Voice Magazine for Women: February

Check out my article in the February issue of Voice Magazine for Women! See below for a small snapshot of it or click here and scroll to page 11 to see it online

Voice Magazine is the only women's magazine in Southwest Virginia & Northeast Tennessee. You can pick up your copy at more than 650 locations throughout the region. Look for me in March too.

Thanks, Voice, for featuring me!

Voice Magazine for Women: January

Check out my article in the January issue of Voice Magazine for Women! See below for a small snapshot of it or click here and scroll to page 11 to see it online.

Voice Magazine is the only women's magazine in Southwest Virginia & Northeast Tennessee. You can pick up your copy at more than 650 locations throughout the region. Look for me in February too.

Thanks, Voice, for featuring me!

Countdown Week 4

Time for countdown week number 4...shouldn't I have gotten more done in a month's time? Worked out more, slept more, spent more time with the kids (not necessarily in that order!).

I'm really hoping that by next week I'll have something more exciting to show you from the inside. Flooring will be started (reclaimed heart pine) and maybe some tile too.

Here are the tile selections for the master bath...

The guest bathroom...

Our daughter's bathroom...


And our twins' bathroom...

The little white tiles are called "penny rounds," but I'm quite sure they don't cost 'round a penny.

Countdown Week 3

I can't believe it has been 3 weeks since I started our move-in countdown. I must say the house is moving pretty fast now. The outside is really taking shape.

Our front door is still plywood...when the permanent door is installed things will really come together.

Here are the windows for our laundry room (on the left) and my craft room, or "studio" as I like to call it (sounds much cooler, although I know in reality it truly will be an arts & crafts room for the kids!).

I'm hoping that starting with week 4 I can feature more photos from the inside. Flooring starts next week! We're buying it from an old friend of mine from high school...yet another great use of Facebook!

Countdown Week 2

Another week closer to our move-in date and a few things have happened in the last seven days. The sheetrock upstairs is completely finished! We took our 3-year-old over there the other day and he could actually see what his bedroom will look like. He just kept saying "wow" over and over. He loved his future playroom too, which has a secret room on one side.

Here's our front porch, without the front door, of course, which is in the works. Who knows, maybe we'll just keep the plywood. It seems to do the job and would be excessively cheaper. The arched window on the right is our dining room. The copper over our porch will turn over time. I just learned that you can seal it if you want to keep the shiny copper look but we opted not to go that route (and we saved quite a bit of money with that decision).

This is the window over my bathtub (no peeping Toms, please!). Since I took this photo a couple of days ago, the green cedar shingle siding by Shakertown is completely installed on this side (how much do the DuPont Tyvek people pay to delay the installation of the siding?). I like the combo of the Eldorado Stone, siding and dark brown Pella windows. The stone was modeled after that of our favorite hotel in Laguna Beach, California (where my father-in-law lives), the Montage Resort & Spa. I hope we can go back there one day and stay a week or three!

A view of our soon-to-be screened-in porch. I've always wanted a screen porch, and this one has a fireplace, where we plan to have lots of marshmallow roasts and story telling with our kids. Our roof is a clay tile by Ludowici that looks very similar to slate.

This is a sliding glass door leading into our bedroom. A patio will be poured (it will extend to the right from the current patio) where you see the rubble, which I suppose will be buried underneath, along with candy bar wrappers and other lovely items the workers leave us on a regular basis. I think I'll enjoy going out there to catch a few rays from time to time!

Finally, here's the roof line over our back porch. And our blue chimney, which will soon be covered in stone. For the longest time our entire roof was this color and I have to admit that I grew quite fond of it. Not sure why we couldn't just have a turquoise roof. It sure would come in handy during a blizzard.

Countdown Week 1

I've decided that we're close enough to our move-in date to begin a weekly countdown. Everyone keeps asking, "when will your house be done?" or "when do you think you'll be in?" Since we don't have a clue ourselves, I thought it might be fun to try to guess how many weeks until the house is complete. I think we're about 32 weeks out; my husband says 42. Might as well be 142 at this point.

I'm going to post weekly on something that's going on at the house. Maybe that will take my mind off how long it's really taking and also help me keep on top of all the decisions we have to make!

This week we're looking at all things wood: beams, mantles, doors, flooring...have I forgotten anything?

We are so fortunate that my dad and step-mom gave us some wood they had left over from the house they just built (they used it for beams). The wood has a history. It was salvaged from buildings that were in the path of Hurricane Katrina. I just hate that it had to arrive in our hands through such an ill-fated journey but I'm happy we can give it a new home.

There's not quite enough left for us to make beams so we're going to use the wood for mantles, newel posts and possibly some columns. I think the wood is white or yellow pine and will be perfect for the distressed look we want to achieve.

The wood is so massive; I can only imagine what heroic purpose it had in its former life, holding up some grand building. Now it can hold up our growing family.

Sneak Peek

We're in the process of building a new home, less than a mile from where we live now (which is great so that I can check up on things every day).

Here is a sneak peek of our house as of today. The style is sort of a cross between Arts & Crafts and Cottage. The simulated slate roof is nearly complete and the shingle siding is appearing from the top down. Electricians and plumbers are scurrying about inside. The sound of power saws is music to our ears when we stop by for a visit. Our builder says our move-in date will be late fall (but of which year?). I'll be posting about our progress from rough-in to decorating, so check back in a little bit...