backyardigans {frocktober, day 15}

It's the weekend at last! Friday was a good day. Work has been a bit interesting the last few months, but things finally seem to be settling in to a new normal. Friday felt like a solid step forward, which is hopeful and refreshing. The same can be said for the house progress. This weekend will be a big one. It's going to give us a really good idea of when and if we can move in this month.

The main setback to us actually diving in and living there full-time has been the kitchen. Specifically the countertops. We are doing our own DIY renovation to the majority of them, which will hopefully take place in the next week or so... we're attempting to do concrete. I'm not sure if I've said that out loud yet. But we're going to try our hand at sculpting our own concrete countertops! Wish us luck. A lot of luck.

The tricky part, though, is that we need our island countertop (which holds the kitchen sink) replaced and lengthened so that it can accommodate bar stools. So no DIY attempts there. We've been trying to hire a local guy to do the work for us, but it's been a slow process. After a week of back and forth, we finally have an installation date: November 5th.

As I said, this weekend feels like a definite shifting point. There's a spark in the air. The biggest projects are done (more or less), and we have dates in place for the rest. We'll actually be moving in a few loads of furniture either today or tomorrow, which does wonders to making it actually feel like our house. On Thursday we went over to the house and took these outfit photos (this dress was given to me ages ago by a friend, and it was always too long - but my belly width has perfected it!), and I actually thought of it as my backyard. Making that shift from strangers/guests to true backyardigans feels mighty fine.

 

kitchen decisions

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How gorgeous is that kitchen? I have discovered that I am obsessed with globe pendant lights. I adore them. Just doing a quick Google image search for them has me dreaming new glorious dreams of our future kitchen, with our little island topped with the magical orbs.

Kitchen decisions are often the most difficult, and the most impactful, when imagining the final vision for a new house. The kitchen is where so many important things happen. Namely, the eating of food and the sharing of food. These things are sacred and the space in which they occur is crucial to establishing the central ambiance of the home. 

This past weekend we moved mountains. We went to visit our siblings in California, and their home happens to be full of white cabinetry and grey walls - and my husband finally received that eureka moment when he realized that my pleadings for a white kitchen might actually be brilliant. He just needed to see it in-person to be able to really imagine our kitchen that way. Thus, the mountains were moved. He's on board, and I couldn't be more ecstatic about it!

Our kitchen progress has been slow but sure. All of the tile has been ripped out, we're in the process of purchasing brand new countertops, and our new black granite sink (yay!) is waiting patiently in our garage to be installed along with the countertops. Our entire kitchen and living room is painted a beautiful light grey (with that fantastic blue pantry accent wall), but going that extra mile and picturing this dull kitchen brightened up by white cupboards and some cabinet hardware lights up my life.

I know that people are really strange about painting wooden things of any sort. Everyone cringes at the thought of painting over wood as if it's inherently priceless or holy. I am quite blasphemous in this regard. I wanna paint it all. These cupboards are not particularly beautiful to me. While they're in relatively good shape, they are mediocre color-wise and very plain...I think this space would be enhanced greatly by painting them. I don't think white can ever really go out of style, although I do understand that it's all a matter of personal taste and opinion. It might be a risk, but it's one that I'm more than willing to take. Our first home is bound to have some decisions we end up regretting or redoing later on, but I think that's part of the fun and the freedom. I'm ready to experiment, take on big projects, dream a little, and delight in this new space that's all our own.

More inspiration: 

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our color story

valspar paint colors: new penny / woodlawn colonial / midnight bayou / sweet currant
shop: peacock pillow / lantern / marquee / starburst mirror

One of my favorite blog posts that I came across this summer was over at A Beautiful Mess, and it was about choosing a color story for your home. While you may feel a little bit hippy saying "my color story" out loud, I've always found that feeling a little bit hippy at times can be good for the soul. And for the humor. Besides that, creating a color story really has been a fantastic way for us to plan ahead and dream about our home together. 

My husband and I have vastly different decorating styles. I'm not sure he really has a style, per se, but he likes anything that's of good quality - which to him generally means it's made out of dark wood. I feel a manic desire to paint anything that's wood, so we're already starting off on a rocky ledge of conflict. That's where the color story comes in! This summer we spent a day date browsing the paint aisle at Lowe's and choosing our favorite colors. We then put them all together, narrowing them down until we had a handful of colors that we felt represented our vision.

Now, when we're shopping or painting or trying to make various choices for our home, we have this color story in the back of our minds. It's not to limit ourselves, but to focus our decision-making and design. As far as decorating goes, I like to color outside the lines. Having a color story that we were both involved in creating helps me to recognize and appreciate Dusty's input and to bring him into the process of my mind a little bit. It also gives me a reason to say, "look at all this dark wood! Now let's bring the rest of our color story in here...by painting that table...or that chair..."

As I was putting together the little color story collage above, I was realizing how incredibly different it is from anything I'd have previously imagined. Figuring out the color and feel of our home has been such an innovative process. It looks pretty cozy, yeah? I can't wait to see how it all comes together!

our house tour!

So I did a thing and I made a house tour video - which, let me be pretty clear, is NOT my expertise. I would really love to get better at it (it's actually on my to-do list this year) but my skills currently are shaky and incredibly basic. But I love that we have a real video of our house before we began working on it, because it already looks SO different!

Our house is a special house. Gummy bears litter the stairs, the previous owners left a giant jar of pickle juice in the pantry and left their used loofahs in the shower. I feel like you should be able to actually press charges for that kind of behavior. In any case, our house is so ready for some folks to come in and love on it. Scrub the walls, repaint, light some candles, burn the carpets.

This house tour video was taken two weeks ago, so already our house is mid-transformation. We've finished painting the entire living room and kitchen areas, and are picking out new floors and appliances as we speak. This place has such potential and we've been constantly dreaming of all of the ways we can work together to realize that potential. It's such an exciting adventure, and we're really putting all of our effort and funds into making this house a home.

Welcome! Come dream with us.

a little embarrassed

Friends.

I'm a little embarrassed by my lack of blogging lately. I'd apologize, but I think sometimes it's necessary to take a step back and kind of recoup from the blogosphere. The month-long absence wasn't entirely intentional, but a friend of mine put this quite well: I've noticed that I tend to feel "burnt out" on blogging especially when life includes a lot of big decisions and/or hard, weighty things...

That's kind of spot on for me. When there are things that I may not want to post about or am distracted by, coming up with my quota of weekly blog posts feels draining instead of inspiring. There has been a lot going on in our lives lately, a lot of stresses and decisions and shifts. It felt unnatural to try and force constant, lighthearted posts when I simply wanted to focus on life, and take lots of naps to recover from the day to day. For the month of June, I am working 10 hour work days Monday-Thursday which has proven to be very tiring. I know it sounds stupid, but sitting on your butt in front of a computer all day is a total energy sap. I have to go lie down just to recover from sitting down.

AND, we finallllyyyyyy closed on our house yesterday!! The house hunting emotions are over, and it's finally finally finally time to turn this house into a home. You know, now that it's 111 degrees all day err day, let the summer projects begin! We are so thrilled. We kind of naively thought that the hard part was getting The Bank to accept our bid, but that was just the beginning of nearly two months of struggling to get to this point. The journey was an exhausting one but now we have a [not-so] brand new home that's all ours [as soon as we replace the carpets, paint every wall, and deep clean the bajeezus out of it].

I've been working on a video tour of the "before" of our house, and I will be posting that here probably this week! I can't wait to show you all how grimy the place is, and hopefully spread our incredible excitement for the potential it has. You just gotta look past all of the scattered gummy bears stuck to the stairs and the moldy refrigerator, and you'll be running up inspiration lane.

See you soon!

a house to a home

I have a very important announcement to make:

WE GOT THE HOUSE.

The house hunting emotions are over. The Bank finally conceded, although I'm not going to say they were civil about it. (I told Dusty I nicknamed The Bank bastardions, because they're illegitimate and make me cry.)

My head has been swimming since we found out the news, mostly with the crazy projects I can't wait to get started on. This house needs a lot of tender love and care - as well as ruthless ripping up of carpets and violent scrubbing of absolutely everything. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Maybe that doesn't really apply here.

The point is, this is a great big [potentially] beautiful house just waiting to be Caitlined. I've had a secret Pinterest board I've been adding to over the last few weeks in the hopes that we would win the house war, and now that the dust is settling and the other offers are tending to their wounded, we can raise our victory flag and start buying clay to make CAT COASTERS.

cat coaster DIY via ABM

I know that expectations hardly ever meet up with reality, but I can't help but dream about the crazy eccentricities this house is going to feature. This house will be a work-in-progress for several years, but the prospect of constantly innovating and creating new touches to transform a house to a home is incredibly exciting to me. 

We'll build a good home, with lots of scope for the imagination. 

- Gilbert Blythe

Having a husband means I probably can't paint a giant gold moon on my wall like I'm really dying to, but maybe he'll let me sketch some tasteful constellations instead. But that's why I need him. We'll come up with ideas and compromises together, so our home can avoid looking like The Yellow Submarine (no but really, who wouldn't want to live in that house!?) and instead look more like a place that adult humans live. Ones that are socially capable of inviting friends over. 

I want to know how many ways you can use twinkle lights. I want cheesy things like a hutch to hold our coffee mugs and a big shiny sign that says "Cheers!" and an entire room dedicated to being a jungle gym for our cats. Don't tell me that wouldn't be hilarious. (Our cats could also really use the exercise). 

Before too long, we'll be swimming in carpet samples and tile ideas and paint swatches. We'll be donning hazmat suits while we attempt to douse the bathrooms in bleach. We'll be wearing shoes all day err day because that carpet ain't touching my bare feet. It'll be gross and magical and we'll be able to say "one small step for us, one GIANT step for sanitation!" when things are finished and beautified. 

I can't wait to give you a tour of the new house when the time comes, and to let you in on our little secrets of turning that house into our home. 

house hunting emotions (as told by troy barnes)

My husband and I have entered into our first house-buying experience, and I'm suddenly realizing I'm not the greatest at handling this kind of exciting, stressful and emotional journey. I've always been a homebody, and the two of us are probably the most sentimental humans in Arizona. We walk into a house that's for sale and we're like, oh well hello there, destiny, thanks for bringing us to our new place of solace and happiness. The problem is, when it's listed way out of our budget or sells before we can make an offer, we might take it a little too hard. It feels personal. Like we've just been betrayed by the very destiny that promised us so much.

I figured Troy Barnes, a character on the TV show Community, was the best man for the job of illustrating our complex emotions of the past few weeks.

We hadn't actually planned on buying a house this early. But we came across a few local properties, and our interest was piqued. The wheels started turning. What if we bought a fixer upper, lived in it for a few years while we fixed it up, then resold it to provide us with enough money to build our own house (which is our ultimate dream)?

We saw the house for the first time a week and a half ago. We knew right away it was the perfect type of dingy, in need of our tender love and care but not too far gone. It was priced low; most of the houses around our city at the same price are half the size. It had only been listed for one day, so we were confident with our offer and waited the necessary 10 days before the bank would tell us we were officially home owners.

But then, over the weekend, our realtor told us that the bank was rejecting all of the offers. There are a total of 3, we found out, so our initial feelings of being the special chosen ones quickly vanished. The bank wanted our highest and our best. We could raise the offer, raise the earnest money, waive the inspection period (or shorten it)...

Our confidence was shaken and we had no idea what to do. The market began rising as we twiddled our thumbs and lost sleep. Even if we raise the offer, will the other offers raise theirs as well? How can we be sure we beat them to the highest bid? Why couldn't this be a personal interview, where we charm The Bank and make them love us? Is there any way I could send The Bank a basket of mini muffins to endear them to us? Is this a sign? And if so, what's it pointing at? Are signs even a thing? 

So many questions! So much doubt! In the back of our minds we kept telling ourselves that everything will work out either way - if this isn't the house, then we'll move on with our lives and continue saving our money. If it is, then we'll get it...right? 

The Bank is impossible to mind read, unfortunately, but we decided to just do everything available to us. Raise the offer, raise the earnest money, shorten the inspection time. I tried to also send the mini muffins, but they don't like baked goods; they only eat pure gold and our hopes and dreams.

We submitted the new offer this morning. So now we're left to wait again. We'll hopefully know by tomorrow, but while I sit here typing at work it's all just like

and

It's stressful not knowing the future. I know we're not the only human beings with this problem, but it would be so much easier knowing whether or not this is the house. I'm not even sure if there's such a thing as the anything. While I believe God cares about the smallest desires of our hearts, I am not positive that he always tells us direct answers to the decisions we make. Things like where we go to school, or what we have for lunch, or what job we take. Sometimes there are clear answers, but sometimes there aren't. In this time of uncertainty and stress, I have to remember that the future is taken care of whether we're directly lead to purchasing this house or passing it by. We've done everything we can to make it happen, because in our minds it's the house - but dealing with the loss of it will not break us. It will simply be another story to tell.