Renovation: Day 30

This past weekend I was out of town and when I got back, they had already started framing out the upstairs!

 

You can see how the upstairs is going to flow - the hallway to the Master bedroom:

 

 

The closet:

 

 

The bathroom (and past that the bedroom):

 

 

 

The downstairs is all enclosed now:

 

 

The existing den has been cleaned out (except the middle part of the entertainment center which is too heavy and cumbersome to move):

 

 

 And the outside is really coming together:

 

Finally! A Walk-In Closet!

With the news finally out there about our home renovation, I feel like I can finally start blogging about all the ideas I have for each of the rooms.  Yay!

 

I'll start with one of my two favorite rooms - my new walk-in closet!  I cannot express how excited I am about it!  Hallelujah - I'll finally have a clear view into all my shoes :) and I won't have to switch out Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter attire evertime the season changes.  And yes, Michael will have some space in there too, so he won't have to go downstairs to get dressed anymore.

I'm having a hard time deciding which direction I want to go with the decor - so here's my first stab at some ideas.

1) Picture from People Magazine of the founder of Spanx's home closet. 
2) Union Jack Rug in the shape of a hide rug (with the added bonus that no animals were hurt) from Jonathan Adler
3) Another Jonathan Adler Union Jack Rug (if the animal shape isn't your thing)
4) Restoration Hardware 19th C. Crystal Chandelier
5) Wall of Shoes - Picture from Houzz.com

 



You might be asking why the union jack/british theme.  I'll tell you but don't judge - it's a totally silly reason.  My closet is going to be one of the first rooms I walk into each morning, so I want it to be a happy place.  I want to walk in and smile at it each morning.  So... in my head, I've envisioned that this is what Kate Middleton's closet looks like. Silly, right?  But it makes me smile just thinking about it.

P.S. I totally know that my closet is just a smidgeon of the size of Kate Middleton's closet.

Renovation: Day 24

So the biggest thing that happened last week was they started painting the exterior of the house.  I left work on Wednesday morning, and the house was yellow.  When I returned Wednesday night, the house was gray!

 

They also made a lot of progress in the back - you can start to tell what the room is going to look like:

The backyard is a total disaster, and keeps getting worse by the day:

On a side note, while Winston and I were out for our evening walk, I took some pictures of some neighborhood trees changing colors:

Fall is such a beautiful season in Nashville!

Renovation: Day 23

Somehow I got off count - which must be a sign of too much going on because it should be so easy to remember.  We started our renovation on October 1st... and duh, it's October 23rd.

Lot of progress over the past two days.  They wrapped up the foundation, brick, etc. and brought over the wood to start framing.  It's looking great!

 

Aerial view from the second floor window:

 

Winston's Halloween Costume

he's so ferocious. 

too bad I couldn't find this costume.

oh well.  there's always next year.

New Bed!

Part of the fun of a new addition is furnishing it, of course!  Here's the bed I've picked out:

5 years ago when Michael and I got married, he never would have gone for this.  I've totally worn him down!

And finally, we can sleep in a King size bed at home.  We've been making do with a Queen and when you've got a 30 lb. puggle who likes to snuggle, it gets a little tight!

Renovation: Day 17

In order to make up for some lost time, the construction team continued work on the foundation yesterday.  Materials were delivered at 6am... this girl was not too happy to be awoken at that time on a Saturday morning, then listen to construction and pounding from 7am - 8pm last night.  But it was not in vain as they were able to complete the brickwork around the foundation. 

Home Renovation: Days 12 - 15

As I sat on the beach last week, I just kept thinking about the progress going on at home.  When I returned last Saturday night, I was very disappointed to see not much progress.  Apparently, as they started digging up the back yard for the foundation of the addition, they kept hitting rocks... large boulders to be exact.  In fact one rock was wedged underneath the driveway and they just couldn't get it out.  So finally, last Friday, the inspector came by and told them that they could just pour the foundation on top of that rock. Phew.

So Monday they finally poured the foundation, and Tuesday morning it looked like this:

On Wednesday, they started building the foundation layer (and a bunch of junk started piling up in our driveway):

Today (Friday), they finished the foundation perimeter:

It's finally starting to look like something!  Supposedly, the framers will start on Monday... I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news, the painters have been working on prepping the exterior of the house for a new coat of paint.  For the past 5 and a half years, our house has been a light yellow color...  and so is our next door neighbors.  So we're trying something new... a Hamptons style gray.  On Wednesday morning, I went by Porter Paints to try to find the perfect gray.  Who knew there were so many shades of gray (definitely more than 50 - ha. ha.)!  These are the ones I picked out:

But, if any of you have ever painted anything in your life, you know that the color on the swatch doesn't necessary match how it's going to look.  So I picked up 5 samples, and the painters painted some of the siding on the house for me.

It's hard to tell in the above pictures - but two of the shades were definitely too dark and one was too light.  So that left two - Victorian Pewter and Steeple Gray.  After looking and pondering and looking again, we decided to go with Steeple Gray (Porter Paints 555-5).

Here's a closer look of the swatch color:

I can't wait to see the house painted.  It is much needed - and I'm kind of surprised that they're going ahead and painting the existing house, but then again, the weather's so good right now that they probably want to get a lot of it out of the way.

Yay for progress!

Family Vacation 2012

For the first time in ten years, the White family took a family vacation together.  I don't know why all of a sudden my parents decided to forgo their annual exotic vacation to the Mediterranean, Europe, etc. but they did.  And we got to reap the benefits!

They rented a house outside of Destin in Santa Rosa Beach.  The house was beautiful and right on the beach.  The weather was the best - 75 - 85 degrees, sunny, no clouds, water as clear as can be, I can go on.  It's also awesome to visit that area in October because it's much less crowded.  You can actually get into a restaurant without waiting an hour.  I cannot recommend Florida this time of year enough.

This is a picture from our last night, having dinner at Vue, and I used my dad's new iPhone 5 panoramic technology:

Pretty neat.

While we were there, we had family photos taken by a great photographer in Rosemary Beach - you can check out their web site at www.marlaandshane.com.  Here are a few of my favorites:

 the picture above cracks me up... especially Dad's pose.

It's hard to pick which ones to get!  And looking through them just reminds me what a great time we had. 

P.S. on a side note, the renovation project didn't make as much progress while we were gone as I would have hoped.  update to follow soon.

Renovation: Day 2

Renovation: Day 1

Day one of our home renovation and and of course it rains :( 

 

We spent all weekend preparing the house/yard for the construction crew to start taking down the back porch. The den is looking quite bare and the backyard looks like a tornado came through.  We moved all the plants to the back of the yard as well as about 50 five pound stones.  Michael and I are so sore today from all the heavy lifting!

I just keep thinking about the last scene in the Meryl Streep/Alec Baldwin/Steve Martin movie, It's Complicated - Steve Martin's character says that it's good luck to start building in the rain. "It's a well known, very good, really lucky omen." :)