Favorite lighting

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I love Summer, almost to the point that by the time October rolls around I am ready to pack our bags and head South. So when this Summer turned out to be more serious-home-building and not so much Summer bucket-listing-busting I kind of got a bit sad that we'd missed out on so many family memories. But by golly those little munchkins sure know how to make lemonade at out lemons. I would venture to say that Brecken has not only grown attached to the large dirt mounds in the back yard, but he has mentioned in a not-so-obvious way that he would forego the grass to keep the dirt. Typical I suppose for a four-year-old boy. Addy on the other hand lives to clean and what better area to thrive than in a home being built. I would say free child labor, but that might sound like I'm breaking some child labor law and believe me she lives for this kind of junk. 

No matter the case John promised us a Memorial Day to Labor Day house baby. So with it's due date approaching like super fast I'm coming to terms with it being overdue (pregnancy analogy for a house may be a little much..) Anyway, I hope that all the pool time missed and the hours of watching movies in the car as we've worked on the house will pay off. Because it better. Because I really cherish my pool time. And house or no house...we like swimmin' and tannin' and eating melting popsicles and then jumping in the pool to clean off. Really, we (as in babes and I) were meant to live in California....

We (as in John) decided to save ourselves a little money (as in a lot of money) and to tackle all the painting on our own. Not sure if it was worth the money because I've stormed out on John a handful of times.  Who knew how much painting actually went into a home?! It's like the entire thing inside and out needs to be taken care of--sarcasm aside, we're finally near the end of painting careers. I hope. And to commemorate the end of painting our lights will be hung next week. #6 is my favorite! It, along with it's brothers and sisters will be hung nice and tight on my ol' sitting porch. Beauty, right?

Time Saving Tips for Building a Home Part: I

I wish I could report a one-stop-shop process for building a home, but as I'm sure most of you can imagine it's no easy endeavor. Someone told us that building a house either makes a breaks a relationship--honestly, there haven been moments where I wanted to cry or at the very least throw a can of paint but seeing the progress has been so rewarding. We've lived in this house once before, we just couldn't get enough of it I suppose, so the thought of building it again has made us kind of giddy. I already know exactly how my furniture will fit and where my dishes will go, I'll hang up the kids growth chart on the same wall, and I'll stumble through the darkness with a little more ease this time, I hope... 

The last time we built this home a general contractor managed all the day-to-day chaos and this time we decided to take it upon ourselves to general it. With that being said, I think we've both learned some valuable lessons and pocketed a few tricks that we hope to use in the next home. Here are just a few of the things that I hope can help those of you that are planning to muddle through the murky course of home building:

1. Find reputable sub-contractors. Saving a penny is great but sometimes having a good name who does the job right the first time is worth paying the extra cost.

2. Plan accordingly. Map out a time frame for each contractor. Sometimes they will overlap, but make sure to provide a little bit of cushion for those unexpected events i.e. weather, faulty equipment, slowness of other contractors.

3. Imagine the big picture. A new house to call a home is totally the end result, but getting there takes some work. Here is how the progress has moved along so far with us Survey-Excavation-Concrete-Framing-Concrete-Excavation-Siding-Roofing-Plumbing-HVAC-Electrical-Plumbing-Drywall.....See? It's kind of complex. (I'll make sure to post John's excel spreadsheet soon).

4. Skip a few sneaky steps. If you're building a basement you can save some time by skipping a few steps. After the concrete is dry in the basement and between the floor going down see if there is any way you can put your tub and dry wall in the basement. This will save your plumber time and effort and it may save some of your walls by not having to navigate down the stairs and through framing. By having drywall materials placed in the basement before the main floor is put down it means less cutting and hauling down the stairs for the drywall dudes. Less time for them, means more money saved for you. Does that make sense?

5. Pinterest is not always friendly. Pinterest has literally turned into a smorgasbord of ideas. Just because an idea is cool doesn't mean it will be the coolest idea for a home. So I'm trying to minimize my overload of Pinterest in the home. I've incorporated a few fun "home ideas" while also realizing I don't need to put all 576 pins in my home. Could you imagine? Oi.

6. Being neutral is kind of like being Switzerland. And we all know the Swiss have great chocolate and killer Alps. We're nearing the stage of painting/setting cabinets/and laying down floors.  I tried to pair darker floors with neutral walls and light cabinets. This in turn gives me the flexibility to accessorize with fun colors which I can trade out depending on the seasons or if it goes out of style. Remember friends don't let friends go color crazy on walls. 

Well, there you have it. When it come to building questions, you'll have to ask John specifics whereas I'm well versed in carpet weights, cabinet styles, and which colors of paint pair well with circular sawn wood floors. 

Busy. Busy. Like Busy.

We've been busy. I'm sure if I said it was a good-type of busy John would strongly disagree with that assumption but I find that I thrive when our schedule is a bit chaotic and the days seem to fleet by in an instance. I guess our lives are taking one of those dramatic turns that happens occasionally. You know the kind, where you're just puddling along and all of the sudden there are a million and one changes happening simultaneously. Yes, that's where we're at in life. 

And we're playing T-Ball, which has been a little nerve racking. Albeit, it has been wildly entertaining to watch a passel of small four and five-year-olds bee line it to third base only to realize that they were going the wrong direction. My poor boy has the genetics of his mother and was bred for the warmth of Arizona so a majority of the pictures taken have been those moments of desperation where he thinks his toes and fingers are going to fall off. But cold weather or not we have braved the fields every Saturday and I find that the far off dream of childhood sports is now upon us in full swing and I couldn't be more delighted.

We're also building a home. Yes, a bonafide-no-longer-rental-of-a-home-with-hardwood-and-granite- and-absolutely-under-no-circumstances-will-there-be-carpet-in-the-dining-room kind-of-home. I'm sure you've gathered by now that all the hyphens are to show my utmost disdain for carpet, especially in areas of eating. For two years we've lived in a rental and I feel like a small part of me died when we moved it, many boxes have still remained packaged up, and making memories in a place that has never felt like our own has always been a bit unsettling. The thought of once again having our own home is not only my saving grace right now but it also means I get to start decorating again and I love to decorate. Ask John, he'll roll his eyes...

I would say our level of busy is currently under the somewhat sane tinkering on the edge of crazy stage. We decided long ago to general our own house this go around and so far the work has been tremendously hard, I should clarify that it has been hard John, I just do as I am told and follow orders. It's been so hard in fact that I have made a household rule that the last few minutes of the day have to involve talking about anything other than tile/flooring/carpet/hardwood/porches/decks/light fixtures...just so I can go to sleep without dreaming about our home.

 I'm excited to share the journey with all of you and I'm exciting for all the little details I get to plan and I'm so eeeking (it's not a word, I know) to finally be able to decorate the babes' room with all the items I've collected over the past few years. 

Days to ground breaking: 12 and counting...