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." :)

House News!

We've been working on a home renovation - and since we're 99% complete on finalizing all the details, I feel it's time to share!

 

Back in the spring, we started talking about whether or not we wanted to stay in the house, or move.  We've been holding off on doing a lot of things to the house because we just couldn't make the decision.  So... our initial decision was to just replace the existing deck structure with a screened in porch.  Then, the more we thought about it, we realized that adding a screened in porch didn't add any square footage to the house (which ultimately helps the resell value of the house).  Thus, the large renovation project was born!

 

In a nutshell, we're replacing the existing back porch with a great room and putting a Master Suite on top.  I cannot express how excited I am about this project!  In total we're adding about 1,000 square footage to the house.

 

Without further ado, PICTURES!

 

Aerial view of the exterior (before and after):

 

 

 

Interior view of the downstairs (before):

 

 

 

Interior view of the downstairs (after):

 

 

 

Close up on the fireplace and sets of french doors to the backyard:

 

 

 

Interior view of the upstairs (before):

 

HA!  It doesn't exist.  This is all brand new space.  For those of you have been in our home, let me provide a visual.  As you proceed upstairs, the door to the Master Suite will go right where the large picture of Winston is located. 

 

Interior view of the upstairs (after):

 

 

 

Close up on the the room(s) I'll probably spend the most time in... the closet and Master bathroom:

 

 

 

I am so excited about my large bathtub.  I'm even mounting a TV directly about it so I can sip my wine while watching TV, just relaxing.

 

Now on to the outside... view from the driveway side of the house:

 

 

 

View from the other side of the house:

 

 

 

View of the new back of the house:

 

 

 

Eventually, we'll have to do something to the back of the house (like a brick patio and replace our existing fence) and the kitchen (we're thinking of redoing the entire kitchen take up the existing space + the existing den space).  But those are later phases of the project.  For now, we're super excited to get this project going.  If all goes as planned next week, the contractor will start his work on 10/1 and told us to plan for at least 14 weeks of work.  So hopefully sometime mid January we're in our new space.  In the meantime, we'll be moving furniture around this weekend to make way for the workers.  We will be living in the house during this time so this should make for an interesting fall!

 

As work progresses, I'll post more pictures.  Stay tuned.

 

 

 

Instant Pick Me Up

I'm 7 months into my new job and it is totally stressing me out.  To be honest, I'm just not enjoying it at all.  So last week when I had a terrible Monday, I went to Nordstrom's after work.  And I bought these. 

I heart them, and I'm not ashamed to say that it totally made me feel better.



Wow It's Been a While

A lot has been going on since last October.  At the beginning of November, I left my job of almost 6 years to embark on a new journey at a brand new place.  Within those 6 years, I had learned a lot but had started to become bored.  I'd grown a team, grown as an individual, grown as a manager, and felt like there was more of a challenge somewhere else.  Boy, did I get that right.  I only took a week off in between jobs - and if I had my druthers, I would have taken a month.  1 week is just enough time to catch up on errands - not enough time to unwind and appreciate the lack of responsibility.  So in mid-November, I started my new job as a Project Manager at Asurion.  It has been a wild, a rocky 3 months.  I finally feel like I'm getting my sea legs at this place, and that has been very frustrating.  I can definitely say that I took for granted the fact that I had built the relationships, process and team that I did at Kroll.  Now, I'm meeting brand new people, and learning how to work with a brand new set of people - and there are a lot of them!  The company is HUGE, with over 10,000 employees and they're expanding even more.  I'm sure you'll see more about it over the next several months - I have to remind myself it's a marathon not a sprint and that eventually I'll get used to the change.  Let's just say, be careful what you wish for - I'm definitely challenged now!

In other news, Michael and I celebrated a very quiet Christmas and New Year's but headed to New Orleans the first weekend in January for the BCS Championship Game.  Of course, we were ecstatic with the results (the Tide rolled right over LSU), but we also got to eat at some fantastic restaurants (krispy kreme donut pudding was a a highlight), catch up with Michael's Aunt and Uncle and even were able to visit with Michael's 85 year old Grandmother, Chere (who in true NOLA style offered blood mary's with her brunch).

I've been spending a lot of time decorating the house.  For Christmas, I got Michael a 70 bottle wine cellar and we're in the middle of converting an old closet into our wine cellar.  Since our trip to Oregon last year, Michael's taking quite a liking to Wine Clubs and during the fall we get tons of shipments from our friends we made last summer.  Since wineries and wine clubs only ship to the South twice a year due to extreme hot summers and cold winters, we're expecting our next round of shipments in the next month or so.  I'm just glad Michael has found something besides sports that he enjoys - and I definitely can't complain since I get to imbibe with him. :)

In addition to the wine cellar, I'm finally almost finished with our sun room area that's between the two bedrooms upstairs.  I recovered the chairs, ordered a custom upholstered ottoman from Ballard Designs and found a smaller (77 inch) sofa that fits.  The last little thing I need to do is have some throw pillows made for the sofa - in this wonderful cheetah print (because every room needs a little animal print).  Next phase of project decor is to concentrate on the guest room.  It needs window treatments, throw pillows, a full mirror, etc.  All of which I've picked out, but I've been told to pace myself by Mr. Noble.  I guess I can get a little ahead of myself. :)  But we're hosting a baby shower at the house at the end of March and I would love to have everything done.  Who am I kidding?  It'll never be completely done - I'll continue to tweak it until we finally decide to renovate or move on to the next house.

Last thing that's consumed a bunch of my time is the 2012 Cause for Paws event which benefits the Nashville Humane Association.  This year I'm co-chairing the event, and that, along with my new job, has consumed A LOT of time.  Though I have to say, that because of my love for animals, I totally don't mind spending the time on it.  Plus, it's a super fun fashion show luncheon held at Belle Meade Country Club and a wonderful way to celebrate spring.

I think that's all for now.  Next time I'll post pictures - they make posts so much more exciting.  So what's new with you?