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!

Changes a coming....

So we've been in the house for three years, give or take, and life is wonderful.  We totally love it here and cannot imagine ever leaving.  That being said, we've designated it as our forever home.  I don't think we ever doubted that we would not stay but it feels good to announce it with passion. With this title comes the desire to make changes that will last a lifetime. Even though the house has been renovated, there are plenty of projects to keep us busy for years and years and years to come.

The hardest part is trying to decide what to do first and how to prioritize our project list. Where do you start? Do you attempt to work in the yard? Or do you try to redo the inside? At this point, we've started doing a little bit of both.

Over the past few weeks, we've been doing the never ending purge of the inside of the house.  We took two trips to the dump, which in our County is a bargain - only $7 a load up to 400 pounds.  We hauled off all of our living room furniture - the sofa, loveseat and arm chair.  When pieces were out in the sunlight I was embarrassed to think I had let people sit on those darn things.   I purchased them for my first apartment after college in 1997 and we've been using them ever since.  Three moves, one baby, two puppies and five kitties total have lived on them. Now that they are gone, we moved two chairs and a rug I purchased last year into the room.  Originally, the plan was to start using them in Jan. 2013.  When I rescued a German Short-haired Pointer pup, that plan changed.  If we had not decided to move her to a plantation, we probably would have kept the old furniture.  With Dixie gone, the plan was back on track to get some new furniture for both a formal living room and a viewing room.

Of course, lots of plans have gone through our heads but neither I nor my husband are interior decorators.  We enlisted the help of Jerri at Ethan Allen and are thankful for her guidance.  She came over to our house and listened to our dreams for the house.  She measured windows, walls and doors.  She took pictures and sketched in her note pad. Then, she brought us to her office to see the project board for our two rooms that we've decided to work on first.  We could not be more pleased.  As you can see below, she staged the rooms for us with the furniture we liked.  She pulled colors for us to consider.  Within a few hours, we ordered custom sofas and chairs for our house!  Within two months, it will all be delivered.  Cannot.wait.to.see.it!

Baby birds abound

Every morning, we wake to the music of the baby birds around us begging mama and daddy for breakfast.  I finally caught a few pictures of the nests and babes.

This first picture gives me the greatest joy.  I love watching birds and the wren is my absolute favorite.  They are so tiny yet so busy with life.  My grandfather made me these bird boxes ages ago and I brought them with me from our former house.  The only thing that enjoyed it there was a squirrel that made a larger hole.  However, now it has a nesting wren!  This photo was taken before Mother's Day and later I saw four tiny eggs in the box.  I think there is only one baby in the box now but since it is so close to the ground where predators might linger, I have tried my best to stay away.

This next set of photographs comes from the corner of our front porch.  I think most of the noise we are hearing in the morning is coming from this nest.  I think the Purple Finch (aka House Finch) family had at least five babies.  You can vaguely make out baby birds in the first picture and in the second photo, you can see one of the babies almost ready to leave the nest with lots of other tail feathers poking up from the nest.  Sadly, I think they left the next yesterday because it has been very quiet.  Time to clean up the mess then, I guess!

Spring has sprung!

The trees and flowers are all abloom and the pollen has been raining for weeks!  There have been plenty of front porch evenings enjoying the milder yet still warmer days of spring. 

I am so excited that Memorial Day is just around the corner.  I know that means summer is knocking on the door but more importantly for the owner of an older home, it means it is time for patriotic bunting to go up!  YAY!

The ladies in my neighborhood and I have been discussing patriotic bunting and how long it should stay up.  Thankfully, we all agree it is a beautiful thing to keep up from Memorial Day up until Labor Day.  It covers all the holidays and who doesn't love being patriotic?

I was going to put ours up this weekend but the rain has been horrific and I have a little nest of baby House Finches in the corner of my porch pillars.  I don't want to disturb them too much.  They are newly hatched and mama and daddy are very protective.  We'll see how the week goes with growth. We also have a nest of Wrens in our bird house on our picket fence that are too cute for words. You can definitely tell it is spring when the sun begins to rise in the mornings due to all the chirping going on!

The husband and I have been kicking around new renovation projects to tackle.  We've both been so busy with life in general that routine upkeep of the house is all we have been able to handle.  I think the main project we'd like to have done is a new drive way.  The current drive way is simply dirt and with the amount of rain we've had in Georgia over the past year, it is totally washing away.  I've started a Pintrest board focused on styles of driveways that we like for an older home.  We need to get quotes and all that wonderful stuff so we have some idea of what we are getting ourselves into!

Happy 2013, y'all!

It is amazing to me how fast a year goes by now that I am older. Remember the anticipation of 2000?  Thirteen years later, here we are moving right along.

As I look back over 2012, my assement is that we had a great year with many blessings.  Probably the biggest was to finally sell our former home that we had been renting out since we moved to the dream house.  Since that chapter has closed, it finally seems appropriate to put more touches on our forever home.

Maybe I had a subconcious fear that we would lose the dream house.  I'm not really sure but once the former home sold I felt a new boost of energy to work on making the home in Marietta even more "ours" both inside and out.

I apologize for the poor pictures but I took them with my camera phone.  Despite the quality, you can see the progress.  More to come on this topic in 2013! May yours be abundantly blessed!

This is the faux wall that seperates our kitchen from our kitchen dining area.  I love Glory Haus and have found a fondness for their beautiful crosses.  Hopefully they'll create more that I can add to either side as the years go by.

Thanks to the invention of the commander strip, it is easy to put pictures on a plaster wall.  We plan to get more pictures framed and have our family story told as you travel up the stairs. 

Finally...pictures

Well, it goes without saying that I am a terrible blogger.  My last post was in JULY! I cannot keep up with this page to save my life.  When I do come here to post, I know it is purely for me because how in the world can anyone keep up with a blog that no new information is ever posted to?

My laptop with my pictures on it has been sick and I was finally able to retrieve some photos when I came across these beauties.  We had a photo shoot in our home at the end of September for a local magazine.  The kitchen had to be cleaned and decorated for Christmas since the issue hits the stands in December.  By competing this post, at least it will allow anyone who is lurking to see pictures of our refaced cabinets to actually do so.  They are simply beautiful and make me so happy to be in my kitchen.

Beautiful new framing for the fridge 

We finally got the wine rack back up and it looks awesome 

The cooking area is so light and airy

Love the desk area.  We need to figure out a new piece under the two middle
cabinets but we'll get it finished eventually.  No rush!

What a cool contest!

Have you ever seen one of these? I have and I SO want one.  I doubt I will win but maybe someone will pitch in to get me one for my birthday. :)

Check out the Idea Room's Blog for all the details: http://www.theidearoom.net/2012/07/silhouette-cameo-giveaway-2.html#comment-89750

I have to take some pictures but I'll be back to blogging next week.  We've got a rocker, a porch swing and some chairs to introduce you to!  Have a great weekend.

A present for me!

My husband's birthday was Thursday, so imagine my surprise when I saw this sitting on my kitchen floor when I got home from work.

As you can see, my kitties had already attempted to open the wrapped box for me.  A line from "Beauty and the Beast" ran through my head upon seeing this (you know, when Belle returns and the clock and candlestick are amazed? Yes, I am a mom to a five year-old.): "Could it be? Is it she?"

With a grin on my face, I started to tear away the newspaper that was protecting my missing wine rack.
Ta da! It is she!

Of course, no new piece of furniture or anything can go unnoticed without Splotch the cat investigating as you can see in the picture above.  I am so happy!!! Finally, the wine rack be be installed and the kitchen can truly be finished.  As soon as this pieces goes in, there is a large piece of crown molding that will go on top of this section of the cabinets.  The items that are being stored on our dining room and kitchen tables can go back into the cabinets for storage!  More organization can occur.  Wahoo! Can't wait to see how the installation goes! 

Butterflies!

Since I do not have any restoration stories to post at the moment, I thought I would switch over to some of the activities going on inside our dream home. With a child in the house, that means there is always something going on!

It is summertime in the south which means mama has to try hard to keep a very active five year-old occupied.  Last year, I purchased a butterfly kit and stashed it away for warm weather use. The little one found the box and reminded me, we needed to order our larvae!

The tiny larvae were shipped live to us in a cup with pasty food at the bottom. Not long after they arrived, they started to eat...and eat...and eat, which made the grow! Soon, the larvae attached themselves to the lid inside their individual chrysalis. We transferred the larvae lid to the pop-up butterfly cage. While the larvae started to turn into butterflies, we read about what was going on in the book I had ordered at the same time I bought the butterfly kit.

Finally, the butterflies began to hatch, one-by-one. While the butterflies gained wing strength, we made a flower garden for them in the bottom of the butterfly keeper.  With a dropper, we placed sugar water in the dish and along the flowers.  They knew exactly what to do!

Today, we released the butterflies.  One will stay with us until she passes on.  Unfortunately before I knew the butterflies had hatched, the kitties knocked the butterfly house to the ground and hurt the wing of one of the painted ladies. Thankfully, she is eating from the flowers we have dotted with sugar water and seems happy.  She just couldn't fly away with her sisters.  

My little girl seems to understand what is going on with our special butterfly. She put the butterfly house back in her room and said she would be a good vet to the little injured one. We will definitely order more larvae so we can enjoy the butterflies again soon! 

Happiness is...

For me, nothing says "happy" like red, white and blue.  My friend said that I am the most patriotic person she knows.  I am not sure about that but I must say, I do love Memorial Day and July 4th and I truly love Americana decorations.  I finally found stars and stripes bunting for the house locally so that I did not have to order it through the Internet.  Another perk?  It was all made here in the good ol' USA.  Just in time for Memorial Day, I was able to put up patriotic bunting along with my patriotic Glory Haus burlee.  I love this time of the year as many of the home owners in our neighborhood start putting up various styles of red, white and blue decorations.  Here is our front porch all decked out in our happy place!

Nothing says patriotic like huge bunting!

I love my Glory Haus Burlee.  It says, "Land that I love" and I
promise to take a better picture so you can actually see it!

Since this picture was taken, I have added small American flags to the planters
out front.  Goes really well with the princess pool on the porch, don't you think? :)

Still waiting...

It is the end of May and my wine rack is still AWOL.  However, I think we are getting closer.  The husband has loaned a staple gun to the guy who has been doing the painting for us.  He has returned to us the wine glass holder that goes under the wine rack.  It is pretty close in color to the cabinets! Thank goodness.  I may find a way to stain it so it has some character to it like the cabinet doors.  I'll have to wait and see once the big piece arrives.

In the meanwhile, hubby has finished painting the bathroom and we have gotten a "new" piece of furniture for storage.  My sweet Aunt has given me my cousin's victorian wardrobe.  It belonged to her great grandmother and it is truly special.  You see, my cousin and I were raised together like sisters and she was a year younger than me.  When we were in our early 20s, she was taken away from us painfully early.  There isn't a day that I don't miss her or think of her.  This piece will always hold a special place in my heart.  I am honored to own it.

This is the mirror that goes in the top right of the wardrobe.

Splotch the kitty checks out the wardrobe.

These are the beautiful pulls on the drawers.  I am on the lookout for three of them to
replace the ones that are missing.

The finished bathroom paint job.  I LOVE the color!

Purge, purge and purge some more

I had a great meeting with my fairy godmother about the kitchen yesterday.  She made me admit that I am a stacker and that my husband is a stacker and as long as we confront that issue, we can get our arms around it.  Low and behold, she told me that she and her husband are stackers (who knew?) and they too have to have a basket for mail, etc. so it doesn't do what we are doing now...cluttering up the joint.

She is coming back on Saturday to do some organizing while I am away.  God, bless her! It is a start and I am thankful. Points of entry will have new dump spots that will have to be sifted through on occasion but that is better than having tons of piles just about every where.  Hopefully the five year-old will learn from example!

Some of that fairy dust must have landed on my husband while she was around because yesterday afternoon, we spent our day off purging our bedroom closet, bathroom and sleeping area at his initiation.  Tons of magazines were sent to the recycling bin; clothing was packed in boxes for MUST ministries; and things were thrown away or shredded.  He also did a deep clean vacuuming of the floors, closet and bathroom as well as a good mopping of the tiles in the bathroom.  What a difference a few hours of team work can bring.  We still have a long way to go but it is a start.

If you are in the Cobb or Cherokee County areas and need a charity to donate to, please consider MUST ministries.  They are always in need of clothing, food and monetary donations.  We find more and more of our no-longer-needed-things going there.

A gift from the organizational goddess!

There are times where I think I know exactly how Cinderella felt when she was told by her evil stepmother that she couldn't go to the ball.  She sat there in the garden in her torn gown and tear stained cheeks, praying for a miracle to end her sorrow and helplessness.  To wash away her pain, her fairy godmother arrived.  With the wave of a magic wand and the sound of the words, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, she was transformed into a squeaky clean, beautifully put together princess.

As I stand in my kitchen, frustrated with the boxes, messy counters, small appliances I am not sure to do with and chaos in general, I want to pull my hair out and cry for my fairy godmother to come save the day.  There is still no update from my husband about the guy who is painting our wine rack to match the new cabinets.  I really, really don't want to put things away to just take them out again when we have to install this large piece of wood into the existing cabinets.

As all this crosses through my head every time I enter my kitchen, I decided to reach out to a friend of mine who I have dubbed the "organizational goddess"for some ideas.  She is so good at what she does! Everything in her space has a place.  I dream about her kitchen and its neat and tidy ways.  My gal pal is unfortunately moving to Missouri soon but has made time in her busy moving schedule to come and act as my fairy godmother.  Here is how the text conversation went:

Goddess:  I was thinking, wouldn't it be grand to have a meeting
you and me
talk about what you want
then let me at it during the day after kiddos are school
while you're at work??

Me:  Are you kidding me?

Goddess: You can come home all surprised!!

Me:  OMG! That would be so fun!

Goddess: I have you in my calendar.
I want my hands on that kitchen!!  :)



With that, the magic words were spoken and it felt like a wand had been waved.  I am still in shock but wanted to jot it down while it was fresh in my giddy-stricken mind.  Thank goodness for fairy godmothers with goddess-like organizational qualities! This should be a fun adventure and a good lesson for me!

Cabinets are done! Now how to I get organized?

The cabinets have been done for a few weeks but due to the busiest time of year at my job coupled with Spring Break, Easter and fifth year birthdays, I have not been able to slow down to take pictures of the final product.  Take my word for it though - they are BEAUTIFUL and I absolutely love them.

I am slowly putting my dishes and things back in the cabinets, however.  I am really trying to purge out the pots, pans and gadgets that we never use and put the things that we do need in a place where we are better served by them.  This includes the small appliances on our counters and decorations.  I am a tad stumped on a few itmes and just need to slow down enough to focus on it.  Also, a trip to The Container Store is in order without a doubt! the newly built drawers are smaller than a standard utensil tray and I am sure they'll have the pieces I need unlike the usual suspects like Target or Bed Bath and Beyond.  I don't want to go back to a drawer of unorganized mess but rather a space where everything has its place.  Hopefully, I'll get there before Thanksgiving!

We are still waiting on one more section to be added but that is on our own time and dime.  The cabinet folks couldn't reface the built in wine rack that was between two sets of cabinets, so my husband has found someone to handle that for us.  Once that is reinstalled, I'll feel better about putting glassware and such on that side of the kitchen.  I don't feel like putting something away that is just going to be taken back out once that section has to be installed.

So pictures soon, I promise.  Just promise me you'll look past the clutter!