Barber Dream house 2.0?

So yes I stopped blogging for a long time.  Well no good reason, just didn't blog.
I feel that its time to revisit.... because.  well

We sold our Barber Dream house! 

We are moving to southern California!  More on that in a few days.  We move May 26! Just wanted those who still look at this from time to time to know! :)

  

So many things I could write but for now I'm just going to share the beautiful photos of this house from our listing.

"JUST 2 YEARS OLD...THIS CUSTOM RAMBLER BUILT BY LODDER HOMES OFFERS THE HIGHEST QUALITY THROUGHOUT*THE MAIN LEVEL LIVING HAS VAULTED CEILINGS PROVIDING OPEN, SPACIOUS LIVING AREAS THAT FLOW INTO THE KITCHEN*GOURMET KITCHEN WITH KNOTTY ALDER CABINETS, SOLD GRANITE COUNTERTOPS, GAS COOKTOP THAT INCLUDES CUSTOM PULL-OUT SPICE RACK AND WALL OVEN*JUST A FEW STEPS OUT TO ENJOY THE COVERED PATIO*MASTER SUITE OFFERS A JETTED TUB AND WALK-IN SHOWER, DOUBLE SINKS & IS ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE HOME FROM THE OTHER BEDROOMS FOR PRIVACY*ENGINEERED HARDWOOD AND TILE FLOORS*PLANTATION SHUTTERS*GAS FIREPLACE*LOWER LEVEL OFFERS ROOM TO ADD BEDROOMS, BATHROOM, REC ROOM AND THEATRE ROOM...AND...HAS A WALK-OUT TO THE SIDE/BACKYARD*3RD CAR GARAGE BAY HAS EXTRA HEIGHT FOR YOUR TOYS*HURRY!! THIS ONE WONT LAST LONG!"

Yard woes!

So I started this blog as a place to cronical us finding, building, creating and making our dream house.  Sadly things don't always go as planned.  We do have a beautiful home and a project list a mile long.  The thing about new construction however is there is this thing called a yard.   In our first home we loved our little backyard we redid right before moving and it was perfect and wonderful and that was in the plans for our new house.  The part that wasn't planed for were the imperfections.  I've almost written about this quite a few times, but the short of it is... after getting our yard in (about 80%, we still have our patio to do which was to be done this year) we loved it and it was everything we could hope for.  Until one day we started to notice water pooling in our window wells. Through a tough long winter of constantly pumping water out of window wells and cleaning up the floor in our basement, we knew that 2016 summer would NOT be patio..... it would be repair!  :'(
Sadly it was a blame game between the builder and the landscaper so it came out of our pocket,

100 SAY WHAT!!

So crazy thing about blogging it just gets away from you.  As I have been working on some things since the beginning of the year I thought well I have alot to say maybe I'll build up a few posts then once I get pics ready to upload do them one at a time.  So thats still in the making. But here I am 100 posts since I began.  Wow our house sure looks a WHOLE lot different

Step One

To NOW!! before it was all covered in snow

House as been quite a journey, however thats not the only thing thats changed in our lives over the last 99 posts.

Chris has a new job where I work and we are both working hard and lots of OT to get stuff ready for summer projects and maybe a family vacation.  

I have started on some personal journeys, with my new years resolution. :P and I just completed the book The life changing magic of tidying up. Add that to this blog with my hopes of making our house into our prefect DREAM house.  I think these posts really have built me and this blog into what I want for my home!`

Ideas FLYING AROUND!

My brain is always full of fun and exciting ideas for our home. And even though its Christmas time it doesn't stop my imagination.
Sadly my most recent ideas are not sparked out of fun, they are out of  :( GRRR ARG necessity!

We have been super lucky so far in our house, no real issues just little things here and there... Until now :(
WE have a LEAK!! We've had some issues with the down spouts in  the past but NOW its hard core! IE Standing water in the window well, which leads to water in the basement.

Today is the day that something had to be done, with me sitting at work and TOTALLY useless I sit and plan out a mood board for our one day finished basement!
My poor hubby wife gets stressed and PLANS out rooms! :D

 AND 

Playroom project 1 (Planning)

I started this post a few months ago.. and WOW things change! :D

August 2015
I am a project person! ;) if you can't tell. I always have new ideas and projects, the follow through however isn't the best.
My goal for this fall is to get our boys playroom finished. Our basement is unfinished and the basement is COLD!! 
I've given Chris a few parts that I need him to complete 
1: duct work 
2: electrical
3: framing
4:drywall
So nothing big right!!! ;) 
Once that part is done we will get it painted carpeted and decorated! 
I have the perfect picture in my mind of what I want it to be when all is done!
My goal is that for New Years when we have our friends all together we will have a place for all the kids to play that is safe and warm!!

NOW: October 22, 2015
I really wanted to finish the basement bedroom this year, as you can see above.  However after looking into all the details I learned something... IT IS HARD, EXPENSIVE, and slightly Silly. We want to get the whole place done in a few years, however deciding to do one single room 10 ft x13 ft, it was gonna be a whole bunch of work and honestly I think when we decide to do the basement we should do it all at ONCE!!! Looking at HVAC, Electrical and framing, it seems its better to do it all at one time, and honestly once you have done that, might as well do the sheet rock.  So pretty much, if you give a mouse a cookie....

    

We decided we wanted to get Liam a TV for his birthday or Christmas. 

YES YOU CAN TELL ME HOW I FAIL AS A PARENT! but hey! they are my kids and I get to choose how to raise them :) 

I also wanted to limit the size of the playroom.  Last week I spent my weekend cleaning up the playroom, and decided they don't need that much space, and by limiting the space a small space heater will do a great job of keeping it warm for them. 

So I made a cute mood board, and this one is still a work in process, but here it is for now. 

As you can see this was before I decided to NOT finish. So the paint/carpet will be a work in progress! 

Bookcases are for books!

This new fashion of beautiful bookcases has taken over and I love it. Sadly I have way too many books for my bookcase.

I decided since I just beautified the desk time to move onto the bookcase. I took a pic and started with the books and went through them. I was raised in a book family. Books are the stories of life. My parents have been gifting my boys books for years and we are super blessed and love them. Now we just need a good place for them.

Chris has always hated that I had mis NON books on our bookcase. Binders are not books.

I searched pintrest for pin worthy bookcase images however no matter how many I looked at, ideas were great, but I need my bookcases to hold books!!

 

Here is my book case reveal!!! Nothing fancy. But I love that it holds all my books.

I have two small shelf's in the boys room for books and I have many other ideas floating through my head. 

I'm not the style one of the family. Doesn't mean I don't try. For now I don't have any big plans for the  rest of the room. Other then keeping it a beautiful peaceful organized place to keep the work successful and hopefully a new computer in the near future.

I love how even though it really hasn't changed much at ALL, but I LOVE that I went through them and got rid of stuff!! 

Before we know it I might actually have a full fledged organized house! :D lol

DON'T COUNT ON IT! 

Garden boxes

I have a thumb! ;) actually I have 2 of them!! "SHOCK?!" Lol well at the moment they are a mix between peach and white colored. My goal is to turn them green!! :) we will see if that happens. In our last home we were able to successfully plant and grow some tomatoes and a whole bunch of herbs.  Now that we have our house it's time to try again.

This is our old house Garden! 

Once we do step 2 of our yard next year (pavers and waterfall) We plan to do this, but for now I need Cheap! 

I researched for weeks trying to decide what to use for our boxes. We have a lot of long term plans for our yard, but for now we need something. Cheap.

I went through many choices, and thanks to Pinterest who took my 2 ideas and gave me 100+.

I started with our size. We have 10ft between our house and property line, so not a lot to work with, but enough to make the space requiring a lot of time and energy.

My first idea was 16ft long 4 ft wide by 24 in deep.  On the "property side" and 2-2x4 boxes next to the house. 

During my search I learned some really important things. Wood is Expensive! (Common it grows ok trees!) 

My first choice was a beautiful 2x12x8,which I soon learned costs $12 each.  So for my garden we were looking at a simple 16 boards putting us at $200 in wood!' OUCH!! Gardening isn't cheap!!!

Next we moved to cinder blocks, which would be fine, but each one weighs about 25 lbs and we would only need about 100 of those. Suddenly 2500 lbs of moving and still at about $170 didn't sound too nice.

#1: DIY build your own (wood & stone), #2: buy them, and a few others! 

  

Here are my ideas and costs

Cinder Blocks => 4.6 ft x 18 ft x 8 in  16" x 8" x 8"  34 of them = approx $63 

Wood; => 3 ft x 18 ft x 10 in 5/8" x 5 1/2" x 6'  16 of them: approx $48  (ours ended up costing alot more then this, HOWEVER still the best option, since I did more then originally planed) 
Prebuilt => 4 ft x 8 ft x 8 in BOX = 51.50 (half size of others)  or  4 ft x 16 ft x 8 in = $103

I decided after a lot of time searching and planning, simple cedar wood was the most cost effective and best suited for our garden for now. We need it to last just a few years so seemed like the best option. And the idea of a 6'x5"x1" (approx) at $2.50 was great.

I decided to start with some and work from there. I took the 6' peice and cut it in half for the sides, so a bit smaller then planned. 

Here is what I bought. It took a few days planning, buying, building, and re buying and building.

I made 3 smaller ones and put them all together.  I used

16- Cedar 7/8 in x 5 ½ in x 6ft fence posts  

3- Cedar 7/8x 3 ½ in x 6ft  

2-  2x2x8 

1 box:dry wall screws

-cut 4 (5 ½ in) of them in half at the 3ft mark.

-cut 1 (3 ½ in)in half

-cut 4 (2x2) into 1 ft pieces

-cut 8 (2x2) into 8 in pieces

I chose to put all 3 parts together.  And stacked the 5 ½ in boards on top to make the two sides 10in and the middle piece 13 in.

I also decided to use a spray sealer that is safe for food.  

I chose to use Home Depot links, they are the closest hard ware store to my house and have the best prices!  I am in NO WAY associated or compensated for my ideas or materials!