideas for this place that I don’t even know where to start.  Ok, yes I do.  The kitchen.  The most important room in the house needs to be done right and from day one.  I have no desire to live through a kitchen remodel, so we are hanging out with my parents for another month (thanks, mom!) while the kitchen is redone.  We are bribing my parents as best we can to allow us to continue to dismantle their once quiet, clean and peaceful home.

On the to-do list for this month are: 

1.       Complete kitchen renovation.

2.      Painting all the walls white.  Yes, white.  Yes, all of them.  I get lots of strange looks when I tell people we are painting the whole house white.  Maybe that’s because our last house was like a box of Crayolas?  We’re trying something new.  I’m inspired by European homes, Swedish design, coastal cottages, all embracing white walls. Not cream, white.  And, no, I am strangely not worried about it looking like a hospital.  We’ll see!

3.       New carpet.

4.       New hardwoods.

5.       Countless other basic updates like installing fire alarms to meet modern code, reworking closets, installing lights, new water heater, replacing a few doors, etc.

Right now the kitchen looks like this:

A well-built kitchen in 1989, but ready for an update. Good size, nice bay window.

 

And I envision something a little more like this:

White shaker cabinets? Check! Farmhouse sink? Check! Marble countertops? Check! $6,000 Viking Range...nope!  Sorry, couldn't swing that one!

 

Or like this:

http://www.houzz.com/photos/1354881/Classical-Kitchen-traditional-rendering-new-york

(Notice the nice bench under the bay window?  We'll be copying that!)

While we don’t have unlimited funds like the person creating my inspiration kitchens probably did, we are going to emulate it on a budget, friends!  We have already ordered the cabinets and appliances and countertops and barstools, so we are on the way.  We are changing the layout and moving some walls, the end result in my mind will be a completely transformed space.  I hope I am right. 

Demo starts tomorrow.  We are having a large dumpster delivered in our front yard.  I’m sure the neighbors will be thrilled about that!  Nothing like making a great first impression with a nasty dumpster!  Good thing we have no HOA to hassle us.

I’ll update soon.  The house will be in a seriously different state in a few days and I hope not to freak out when walls start coming down.

Just taking it all in

That's what we've been doing this summer - just taking it all in.  We've been enjoying exploring our new town, finding new places to play, new parks, new restaurants, meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones, playing on the beach and enjoying the slower pace of summer.  Because we are living with my parents, running the "household" is so different and so much simpler than we were used to.  There are no bills to pay (yay for that!), no yard to maintain, and our 2-bedroom apartment is a snap to clean up.  Going from having 5 bathrooms to stock and clean down to one is certainly easier!  So, with some extra free time we have enjoyed just exploring what Wilmington has to offer.

My favorite things about Wilmington so far include:
1. Nothing is far away!  The standard drive time to anywhere is 5-10 minutes, less than half my Cary drive time of 15-20 to get just about anywhere!  Major quality of life improvement already! 
2. You can't go anywhere without running into someone you know.  Wilmington is a small town and I kind of love this about it.  You just have to make sure you don't go out looking too rag-tag, because you WILL see someone you know.  There never seems to be more than one degree of separation from you and someone you know in this town!
3. Wilmington is the South, the real South, where people drink sweet tea, have accents, and are generally really nice. Cary was more like New Jersey than North Carolina and I used to get really funny looks from people when I told them I was from North Carolina.  Here, pretty much everyone is from North Carolina.  It feels more like home.
4. The beach.  No explanation needed.

We did buy a new house!  After making offers on three other homes, we finally got the right place at the right price at the right time.  Timing was everything with this one!  We are set to close on September 9, and will post pictures once we have them.  We will be doing a good bit of remodeling, so hopefully I will blog about the progress.  We are so excited about this house and the vision we have for it.  It is a Cape Cod style house, built in 1989.  It has great charm and character and it fits the bill perfectly of what we were looking for.  We got all the bedrooms we wanted, a separate home office, a play room, a formal living for the piano we intend to buy, a large yard, in the best schools, a few blocks from my brother and a few minutes drive from my parents.  Once we do some updating and personalizing, it is going to be the perfect house for our family.  We can't wait to share pictures and to eventually be able to invite people over!  Here's a sneak peak...

And here is what the kids have been up to this summer:

Grant: learning to brush teeth, walk, do forward rolls, climb furniture, and dance.

 

Pierce : being cool, learning to swim, playing with Papa John, building some serious Lego creations, learning to fly a kite and enjoying the beach.

 

 

 

Sydney: lots of great camps (art camp, vacation bible school and marine biology camp), reading every book she can get her hands on, complaining about and then thoroughly enjoying our trips to Wrightsville Beach, spa time with Nana, learning to boogie board.

 

 

 



Brett and I: just taking it all in and trying to enjoy this time with our kids and my parents (oh, and doing some serious house hunting and now planning and managing the remodel of a home we don't even own yet!).

 

 

 

Back soon!





Goodbye House

 

In just a few days we will be moving to Wilmington, NC!  I can’t even believe we will be leaving this lovely house that we have called home for almost six years.  When we bought this house, I felt that it was really my dream home.  And every single night when I say my prayers I have thanked the Lord for allowing me to live in such a beautiful home.  Every night since the day we moved in.  We have been so blessed here.  And now it’s time to find another home to love in another town.  I’m sure we will, although it is hard to envision it yet.  I had to remind Brett just the other day about all the homes we've lived in (none nearly as nice a this one) and how happy we've been in each one - from our starter home in Charlotte to our rental condo in Austin to our fabulously tiny 600 square foot one-bedroom apartment in Paris.  We'll find a new place and we'll love it, I'm sure! :)

Back in January we decided to give it a try moving to Wilmington to be closer to my family.  Brett has worked from home for almost six years now, and has never worked for a company here in the Cary/Raleigh area since we’ve lived here.  So, we decided to let him try working from home from another home!  While we like the area, we decided it would be nice to be able to raise our kids around their grandparents, aunt and uncle and only cousin.  Plus, being at the beach is not a bad deal!  Once we decided to try to sell the house this summer, everything happened so quickly.  We sold our house the second day it was listed.  And now we are on our way out.  We will miss this home and the friends we have made here in Cary dearly, but we are hoping that our new life in Wilmington will be equally wonderful.  We haven’t yet found our house in Wilmington, so it makes it even harder to leave this one since we don’t have anything to look forward to moving into (the storage unit we’ve reserved is not exactly what we had in mind initially!).

One of my most favorite and also least favorite things about this house has been the backyard.  It is way too small for much of anything – swingsets, fireplaces, soccer games, large parties, and so on.  And yet, in spite of its tiny size, I love it.  During the six years we’ve been here, Brett and I transformed this little space from an empty and sad patch of grass with one poorly placed oak tree to an outdoor play space. The kids and I have had so much fun back there and have enjoyed the space, in spite of its limitations.  We have played in the wading pool, started a small garden, practiced t-ball, thrown Frisbees, decorated the patio with sidewalk chalk, played in the sand box, hosted parties, and had Easter egg hunts and picnics.   I will miss hearing the porch door slam shut as the kids come and go to their little play space all afternoon and evening almost 8 months out of the year.  We will have to recreate a similar space in our next home – hopefully on a much larger scale!

Before

After

After

Pierce's sand box and play area we created from previously wasted space.

Putting it to use with a sprinkler and ice cream party!

We will keep everyone posted about our new address when we have one, but as of now we’ll be staying with my parents.  Summer Camp at Nana and Papa John’s house!  Whoot, whoot!

Goodbye house and goodbye yard.  We will miss you!

Irony

It’s funny how much irony plays a role in our daily lives.  Well, not funny “ha-ha,” but funny “interesting.”  In fact, irony is almost NEVER “ha-ha” funny when it happens to us.  It’s really funny when it happens to someone else, though.  So, here are the two ironic things that happened to me yesterday, neither of them being funny “ha-ha,” more like bang-your-head-against-the-wall annoying.

I never ever update software.  I probably have the oldest possible version of everything on my computer and phone.  And I am ok with that.  Brett has warned me that sometimes updating software is not a good idea, because updates can have bugs and can cause major problems – sometimes it’s best to wait a few days and see if any issues come up with the newest version of any software before downloading it.  And sometimes “updates” could be viruses in disguise.  So, I just let him handle the updating, and I always “just say ‘no’!”  So, last night I was trying to download some pictures off my iPhone onto my computer (which I have no idea how to do).  Somewhere along the way I had iTunes giving me a friendly reminder that my iPhone was horribly out of date and needed the latest update.  I started to click “NO WAY” and then remembered that Brett had told me recently that I do occasionally need to update my software, just make sure it is from a reliable source.  So, I decided to get with the rest of the country and update my iPhone.  A few seconds later my phone was black.  No response no matter what button I pushed and whether I unplugged it or not.  I plugged it back in and iTunes gave me another friendly message that my iPhone was in recovery mode and needed to be reset to factory settings.  By the way, this means losing all data, photos, videos, etc.  The sad irony here is that the only reason I started this unfortunate dialogue with iTunes in the first place was that I was trying to GET my photos off my phone.  And now they are in some cyber dumpster in another galaxy never to be recovered.  This is precisely why I NEVER update my software.  And I will go back to my antiquated ways as soon as I finish mourning the loss of my photos and videos.

The second element of irony to this whole event relates back to those pictures and videos.  I NEVER let my kids play with my iPhone.  I’m not one of those moms who hands her phone over at restaurants, in the car, in waiting rooms, or wherever.  My $200 phone is mine and it is not a toy and I have no desire to have to replace it because one of my children dropped it and broke it.  So, as I mourn those vanished videos and photos, I realized another very ironic thing.  The two videos that I am the most upset about losing were videos that the kids took of each other.  On two separate occasions, each of the kids hijacked my phone, typed in my password (which they have memorized and I need to change!), and took a short video of the other, interviewing them and asking silly questions.  One video was done by Pierce of Sydney and the other by Sydney of Pierce.  In each of the videos, they do their little interview, which is SO cute, and then you hear my voice in the distance and the video abruptly stops!  Caught!  They weren’t supposed to be using my phone and they knew it, but the resulting video was so adorable and I am just heart-broken that they are gone.  The wobbly filming, sweet little voices, mispronounced “l’s” and all that cuteness is gone.  The videos that weren’t supposed to be filmed were my favorites.  Painfully ironic.

There are two morals to this story:

1.       NEVER update your software!

2.       Go back up your favorite files right now, people!