A picture is worth a thousand words!

FINALLY!!! A day without rain means the concrete can be poured!  The crew has a short window to get the mix down but they are determined to get this project done.  I cannot wait to see it for myself. Here are the pictures that Old Mountain has been sending me throughout the day!

While the rain falls down

This week there has been little progress on the driveway.  It is hurricane season and even though we are hours away from the ocean, the storms that taunt the coast have found their way into our atmosphere.  We have been living in a grey mist for days with no sunshine and lots and lots of falling water.

Pair that with a week home from work while office space is moved from one floor to another, I decided today I would multitask - handle work, bake for my daughter's girl scout troop and compose a blog entry.

A few years ago, I bought a whoopie pie pan from the William Sonoma outlet.  It was very inexpensive and I thought I would make some of these treats sooner rather than later.  So here we are, much later, and I am making gluten free whoopie pies.  Thanks to Pintrest, there is no shortage of ideas.  I went with a recipe from the blog, gluten free canteen, where the author converts every kind of recipe to a gluten free version.  This particular recipe uses a box mix as its base, so it was super easy to pull together.

The hardest part was getting the batter/dough into the pans; tapping the pans so that the batter flattened into the pan; and then putting them together.  A tad messy but something I hope the kiddos, especially one sweet girl who has been denied so many joys of being a kid due to celiac disease.

Pave this way

Unlike many people who live on our road, we are fortunate to have not one but two driveways or at least a second space to put some vehicles.  One side of our yard is a pea pebble pad that fits two cars nicely.  The other is a true drive way but it has seen better days.  Quite a while back, I had found some pictures of what I wanted.  After walking the neighborhood to see what others had in the style of a drive way, we knew that we had a winner.

Ribbon driveways, sometimes called Hollywood driveways or track driveways, usually consist of two parallel tracks paved with a hard material and separated by an unpaved area. There are many homes around us that have this style with the "ribbon" area being a grassy strip.  Not wanting to keep up with grass, we have selected brick pavers in a herringbone pattern to place in the center.

Living in the official historic district, we did have to go before the historical review board to get our plans approved.  That was in January 2015.  Not fault of our contractor or of our own, we haven't had it done yet.  It was freezing, then it was extremely wet, then this new Braves stadium is being built in our community, which is bogarting all the day labor.  Now that summer is winding down and rush corporate jobs are closing up for our contractor, we were able to do a site walk today and finalize the work that should start later this week.  Not just a drive way but lots of drainage, concrete and pavers will be installed.  This isn't a rush job by any means but rather a labor of love.  As the old driveway continues to wash away, gems of old brick are starting to surface and it is going to be a really cool project to watch come to life.  I can't wait.

Brick+Mortar

The process has begun in building a new driveway for the house.  Praise the Lord! Our contractors have uncovered some pretty awesome old bricks as they dig out the old, put in drainage and get ready to lay the new.

Return from the darkness

Hello, blog world....it's been awhile.  
A very long while.
I think I have been inspired to start writing again!

I am going to revamp my blog.  This journey started in 2010, and as we settled into our dream home, there were projects to handle more frequently.   Five years later, we are into a groove.  However, we have some more fun renovations on the horizon.  Plus, after being inspired by a few friends who blog, I think I will use this as a creative outlet.

You see, I'm not just a mom who works full-time and doesn't know how to say no to volunteer activities; I also started working on my Masters Degree online.  This fall will be my last semester of coursework, and then in the spring of 2016, I will take my capstone course and finally graduate.

So my blog will be a distraction for my mind when it gets cluttered with talk of work and education theory.  Stay tuned...I think this might be fun!

Home, sweet home - where we are still living the dream!

They're here!!!

We've been patiently waiting for new furniture and new shutters.  The furniture, which I swore they said would be here in time for Thanksgiving, will not be ready until Dec. 20th.  Some of it is in but we still need to finish painting.  It is waiting for the rest of the pieces to be ready for a full delivery.

The shutters, however, were finished ahead of schedule.  They are so awesome! I totally love the work that Devenco did for us. They are beautiful.  Time to save up for the dining room because now I want them in that room as well!  Happy Thanksgiving to us for sure!!!

BEFORE

AFTER!

Now if I could just make the time to finish painting the walls!  Slowly but surely, this project is staring to take shape.

More excitement!

As you can see from the pictures of our home, we have a lot of windows - TALL windows.  Currently on the downstairs windows that can be seen from the front of the house, we have 96" panel curtains on them.  We get a lot of direct sunlight and although the curtains are not my favorite, they have served a purpose.  They help keep the rooms cool from the blaring sun and it keeps the furniture from fading also.  Thankfully, the previous home owner brought them back after closing and we were able to save ourselves a ton of money by putting them back up throughout the house.  Curtain panels are not cheap, especially the 96" ones!

However, I have never been in love with curtains.  I think they are pretty but I see them as dust magnets.  Thankfully my husband has a vacuum attachment that is safe for curtains and he tries to get rid of the weekly dust but if I had my way, we would have shutters on every window.  I grew up in a home that had shutters and I absolutely love them.  Not the big plantation shutters but the old style, colonial shutters that are double stacked and can open on the top and bottom as well as the individual shutters themselves.  You can let us much light in as you want, when you want with them.  You can also peep out one shutter without moving the entire panel in case you need to see who is knocking on your door on a lazy weekend morning.

Since we are sinking a ton of resources into our new furniture, we made the decision to go ahead and spend just a bit more to get what I have always wanted for the house - real.wood.colonial.shutters. YESSSSSSS!!!

If you aren't really sure what I mean when I say colonial shutters vs. plantation shutters, here is a picture from the company we are using:

I swear I just get giddy looking at this picture!  These too will take about six weeks to receive as they are custom made.  It will be well worth the wait, I can already tell!