Blog
Gathering Ideas
Things have been fairly crazy around here lately. I have been trying to write these past few posts for over a week, but have been too distracted/busy to get them done. The kid has been in school for over a month now and I spent about 2 weeks building nightstands and working on some sewing projects. We’ve been trying to figure out financing for the new house plus had the meetings with the builder and draftsman. My family was here over the past week while they helped my sister move down here. They have been building a house for her to rent (much cheaper than an dumpy apartment given current interest rates) and we have been keeping an eye on that during the construction process. It is only 5 minutes from our land and will mark the first time we’ve had family within several hundred miles since we’ve been married. The house won’t be done until the end of the month so she will be staying with us in the meantime. Her stuff has been added to ours in the storage rentals and our house until we can move it into her new house.
Mom and I did some shopping last week for the rental house and our new one. We went to a large nursery and outdoor living store for landscaping ideas. Since it’s almost fall, we didn’t find too much at the nursery, but the outdoor store was overwhelming. They had hundreds of fountains, pots and statues, patio furniture, grills, stone, and anything else you could think of for outside. They also had a whole building dedicated to koi ponds with tiny fish all the way up to 3-4′ long koi. The large fish were in a tank the size of a swimming pool. 
They also had a large koi pond outside.
We also went to a tile store I have been wanting to check out. It is the store that always comes up when I look for a local retailer on manufacturers’ websites. They pretty much had anything you could want. We spent over an hour oohing and ahhing. It was fun to look at all the options, but I’ll need to go back some other time to concentrate on just the tile that we might actually want to use. Below are a few pictures of ones that caught my eye.
The first 2 pictures are tile by Sicis.
I really like the crackled glass tile and I found a lot I liked by Sonoma Tilemakers.
I really love this next one. It’s a mix of a stone tile, metallic tile and a dark blue-gray crackled glass tile. I think it would be neat to use in a bathroom.
I also love this mosaic which also has the dark blue crackled tile. We eventually realized the prices were on the back of the samples, so I went back later to check the price on this one. At $850, I don’t think this one will make it into the house. It would be a neat focal point behind the stove though.
They also had Walker Zanger tile which is pricey, but looks incredible.
I’d really like to use something like this for the kitchen backsplash although I don’t think the colors (and price) of this one will work. I like the subtle design.
Also like the colors and design of this one, although I don’t think David will go for “flowered” tile.
At over $200 per 6×16″ piece, I don’t think he’ll have to worry about me using it.
Friday, we went to the local Building Home and Garden Show. Compared to the spring Builder’s Show, this one was disappointing and we were there less than an hour. We did see a few things we liked and I was able to get some brochures to look over (hardie siding, roofing, tankless water heaters, skylights). I only took a couple pictures including this rock fountain. I like the blue glass rock around it instead pebbles for something different and a bit more contemporary.
I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that I’m going to have to start picking out what is actually going to go in the house. I have a general idea of how I want each room to look, but I haven’t decided on any specifics. Since we didn’t know if/when the house would sell, I avoided doing any more than looking for inspiration online. Now, I need to start checking out the stores I’ve been wanting to visit to see what is available and narrow our options down (doors, windows, appliances, tile, floors, fixtures, etc). Now is a good time to do it while the kid is back in school and the draftsman is working on the final plans. Anything I can get done now will hopefully save us time once we are finally ready to start actual construction. I bought some multi-pocket folders in the clearance school supplies last week so I can try to keep all my information organized and together. I have a feeling my phone’s camera folder is going to be huge in a couple months 😉
Sparkling Samples
After we finally sold the old house, I decided it was ok to order some quartz countertop samples I had been wanting. I got them a few weeks ago and have had them sitting on the kitchen counter (the wood samples are laying in front of the fireplace where we can see them too). I ordered a 12×12 sample of Cambria’s Torquay Quartz which I am considering as an alternative to marble. As I’ve mentioned before, a lot of my favorite kitchens have marble countertops, but marble would never work for us since it etches and stains easily. Cambria Torquay has a similar look, but is more durable than granite. I ordered the larger sample so that we could see all the variation. It has gray and tan veining which would go with any of my ideas for our kitchen.
I also ordered a 12″ sample of the quartz I fell in love with at the builder’s show this spring – Cambria Praa Sands. It has a white background with gray to tan veining along with sea blue and midnight blue to charcoal. It also has some sparkle which looks like diamonds or mother of pearl. I would love to have it on the island as a focal point in the kitchen, but I’m leery about having anything permanent with color in it. The blue is fairly subtle so it may be ok to use. At the least, I’d like to put it in the powder room or our master bathroom.
(The first 3 pictures were enhanced to show the color and sparkle – it’s not as dark or dramatic as it may look in these pictures. As always, click on any picture to view it larger.)
(This last picture is more accurate to how it really looks.)
The last sample is Cambria Minera. I ordered a 3″ sample of this since it doesn’t have a lot of variation. It is gray/taupe with a lot of sparkle. It looks like it has silver glitter in it if you look up close. I’m not sure where I’d use this, but it’s really neat.
A Project & Some Updates
Well, we’ve been in the rental almost a month which is hard to believe. We’ve been busy with the kid starting school and getting settled. David also spent 2 days mowing the land which had grown to almost hip high. I went out there to check on my roses and it appears that I may have lost 3 of the 9 – 2 climbers and a hybrid tea. I was disappointed, but I guess that’s pretty good considering they were left on their own for almost 2 months and they are not shrub roses. There’s a small chance they might come back, but we’ll have to see. At least I can keep an eye on them more now that we live closer.
We finally got around to speaking to a bank about construction loans on Friday. We already knew most of what he told us, but we were able to get some numbers which was helpful. I want to call the Farm Credit bank where we got the land loan tomorrow just to see how they compare. We also want to contact our preferred builder to schedule a meeting to finally go over everything. Hopefully, we can start working with the draftsman within the next month.
Meanwhile, my project for last week was to build new nightstands for our guest bedroom. I built the bed and nightstands for the guest room at our old house which was fairly small. To save space, the nightstands were just floating shelves. We took them down when we moved, but we don’t want to hang them in this house since we are renting and it involves drywall anchors which leave good sized holes.
After doing some searching online, I decided on this plan which I thought wouldn’t be too complicated (it’s been a couple years since I built anything) and would go well with the bed. The original design was a little too tall and wide, so I reduced both dimensions by 3″. The construction took a little longer than I planned, but fortunately, the finishing went quicker than I expected.
Here they are in the new guest room which is quite a bit bigger than our old one.
They are not perfect, but I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. Next, I need to work on unpacking the kid’s room and finding something to do with our clothes since we don’t have dressers and no longer have our closet organizers. I also need to recover the ottoman I made since it doesn’t go with our new couches.
Guest Bedroom Sources
Headboard – It is based on a headboard from West Elm. I found this plan after I made mine, but here’s a much easier way then how I did it.
Bed Platform – The base for the bed is 2x12s in a rectangle with 2 sheets of MDF on top edged with 1x3s (it weighs a ton).
Bedding – Chaps Coverlet and Shams from Kohls (no longer available). Sheet Set by Dwell for Target. Accent pillows by Inhabit Living.
Old Nightstands – Can be made by modifying any “floating shelf” tutorial.
New Nightstands – Made from this plan but reduced in height and width by 3″. Finished with Minwax Wood Conditioner, Stain in Dark Walnut and Polyurethane. Hardware from Home Depot.
Lighting – SMART Table Lamp in Twig from Ikea.
Inspiration
I saw this house in a home plan magazine several years ago.
It caught my eye immediately and it’s always been the house I’ve went back to (same thing happened with my wedding dress 😉 ). I looked all over the internet for more pictures of it, but could only find this one. I was pretty sure of the general area it was in and finally came across it last year. My parents were in the area last week to see a house they might build, so they drove by this house for me and took some pictures.
Unfortunately, the sun was right behind the house at the time which is why some of the pictures aren’t the best. I’m just happy to finally have more than one! I was hoping to get some of the sides, but the landscaping made it impossible from the road.
I love the combination of stone, brick and siding. I love all the colors together and the Craftsman inspired style. The floor plan for this house is nice, but it’s not the best use of space for what we want. It has 2 living rooms and 2 dining areas which we don’t need. It also has a lot of angles which create odd-shaped spaces and would likely make it pricier to build. We did consider this plan for a while though and I messed around making modifications to it.
Fortunately, the plan we want to build has a very similar wall layout across the front. The original plan is a completely different style (European), but I think it will be fairly easy to change it to look like the house above. It will likely not be identical to the inspiration house, but it should be similar. I think it would look nice out on our 4 acres.
For more of our inspiration and ideas for the new house, visit our New House Inspiration & Ideas and More House Stuff boards on Pinterest. Garrell Associates Bellevue
A Transformation
As expected, the land was completely cleared when we arrived this morning, but it was still a surprise to see. The landscape has completely changed as you come around the curve in the road towards the property.
Looking East from near the SW corner . . .
Looking NE from near the SW corner . . .
Looking North from near the SW corner . . .
The operator was already working when we got there. He was trying to move the rocks and do a rough grate of the land. He said he was having a hard time moving a lot of the rocks because they were too big and deep. Some were so large they were actually lifting up the 25 ton bulldozer when he tried to dig them out. Now that they were more visible, the size and number of large rocks was a bit surprising. Check out this one below which is about 15′ long.
We told him just to move what he could. The rest can be moved when excavation starts for the house. He had already piled some in the back corner like we asked and even those were quite large. This curved one below is pretty neat and I’ll think we’ll have to find a use for it.
At our current house, the dirt is all clay and it’s a mess to work with or grow anything in. The new land is covered with actual dirt. We’ve been told by the neighbor’s that there used to be cows on the land for years and everything grows well around there. Now that the land is cleared and my roses are going dormant, I’m contemplating transplanting them to one of the back corners out there, then moving them to a permanent location once the new house is done. Meanwhile, the operator mentioned that he hadn’t seen any snakes out there which surprised him. While I was walking around taking pictures, I stepped on something I thought was a plant. Right as I put my foot down, I realized it was a snake. I let out a scream, but David was too far away to hear over the sound of the dozer. I thought it was dead because it didn’t move, but when I showed it to David a couple minutes later, it was slithering away. He wasn’t very big around, but he was at least 2′ long.
David has seen a couple of snakes out there, but this was the first one I had seen. We are going to have to keep an eye on the rock piles because they will great places for them to hide. The operator also found a yellow jacket nest under a rock. He said he was lucky the bulldozer has a cab. We need to get that taken care of before we forget that it’s there or the kid comes across it. Below is a gallery with all the pictures from this morning. I tried to put them in order going clockwise around the property, starting in the SW corner. Click on one of the small thumbnails to get to the gallery page where you can click thru all the images at full size (just use the arrows on either side of the pictures).
