First Things First: Storage and the Great Outdoors

       From the moment that we found out that our offer was accepted on this home, our heads started spinning with ideas. I started shopping for home goodies online immediately (I refrained from actually buying...for the most part). I was thinking about paint colors, patterns, light fixtures and all that goodness. Jon started working on his tool wish list, and loved perusing homedepot.com. But before we were even handed our keys we decided that our first projects would not be the most glamorous or beautiful, they would be functional. We decided to figure out how to maximize storage in our basement and garage, before we started on anything fun.

       From living in our rental, Jon and I have learned that we hate clutter. And we had the unfortunate discovery when we packed up our moving truck, that we may in fact be hoarders. Not really what we were going for.  We all know that with kids comes a lot of belongings; obnoxious toys, gear, and lots of clothing. Add to that too many motorcycles, bikes, camping gear, tools, etc. etc. etc. and you get one big cluttered problem. Before we moved we got rid of a lot, only to discover that when we got here, we wanted to get rid of more.

Our moving truck (all 26' of it), chalk full on moving day.

       So we've been editing our lives, in a major way. Donating, recycling, throwing away. If we don't love it, use it, or need it, it's gone.  This will make it possible for us to purchase things for this home that we love. As we edit through all of our belongings, we are also trying to ensure that there is storage for everything we are keeping. By ensuring good storage, we'll be able to tame all of said clutter.
       Enter Jon's first project. He has been working away on setting up a storage system in our basement. I'll post some photos of the project once its completed. It should help our currently unorganized world.

       So while we are using up our current home improvement budget on wood and storage supplies, and Jon is heavily occupied with said construction, I've been keeping myself busy in  another area. The garden. Apparently this home comes with a lot more garden then I was aware. Gardening was one of the previous owners favorite hobbies, and she worked in the garden all of the time. They spent lots of their energy planting trees that would add privacy to the property and managing all of the different varieties of plants that they planted. I on the other hand have never worked in a garden in my life. That is, until now. These days I'm spending 2-3 hours a day weeding, cleaning up pine needles and getting our yard in tip-top shape for the Summer. Unfortunately there just aren't enough hours in the day to devote to the yard, but I'm trying. Q usually keeps me company in her bouncy chair while Nolan runs around causing havoc. I snapped some photos of our garden, so that I can take note as things bloom through the seasons.

       Because I CANNOT WAIT to jump in to some fun projects, aside from the garden I had to get started with something on the fun side.  So, I've been working on an affordable front porch face lift. Our home has a welcoming little front porch, that has great views of our trees and terraced flowers. I think it will be a fun place to decorate during Halloween, the 4th of July, etc. Because its the first thing you see when you arrive, I figured it should look welcoming and also reflect the style of our home. So I perused the web, and took note of what we already had, and this is the design plan that I've come up with.


       I've been sanding and prepping our Adirondack chairs for a makeover, and the area rug and pillows are on the way to our house at this very minute. The wood stump...well, that will be coming straight out of our yard and getting a sanding and sealing treatment for its new spot on our stoop. 

Finally getting to put my Dewalt sander to use.

       Hopefully I'll have my front porch makeover wrapped up in a week or so, and I'll be back to share how it turns out.

Quincy at Three Months

       Quincy turns four months old this week so I figured it was about time that I posted her three month photos. I snapped this amidst the chaos of packing and moving and was only able to get a few. 

Q is my little sidekick.

She has me wrapped around her teeny finger.

She gives us lots of smiles now and has learned to nap and sleep when not in my arms. 

She is doing much better in her car seat too, 

which makes running errands much less anxiety inducing.

AND I think she's pretty gosh darn beautiful too.

She is getting too big far too fast for my liking.

 I don't know if it's because she's a girl, or because it may be my last, 

but the second time around everything seems so much sweeter. 

       I am about five weeks away from returning to work, and the thought of leaving her makes me nauseous. I have been oh-so-blessed to have this extra time off work with her, but I think it has made our attachment to each other all that much stronger (and will make being separated all the more challenging). But I know I survived it with Nolan, and in the end he loved his daycare and all of his friends. We are very fortunate to have them starting in a great small daycare together, near to our new house. 

       Oh, and about the new house. I've been dying to share our current projects and updates but there seems to be too few hours in the day. I'll be back very soon with some fun house related news!

Donnington Lane

       We've got big news people. Big news. After all of my complaining, whining, and self pity, it has actually happened. Yep. We are becoming homeowners.
       This has been in the works now for a couple of weeks, but we wanted to wait until we made it past the inspection and loan hurdles before we shared the news. A couple of weeks ago on Wednesday evening, as I was checking for new listings, I saw this home pop up. It was in the right neighborhood, on a quiet street, and had potential. With Jon on shift, I could either see it the following morning by myself or we could risk waiting until Friday morning when he got off work. We decided to wait until Friday, and scheduled a viewing for 9:30am.
       The listing looked familiar to me,  and as always, I did my research. It had listed in 2011 and 2012 but had not sold either year. Both years it had been out of our price range, so we had never bothered to see it. With the changes to the market in the last 6 months, it was now something we should take a look at. We arrived to the house, walked through it, and then something happened... we agreed! We both liked it, which mind you, never happens. The square footage was decent, we liked the layout, there was a good amount of storage, it was private, and the yard was pretty great. We decided to put in an offer immediately and gave them until 9:00pm to respond. A few hours later my phone rang and were told they had accepted our offer. Mind you, because of our history we were actually very cautious when we heard the good news and we really didn't do much celebrating. We figured we would believe it when we actually had keys in our hands. 
       The next week the sellers invited us back for their garage sale. We realized that we had only looked over the house for a whole, oh, 10 minutes the first time, so we thought it would be nice to take another walk through. Long story short, the sellers were uber-kind people, and were already busy packing up their lives. We were able to walk through and take lots of pics, so I'm here to share. The photos don't actually do the property justice, and you need to put on your renovation goggles a bit. Our heads have been spinning with all of the ideas that we have for this place. I've even found Jon shopping for light fixtures and checking out images on pinterest! Man oh man, do we have some plans.

The main area will be getting some custom built ins (a-la-Jon), 

a white plank ceiling, window treatments, new flooring, etc. etc. etc.
This picture unfortunately doesn't capture all of the great windows in the room. 

Most of the house is a bit  too beige, beige, beige for me.

That will be changing though.

Jon despises the carpet in the dining area, and that will come up at some point.

We've got plans for a farm table, new light fixture, 

paint, area rug...and the list goes on!

The kitchen isn't completely ideal, 

but we'll be living with it for a while to see how it works for us.

It's smaller then our current kitchen, 

so we're going to have to make it as efficient as possible.

I've got some ideas for some basic improvements that will really help.

(Photo bomb courtesy of Nolan)

Our little half bath is up next.

I hope to start doing some affordable updating in here pretty immediately.

This space could use a little personality boost, don't you think?

(Photo bomb #2. Thank you Buzz.)

Our master bedroom is downstairs and it's on the long and narrow side.

I love the ceiling (all three bedrooms have open beam ceilings), 

and the room is a nice blank canvas for some design love. 

Upholstered bed, built in desk, lighting, lighting, lighting, here we come!

The kiddos bedrooms are on the small side, 

but we have some ideas about how we'll make them work.

We're even thinking that Nolan and Quincy will be bunking up, 

so that we still have a guestroom available.

On our previous walk through of the house, 

we merely peeked into this dark and chock full basement storage room. 

The second time around however, the space had been cleared out 

and we got a better view of it. 

Jon immediately declared this his favorite room in the house.

It will be the home of his future man-cave and it has walk out access to the side yard.

Just outside of the Master bedroom is the lower deck. 

Can you say hellllloooooo hot tub?

The backyard is really the piece de resistance if you ask me. 

Here's the view from the lawn, looking up.

Here's the view from the upper deck looking out. 

Hopefully this deck will soon be home to a new grill and some patio furniture. 

We certainly have our work cut out for us, but we are so eager to jump in head first.

And did I mention that the house is over our budget, 

leaving us little room for said updates and ideas?

Yep. That hot tub I mentioned- that certainly isn't in the budget anytime soon. 

But we'll get there.

We'll be broke for a while, 

but we'll get there.

I'm going to try to enjoy the process as much as possible,

(I can however tell you that I'm not doing a

 very good job of enjoying the packing process)

because we've worked so hard to get to this point, 

and I want to enjoy the process of turning this into a home.

Time to get back to packing.

To Healdsburg and Beyond!

       After the Easter festivities wrapped up with my family, Jon and I packed the kids back up and headed about an hour northwest to the town of Healdsburg. We wanted sunshine. We wanted warmth. We wanted to relax. Our drive there was uneventful (the best kind)  and when we arrived we were greeted by towering redwood trees and a charming little riverfront house.

The view from the hot tub.

Did I mention there was a hot tub?

Whenever the kids were sleeping, you could find us there.

The river views from the back deck weren't too shabby either.

Just down from our deck, 

a dirt trail led to this rocky beach.

Buzz is an absolute nature boy and is at his best outside.

He loved the river, the rocks, and the sticks.

Feet in the river, shoes and all.

His dog brother was never too far behind.

On Monday I attempted to get the whole family dressed 

and packed up to go downtown.

Healdsburg is part of Northern California's wine country, 

and it's jammed packed with boutiques and restaurants.

Packing the family up quickly became exhausting and Jon made me realize something. 

We were vacation.

How much would I really enjoy walking around a cute town

with a toddler and newborn in tow?

I realized he was right (which is rare, mind you).

So we never walked around the cute town. 

We didn't shop in their shops. 

We didn't dine out. 

We just r-e-l-a-x-e-d

Buzz looked like this a lot.

The boys skipped a lot of rocks. 

Me and Q did a lot of this.

And this.

We took advantage of the quiet road and fit in a few walks.

One evening we picked up some filets and oysters and threw them on the BBQ.

Yummo.

 Come to daddy.

Blue did lots of porch sit'n.

Buzz explored.

We sat on the porch and drank coffee 

(or champagne, depending on the time of day).

I didn't do my hair.

On our last night, one of my best friends from high school 

came for dinner with her hubs and new daughter.

Louella is 4 days younger than Quincy. 

Four days!

They brought fresh crab and we feasted.

Side by side cuties.

I wish we were still there, 

but we'll be back. 

It even got us thinking that someday, way down the line, 

we'd like to buy a small vacation cottage.

I'll be back in a couple of days with something new to share with you!