Pretty Paper

I've decided to wallpaper the inside of my master bedroom closet, for a little color, pattern and femininity. Problem is, there are way too many choices! I started browsing today, and it looks like I have decisions to make! Our room right now is light grey, black and white, with some navy blue accents. I need to decide on what my accent color is and I am torn between turquoise and yellow. Leaning a little towards turquoise, but we'll see. I have a few projects left to complete this room, the closet makeover is one of the funnest!

Here are a few of my favorite wallpapers right now.

This group can be found at Wallpaper Direct


And these are from Graham and Brown

Silly me!

I totally forgot to post my hair cut! It was boring and all one very, very long length. And now, like magic, I have layers. Hard to tell with such dark hair, but its a ton better.

Here's the before (its so long I couldn't get it all in the picture!):


And here are my total attention whore afters (try not to swoon too much):




And for fun, here are some before and after shots with my flat iron. Crazy that my hair can do this! And, no, I am not nekkid. Oh, and I was not wearing any makeup or even trying to look cute, so excuse my rough face, lol.

Bear vs Food

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Domino, how I miss thee

Its been over a year since Domino Magazine left me without a decor magazine in my collection. I still drool over the lovely images left behind.

I love the chair and the photo wall, what a lovely reading corner.


Neutrals with a pop of color.


An unexpected bright ceiling in a neutral room.


The mini-Barcelona chair had me at hello, but what I REALLY like is the wood walls.


One of my all time favorite rooms. This is the room that got me on grey. The mirrored nightstand and the coverlet also make my heart pitter patter.


More grey, soothing and calm. Lots of texture.


I don't know what I like more, the architecture of the house, the painting or the lovely ship chandelier.


Who doesn't want a swing in their bedroom? And a tropical bedroom at that.

My work officially has shirts now

I think I'll wear mine as is.

How You Like Me Now?

Don't care if I came about it through that Kia commercial. Great drums, catchy and plenty of attitude. Might have to ask the Bear to treat me to this song on iTunes.

Azaleas

All the Azaleas started blooming this week and I am in love. I simply have to get a shrub of my own for the front yard. They just smother themselves with flowers.

Photo via Southern Living

Dace

Loving the looks from Dace. Not only are the clothes gorgeous, but I want to live inside their pictures. Horses, dresses, liquid eyeliner, its all the stuff of my dreams. And her hair! Oh my gosh, I wish my hair could do that.

A new niece

My sister is having a girl! In celebration, I had to look at little girl things, and where better to start than The Land of Nod?

Adorable and not cheesy, which is huge in my book.

And Joe, I'm sorry, I won't clog up the blog with baby stuff, I promise. ; )
Indulge me for just this one post.

Its not fair

That children have more skills than I do.

Southern Flourish

I am LOVING digital magazines these days! So much talent out there. And yes, I am getting just a wee bit sucked into the thoughts of Crepe Myrtles, Sweet Tea, Piazzas, and pearls.... Check out Southern Flourish Magazine, a beautiful look at the hip part of the South.

The big house hunt. Part V

The Belmont

Even though we chose this house on paper, it has everything we are looking for.

Lets check our list again, shall we?

- Open kitchen with pantry. Check. And it’s a corner pantry, oooooohhhh
- Lots of windows. Check!
- 2 car garage. We can add it, check!
- On a cul-de-sac for Joe’s training. We can beat this one, on our own land, size totally up to us. Check!
- New construction. Check!
- 2 extra bedrooms, for either guest space or Joe’s “man cave” Check!

And we got some plusses
- Kitchen Island
- Room in the utility room for a sink for Joe
- Entry closet
- Linen closet
- Separate tub and shower in the master bathroom




Outside plans include a 2 car garage, some sort of porch in the front eventually, and a back patio. We might get a storage shed if we need it for the tractor.

I have been randomly working on some room plans, I might share them once I get things a little more sorted out. I take for-ever to make up my mind, so they are changing around like crazy. Good thing we have a couple years for me to decide!

The big house hunt. Part IV

So, now that we had decided on a modular home, we wanted to nail down some specifics. And we have a lot of specifics. How much land? How much to spend? Garage? Shed? Where? What about the house? What do we want?

We went back the next day to the modular home dealer to look at the houses again and narrow down our options. We were able to really get a feel for what worked for us, and what didn’t.

Here are some photos of our favorite house, which had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a family room.









We really liked this house, it was the right price and had a “home” feel. It was very easy to picture us living in this house and making it ours. In the end we decided it wasn’t the house for us, because we could use a bigger kitchen and utility room, as well as finding some cheaper options that fit us a little better.

After making a list of what our dream house had to have, what it couldn’t have, and what it would be nice to have, we poured over floor plans. I’ll spare you the details, it took a long time sort through them all. Joe’s mom pitched in with a suggested builder, Palm Harbor Homes. They built her home and she also said that you can tour their factory down in Florida. Next time we head down there we will for sure check it out.

We also liked that they had a “build your house” feature. They had several models that you could price out with various options to get a general idea of what you are going to spend.

We did find a fit. Everything we are looking for at the right price range. We are hoping to tour a model of it on our Florida trip, just to confirm that this is the one we want. I’ll share more on that house in part V.

The big house hunt. Part III

This is where things took an unexpected turn. The first time we went to look at the Barrington, I decided on our way home to swing by another community to see if there was anything worth looking at. On our way out there, we drove by a neighborhood out in the country. I made the comment that it would be nice to have that extra space and long driveways so Joe could train his strongman on his own area. And we left it at that.

A couple weeks later, we were just driving around town, enjoying the weather, just cruising. We ended up back in that area again. We started talking about what we liked about the houses in the country. Privacy, quiet, maybe more house options? It seemed like a possible idea to look into.

As we kept driving, we passed a modular/ manufactured home dealer. And decided to go in. They had about 8 house to look at, plenty for us to get an idea if we even liked them. And it gave us the opportunity to ask some questions, such as:

- Will the houses blow away in a hurricane? (Nope)
- Are they on wheels? Blocks? (Only manufactured homes are not on a foundation. Modular homes are on a real foundation, like traditional homes)
- Do we have to own land first? (You don’t have to. Most companies will do a land search for you, and factor it into the house purchase)
- Do we have to figure out sewer, electricity, etc? (Nope, they will do that as part of the transaction as well)
- Will that make us (half) white trash? (Since they aren’t trailers, not at all)

We looked at several houses, all of which we really liked. Suddenly we had another option. And a good option at that. Unlimited houses to choose from, all of which are customizable. At the same prices or cheaper than the new construction houses we were considering before.

Here are the some of the things we liked about the modular homes:

- We could get the house we wanted when we wanted it. With new construction houses, you may like a floor plan now, but in 2 years they may not have it available. And if they do, it might not be in the area you like.
- Modular homes are built indoors, with the building materials kept indoors. We saw several stick built homes with the 2 x 4s just sitting outside, uncovered in the rain. Joe could see warping already.
- Modular homes are built by the same people, all the time. I like the idea that the same guy has been building houses for 10 years and it’s a supervised process.
- Modular homes are built to withstand the transport from the factory to the homesite, so they are built stronger than a site built home
- Modular homes are placed on a foundations (yay! Not a trailer!) and appreciate in value just like a site built home
- Modular homes are built to the same building codes as a site built home.

All in all, we couldn’t see why we wouldn’t want to go with a modular home. We could get exactly what we wanted at the exact time we want and in the area we wanted. It just makes sense to me. Add in the privacy of having our own land and we were sold.

Check out part IV for our crazy modular home search.

The big house hunt. Part II

So, this is the part of the journey that is fuzzy. We looked at SO many model houses and spent hours and hours going over floor plans, making lists of what we are looking for in a house and determining our budget.

We fell in love with several houses, and fell out of love with several.

Basically, our wish list looked something like this:

- Open kitchen with pantry
- Lots of windows
- 2 car garage
- On a cul-de-sac for Joe’s training
- New construction
- 2 extra bedrooms, for either guest space or Joe’s “man cave”

Not too hard right? It was tough, because a house could have all of these things, but still just not feel right. It’s hard to explain, but if you can’t picture living in a house, we wrote it off.

Here are a few of our favorites.

The Sullivan by Lennar




What we liked:
- The price
- Curb appeal
- Master was downstairs
- Laundry was downstairs
- Large living room
- Lots of windows
- Kitchen had nice window and lots of storage space
- 4 bedrooms, which meant room for the man cave, a guest room and a den

What we didn’t like:
- 2 story house, which wasn’t our ideal layout
- The refrigerator stuck out like 2 feet into the kitchen.
- Two of the bedrooms have dormer windows. While cute, they made a 4 x 10 area that you couldn’t really use for much. It also made the room that we would use for the den only good for a den. There was no way to fit furniture in that room.

The Litchfield by Ryland






What we liked:
- One story with bonus room
- Large kitchen with breakfast nook
- Lots of windows
- Nice master suite
- Felt larger than it really was
- Lots of storage space
- I’ll admit, I fell for the model home. It was gorgeous

What we didn’t like:
-Price
-The bonus room wasn’t standard. Add another $18,000 for that
-Cost to do any upgrades was expensive

The Cypress by Lennar

What we liked:
- 1 story house
- Has a standard bonus room
- Kitchen had lots of storage and counter space
- 3 bedrooms, all of which were usable
- Porches in the front and back
- Easy to upgrade. You didn’t have a laundry list of options to choose from, it was a basic package, which made it affordable and easy to upgrade

What we didn’t like:
- Towards the upper end of our price range. We could afford it, but we don’t want to spend that much if we don’t have to
- The living room was on an angle, which left me baffled as to how to make it flow with the house
- It has a dining room and a breakfast nook, which we don’t really need

The Barrington by Beazer





What we liked:
- The price
- The kitchen was great. It has lots of storage space, counter space and light.
- No extra rooms
- Dining and living room were open but still had their own spaces
- A big loft upstairs
- Lots of closets
- A good size guest bedroom and room Joe could use for the man cave
- Good “home” feel
- Big windows

What we didn’t like
- The roof pitch made the house look a little odd from the street
- 2 story
- Living room a little awkward from a furniture placement standpoint

We really liked this house. If we were to go with a new construction house, this would be it.

Obviously something changed, or else there wouldn't be a part 3. Check that out tomorrow.