Our New House

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Since we took a walk down memory lane yesterday with a tour of our old house, today we are going to move into the new house.  We have already made some pretty drastic changes. I have to say that I passed by this house several times on Realtor.com until a picture of the kitchen caught my eye. I knew we would need to make some changes to the exterior so that it would feel more like us.

Exterior Before



Exterior After when we first moved in.


Then we had molding added around the garage. 


This past weekend we painted the front door Sherwin Williams Naval. I reached out to the FB Bless'er House Decorating Community regarding the paint color. Naval was by far the top choice. The second was to leave it the existing terra cotta color. 


 

For those that are curious about the terra cotta door color, it's Sherwin Williams Roycroft Adobe and the house is painted Sea Salt. 



The Doormat is from Target and the welcome sign was a Walmart after Christmas clearance find. 






I also added some new pillows to the porch and some ferns that I got at Lowes. The funny thing is that I bought these pillows to tie in the color of the front door when it was terra cotta. They look even better with the navy door.

We originally planned to paint the entire house navy or dark gray, and even had a rendering done by James Hardie.


What do you think? Should we eventually paint the whole house? Of course, then I have to pick another color for the front door...



We Moved!

Monday, May 18, 2020


Back in August of 2019 we decided it was time for our family to make a move. I had always said that if our boys both got into Envision Science Academy, (ESA) a charter school, that we should move into the Traditions neighborhood. ESA is in the middle of Traditions. Shortly after that, both boys were proud Eagles at ESA and I again mentioned that we should move. 


We listed our beloved house and it went under contract in 10 days. These are some of the MLS shots from the listing. Prepare for photo overload. This is really a digital scrapbook for me to remember our house on Everstone Road. 


























This yard and our community of wonderful neighbors is what we miss the most. All the neighborhood kids gathered here to play soccer, baseball, football, nerf wars, you name it and it was played in this yard.



It was definitely tough to leave this home behind. We spent 7 years there.

I hope you all have a great week! 



Seating for four please

Monday, August 24, 2015

Traditional Home
I mentioned in my last post that the onset of Fall has my decorating juices flowing again.  They are seriously on overdrive and probably driving my sweet Hubby crazy.  We have a beautiful kitchen in our 2 years young builder home, but it is not my dream kitchen.  I don't love our backsplash or our granite.  I don't love the fact that our island seats 3 people and we are a family of 4.  But it is very hard to justify making big expensive changes to a brand new kitchen.  I have been dreaming up ways to increase the size of our island, without having to redo the whole kitchen. It could be a huge domino effect, bigger island means new counter top on island so why not replace all of the counters and the backsplash while we are at it???  But I am trying to reign it in and limit the costs while coming up with a solution.

One solution is to add legs to the end of the island and replace only the island granite with butcher block countertop that has a bow shape since that can accommodate more stools.
Crownpoint Cabinetry

Another idea is to shift the granite towards the dining table and add a butcher block insert.


DeGraw & DeHaan Architect

Or we could add on a table extension like the one below.  I think this would be an extremely difficult look to pull off as I don't want the extension to look like an after thought.
Flourish and Design Style
I love the shape of this island, the white cabinets and grey paint.  This is the look I am going for minus the crazy bold floral.
Martha O’Hara Interiors


Here is our kitchen now.  I do love the look of our giant cutting board on the island, which makes me think that butcher block on the island is the way to go.

You can't tell from this photo, but we have a banquette bench at the end of the island now for folks to sit on while we eat at the table. This photo makes me LOVE our kitchen.  Too bad it doesn't always look like this. 


How do you cope with your not quite perfect kitchen?




Trouble spot

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Hey yall!  Are you ready for Fall yet?  I am beginning to dream about chilly football Sunday's eating chicken and dumplings. Just the thought of Fall has my decor brain wheels a turning!  I guess the hot weather clogs that part of my brain in the Summer.




Don't worry!  This blog post is not about Christmas.  I am not jumping ahead that far.  I just wanted to show the full teal accent wall with the buffet cabinet on the left and the desk on the right.  

I struggle with how to decorate the left side outside of the Christmas season.


Above is a picture of the current mantel styling.



This is the current decor on the cabinet side, but it just does not do it for me.  I love the mirror, the tall white statue thingy (what do you call one of those?) and my Reader's Digest books.  Everything else can be swapped out. I had it decorated as a bar of sorts but now I have a bar cart.  Plus we don't even drink liquor.

What would you suggest putting on top of the cabinets?