Spontaneous Snow fun

We are in Nashville this weekend and lucky for us they got more snow. Us southerners get excited about a little snow. We didn't have snow clothes so we borrowed an outfit from my parent's neighbor. Even thought Lillian looked like the little boy from A Christmas Story she was nice and warm.

She didn't enjoy "sledding" but loved watching mommy go down in the laundry basket. 

sweet smile and little double chin

Aunt Nina fell out of the box

Nana got in on the fun too!

Our Yummy Valentines

Now that we have Lillian we don't go all out on Valentine's Day like most of the world but we do always try to do at least something extra special. This year Daddy came home from work Friday with a special surprise of fresh cut ribeye steaks and all the makings for chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels. Lillian loves to help in the kitchen and I thought it was so great that Kevin thought how happy she would be to make (and eat) these yummy treats. (The steaks were a treat for Mommy and Daddy). And of course I love any ideas that include taking pictures. 

Little sneak probably ate half the bowl of strawberries

chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate pretzel sandwich, and chocolate covered strawberry bites

Enjoying her hard work. (apparently she doesn't like pretzels so she just ate the chocolate off)

Kevin enjoyed a Valentines breakfast of Steak and Eggs and orange rolls.

And if you didn't see Kevin's instagram post, instead of flowers or candy we bought a mattress as our Vday gift. It's a memory foam mattress and after one night Kevin loves it and slept great but I tossed a lot so hopefully night two will be better. We loved our luscious pillow top but it had two dips in it from us laying in the same spot for so long so hopefully this new mattress will hold up better and be better support on our backs and hips.

Building a House: Design Review II

Today we had our last design review to choose the final details for our home. Our decisions included flooring, wall paint colors, lighting/fixtures, and hardware. I spent most of my spare time this week looking at different paint options. Paint is such a hard choice for me because I feel like you never really know what it is going to look like until it is completely on your walls. I looked on the Sherwin Williams website at the 800 trillion (ok maybe just a couple hundred) colors. I knew I wanted to stick with cooler neutrals but that still left me with lots of options and no clue if my computer screen gave an accurate portrayal of the color. Knowing there were too many options I ended up going onto Pinterest and typing in Sherwin Williams. The colors that came up for me were in the color family I had in mind. I picked three colors I thought I would like and took them to our designer and asked for her opinion based on the color scheme we talked about in previous meetings. My three colors were

The Silver Strand ended up being too grey, the sea salt had more green in it than I thought and didn't realize the green until we held it against the blues. The Rain wasn't a subtle enough but I liked the blues the best. Designer Becky ended up finding us the perfect color called Mountain Air. It was the neutral I wanted from the grey but the color from the blues. 

All of the walls in the whole house will be the Mountain Air and the trim and ceilings will be Alabaster which is an off-white.

We had the option to choose one additional color for the walls but we aren't sure where exactly we would want a different color. My cousin told me they painted her laundry room a fun (red jalapeno) color so maybe we will use the extra color choice for that. Let me know if you have some fun suggestions! 

This meeting we also chose the tile flooring for the bathrooms, tile for master bath, and fixtures. I didn't get a picture of the fixtures for the sink and bath tub but they are a brushed nickel. The hexagon tile is the floor tile in the shower. The lighter tile on the right is the shower tile and the larger darker tile on the left is the bathroom floor (this is the bathroom floor for the upstairs bath too). The downstairs bath is a grey tile that looks concrete. I like it the best but it was more expensive so we only did it in one bathroom. The wood is cabinet and granite is the counter top. Side Note: Not sure I am in love with the large tile options but they were the best options without an extra cost. 

Our flooring options. Everything is hardwood except the bathrooms and bedrooms. We did upgrade to the extra padding for the carpet. Lillian took the courtesy of testing out the carpet for us as I took the picture.

The bronze fixture on the left will be lights in the three hall areas

The fan on top will be in all the bedrooms, the living room and the back patio. 

This meeting wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be and we didn't spend too much extra on the upgrades. The main upgrades were the carpet padding and blinds; which aren't really an upgraded blind just the fact that they will buy and install them. 

Designer Becky told us that they usually begin construction shortly after the meeting we had today. Once construction has started the house will be completed within 4-6 months. If the weather cooperates we could be homeowners (again) as early as July!

Building a House: Design Review

We had our second meeting with our designer on Januaray 22nd. First let me say our designer, Becky, is awesome!!! She has great ideas that really helped us narrow down the 80 million decisions we had to make that day. I feel like Kevin and I got to choose what we were envisioning and she helped us see what all details looked best together. Our meeting was 2 hours and the first hour and 15 minutes was the exterior options. We chose brick and mortar colors, trim paint, siding paint, and roof. The fewer the options is sometimes better to me but you can't just pick the brick without deciding on trim and siding color to compliment. Becky did awesome about helping work through our vision and we came to an agreement I am so excited about. The next 30 minutes was spent choosing the cabinets and countertops in the kitchen and bathroom,  and backsplash. I could not believe we made a decision in 30 minutes. I have spent so much time on pinterest and houzz.com looking at different ideas and thought for sure I would be overwhelmed but Becky was awesome and helped us pull it all together beautifully. It probably also helped that we had already spent a good portion of our money during the Plan Review so I told her to limit me to the options that are included in the base price first to keep costs low. For those that saw my post on facebook we did end up going with the off white cabinets in the kitchen! Here is a picture of the cabinet color with backsplash and grout and countertops.

Hard to tell in the picture but the cabinets are off white and backsplash is very light grey

I forgot to take a picture of the brick but here is a picture of the trim, front door, and siding colors. 

The door isn't as green as it looks here but if you really care they are all Sherwin Williams paint colors. Natural Choice= trim Dovetail= Siding Underseas=front door. I'm excited that the front door will pop a little but not be nauseating!

Building a House: Plan Review

We met with our designer and builder on January 13th to discuss the floor plan we had chosen and the changes we were hoping to make. The builder is Signature Homes and the floor plan we chose was the Manchester 4C. We did have a few changes we wanted to make so my handy engineer of a husband worked up, not exactly to scale, new floor plans. Originally it was a 4 bedroom 3 bath and we made it a 5 bedroom 3 bath with a bonus room and 3rd garage. Note that our home is flipped to what is below. So the living room and kitchen side of  the house will actually be on the left instead of the right. This had to be done because of which side of the house the driveway and garage had to be on. 

The exterior elevation

The left is the original main level and the right is Kevin's updated version with our changes. Primary changes are; extending the garage to 3 cars, extending the master closet and laundry room a foot or two, and removing the counter/cabinet area between the pantry and fridge to make the pantry larger. 

The 2nd Level - Original floor plan is on the left, and our modified floor plan is on the right. The notable changes are the added bonus room and the walled in kid's retreat to create the fifth bedroom.

During the Plan review we just made sure layout was how we were envisioning and we picked where we wanted extra lighting (we added lots of recessed cans) which ways the doors swing, specified certain outlets (which are otherwise just placed to code) and any other upgrades. i.e. insulated garage and tankless water heater. The plan review has been the most stressful for me because most of our money was spent in this meeting with the multiple changes we made. They were all legit changes and Kevin is very smart and we worked very well at making the changes that were a must and best for the future without going overboard and wastefully dumping money into this house. But I am frugal so hearing the price increase gave me mild heart attacks :)