The last year has been weird. When we moved into our home, I had huge expectations for how the following months and years would go, and honestly? Nothing has worked out quite like I expected. I'm a big fan of letting God lead us where we're called, whether that is to big plans or small plans or no plans at all. I thought we would purchase our home within a few months of moving and that surely we would be fully renovated and settled in and starting a new chapter of life with our big kids. I never expected to still be sharing this home with my parents or to completely change our plans when it comes to renovating or to be expecting another baby, yet here we are. To be clear, I couldn't be any happier than I am today. I'm just surprised out how everything has unfolded over the last eighteen ...
home
Our Holiday Home
I’m sharing a Holiday Home Tour and linking up with Victoria and Sarah as a part of their Christmas link party! Admittedly, I haven't shared much about our home in the last year. It's not that I don't love it or that it's not beautiful, I just had this idea in my head that it had to be finished -- or even started! -- before it was ready for the internet. I've learned a lot in the last year, but the thing highest on my list is that I love my unfinished home and I want you to come over and enjoy a cup of coffee and sit in the floor (because we still lack furniture) and chat about all the things. But, for now, let me take you on a tour of the common spaces, all gussied up for the holidays! I got a ridiculous number of questions and comments about this wreath, when I posted it on ...
DIY Concrete & Pipe Fitting Coffee Table
I've been meaning to share this post with you all summer and never managed to get around to it. I'm not sure what took me so long, since this pretty girl has been sitting in my living room since Mother's Day. For those of you who don't know, Josh poured concrete to put himself through college and eventually starting his own business when we were newlyweds (didn't I say all of this last week?). When the housing market took a nosedive, he got a great job in human resources and has been working from home ever since. Several months ago, he started reading about a concrete product he had never worked with before. It's reinforced with fiberglass particles, which makes it very strong and much lighter than conventional concrete. We've always know that if we ever get into our forever house, we ...
Introducing the Log House Project
It's hard to believe it's been almost a year since I wrote this post. Only a few weeks ago, we found ourselves in that exact same place. We have continued to look at houses and even liked a few of them, but the market in our area is tricky. Everything is either similar in size and price to the Rock House, or it's a huge home on acreage with a matching price tag. We began seriously discussing whether we wanted to tie up all of our money into a house and land. We've looked at floor plans and Pinterest and we're constantly batting ideas back and forth, trying to decide what feels the most like us. Build, buy, stay? At the end of almost every conversation, we come back to the very same place. To make a very long story short, my parents have been talking about down-sizing for years. Their ...
Outside
I haven't mentioned it, but Josh has been out of town since LAST Thursday. Let's let that sink in. I'm really good at managing the household and the girls' schedules and getting it all done, but it's absolutely exhausting. Maybe it's totally archaic sounding and it probably ruffles the feminist feathers, but he kind of holds all the things together. My girls start to fall apart when their daddy is gone for an extended period of time and I tend to follow suit. On Friday night, we went shopping and out to dinner with my parents. I knew it would be good to get the girls out of the house for a few hours and we all know Soph loves to eat dinner at "Banana Bread". We ran to At Home {formerly Garden Ridge} and snagged a few things for some outdoor projects. We woke up bright and early on ...
A Christmas Home Tour (Sort Of)
Remember when Sophie broke the door {hilarious video footage here}?! I had convinced myself that it was like six months ago, but when I scrolled through Instagram looking for the picture, it turns out it was in November. LAST November. We had been living with a square of cardboard on our front door for thirteen months. When we declared 2014 the year of lazy, we really got after it. In case you haven't been to my house before, the stairs to our porch are on the side and there is a tall rock wall along the front of our porch. Nobody can see the door from the drive or the street and we almost always use the back door to come and go. Add a dark shade to the window and it was pretty easy to forget that we were missing a pane of glass. There is a part of me that dreaded replacing the door, ...