Our Home – Page 15 – Dust Bunnies and Dog Toys

Shut the Front Door! It’s Purple!

Published on August 11, 2013February 6, 2014 by Jenna2 Comments

I don’t remember where I first heard about the trend of painting your home’s front door purple, but the instant I did I was sold. And soon after I started noticing several purple-hued doors around Kodiak. Now that I’m in Anchorage, I’m usually too busy watching the other drivers around me to notice door colors, but I’m sure there are a few out there. Apparently, the trend is spreading because I found several examples on Pinterest!

Our builder’s foreman called the other day saying it was time to pick out our front door, which brought the idea of a purple door back to the forefront. We picked out this door with a craftsman style leaded glass insert, but apparently that one is special order and takes 3 weeks to arrive. Unfortunately, our builder needs to install the door next week, so we told him to get something they had in stock similar to what he’d had in the models we’d seen. This is the style he chose as seen on another of his builds. I tweaked it to be purple in Photoshop, granted not the exact shade I’d choose but close enough for a visual (sorry for the rainy picture, but I didn’t feel like traipsing through the mud to get a closer shot).

I’m not crazy about it, but it is nicer than just a plain door. Unfortunately I then saw this one (also tinged purple via Photoshop) on another of his models and like it better, even though it’s just a different glass insert. I think it fits our ‘craftsman’ style more. I’ve asked him if that style is the same price and if so, can we get that one instead. We’ll see what he says.

Regardless of which style we end up with, I think a purple door will add a nice pop of color to our entry way since the house will be tan with a medium/dark brown roof. I’ve considered adding faux shutters to the windows later on, which I might do in the same color to contrast with the pretty window box planters I’d want to add if I did add shutters. Because one project always leads to another right?!

Now I have to pick just the right shade of purple for said door. I’m feeling a bit like the lady in this ACE commercial who wants a purple, but not a PUR-ple. You know, the perfect color. I’m thinking something deep and rich like an eggplant. Something in this shade would be nice. We picked up a swatch of Behr’s Mata Hari at Home Depot today and really like it.

I’m considering having them paint both the exterior and interior door purple. It might seem a little odd, but it is my favorite color and honestly, having one side purple and the other side white seems just as strange to me, so in a way it makes sense. Maybe only in my head though. What do you think? Should we paint both sides or just the exterior?

I’ll Take That As a Yes!

Published on August 7, 2013August 6, 2013 by Jenna2 Comments

In my last post I mentioned that we planned to add a hot tub to the back of the house near the slider in our Master Bedroom. We originally thought we’d purchase a smaller close-out model as our ‘joint’ Christmas present to ourselves, but while browsing Craigslist recently I noticed that they tend to pop up for FREE with only minor issues. Apparently many people get them or inherit them when they move in and don’t want to maintain them, so they want someone to haul it off to make room for other things. Works for us!

We’d called about one advertised as ‘working but has a crack due to water being left in it over the winter and freezing’. Apparently so did a lot of other people and we were too far down the list to end up taking it home. It must have been fate because the other night I spotted another post for a free hot tub that said it ran, had a new pump and heater, but had a small leak. I emailed the contact and asked to come take a look the next afternoon. Luckily, I was the first to do so because the gal said we had first dibs before she responded to other emails.

The hubs went to look at it after work Monday night and made arrangements to come back when the lady’s boyfriend was off work since he owned a nearby equipment rental business and could load the massive 8 PERSON tub on our 4-wheeler trailer with a forklift! So, later that afternoon the hubby went back to their house with our trailer in tow and came home with this.

It’s in desperate need of a good scrubbing, but upon inspection of the inner workings it seems to be in great shape albeit home to many creepy crawlers – who didn’t seem to faze my hubby from inspecting every nook and cranny.

From what my jet engine mechanic husband can tell, it just needs a fitting on this pipe (photo on the left) next to the power box replaced so it looks like its match on the other side (photo on the right), and a new plug.

Hubs estimates the fitting to be under $15 and thinks the plug should run less than $50! There is a hot tub store nearby so we plan to take it by there to confirm the parts needed and order them.

The standard cover was included, although it too needs a good pressure wash. The new heater is still in the box, so we’ll keep it as a spare if everything works fine when we fire it up. It also came with a box full of chemicals to maintain the PH and whatnot. I haven’t checked for expiration dates on any of it but I’m sure there’s enough in there to get us started and figure out what we’d need to have on hand.

I’m sure this will be one of the first items ‘set up’ upon move in, and plan for it to be in use when we do finally have a house warming party! We plan to build a deck off our bedroom to match the builder provided deck off the dining room and have a lower area between them covered with pavers or gravel for additional seating. The hot tub will sit on a paver or concrete pad just to the right of the deck off the bedroom so it’s an easy step down into it rather than having to climb in and out of it on the deck. That plan also eliminates the need for extra support beams and braces when we build the deck, saving money yet again.

Now I’m on the hunt for ideas on how to update the worn exterior paneling on the tub, which I’m thinking can be lightly sanded and restained or painted. I’m sure Pinterest will have a host of ideas for that rather large project! But the elbow grease will be well worth it in the end! And the hubs and I will be singing Phil Vassar’s “Hot Tub” song while enjoying the fruits of our labor! 🙂

Another Step Toward the Finish Line!

Published on August 5, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

We went to visit the house again this weekend so I could see the placement of the tub in our bathroom and the fireplace. Matt had seen both earlier in the week when he was there, and did bring home pictures, but I needed to see it in person to make sure all was well. When we arrived we saw the plumbing had begun, with most of the major items already being run.

Laundry room plumbing and kitchen pipes with stove ventilation.

Kitchen sink lines and drain. Vents for the laundry and kitchen up through the roof.

Hall bath plumbing.

The Master Bath tub looked good in the corner, so I decided to take a seat and test it out. That’s when I saw this face! I’m pretty sure she was impersonating Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”! Thank goodness that wall will be solid when everything is done! LOL

We also noticed several heat duct openings, which we believe to be the returns, although there were several of them! Including one in each bedroom and the great room.

The fireplace is looking mighty nice and so is my very large studio space. We’ve confirmed it’s just a smidge smaller than our Master! 🙂

Here’s the view of the fireplace from the dining room/kitchen.

While we were there we tested out some furniture arrangements with scrap wood. I think this layout of the chair and couch will work the best as I plan to have a table or dresser behind the couch for storage.

The back of the house is starting to fill with the necessary exhausts for the HVAC and fireplace but there should still be plenty of room for the hot tub we plan to install outside our Master Bedroom!

And just to prove that there are moose in the neighborhood we spotted this cow on the way to the house as she crossed the road because apparently it IS greener on the other side.

I explained to her that while I welcome her in my yard for more photo ops, if I catch her eating my flowers and garden plants we’re gonna have to make some less moose friendly arrangements.

This was the response I got. I don’t think she much cared.

Flooring Update

Published on August 4, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

Unfortunately, the Traffic Master Allure Ultra flooring I described in this post came in a little more over budget than we were willing to stretch so we decided to keep looking at options. Good thing we did because we soon learned that Traffic Master isn’t the only company with a product toting these features. Apparently Shaw Flooring has a ‘luxury vinyl plank’ that is essentially the same product with the same installation and guarantees, but at a price that comes in right AT our budgeted allowance!

And even better is that the flooring vendor our builder likes to go through carries the product in-stock. Granted he will have to place an order to provide enough material for our whole house, but he said that wouldn’t be a problem with enough advance notice and since we’re still at the framing stage I think we’ve got a little leeway still.

We chose the Northampton Cascade Acadia which has a variety of tones that will play well off our darker cabinets and leather furniture. It’s a little different than the Allure Ultra we picked out, both in color and texture, but I like that it looks more like real wood than the Allure does and less texture means less hiding places for dirt and dust which trigger my allergies.

Of course I had to prove to myself that I wouldn’t change my mind later, so we brought home a few sample planks (thanks to the very nice salesman at the flooring store!) and I laid them on the floor in our living room next to the rug and couch. I also placed the Allure flooring next to it for comparison. A week later, I’m sure I like the Shaw flooring better and I haven’t seen a single sign of the dogs constant scampering across it! Although the pieces have migrated across the floor a few times thanks to furry fliers heading for the door when you say we’re going on a walk or for a ride! LOL

Here’s a closer shot to give a better feel of how it will look installed. The light glare makes it look a little darker than it is in person. The previous picture does a better job of showing the real colors, but I still think it will look great with the rest of our decor. Don’t ya love when you find something you like better than the original item you found that was over budget? I sure do! 🙂

Moving Right Along…

Published on July 31, 2013July 31, 2013 by Jenna1 Comment

We went to visit the house again last weekend to find the roof almost complete! Here’s the latest:

The front porch where I’m want a rocking chair in the corner for savoring our slice of mountain view.
The garage. Tequila is standing in the doorway to the laundry room.

The garage from the laundry room doorway.

The kitchen and great room from just outside the laundry room.

The kitchen, studio and entry way from just outside the laundry room.

The dining room and kitchen from the great room. The laundry room is off to the left.

The entryway and hall bathroom.

My studio is taking shape! EEKK! 🙂

Guest room #1

Guest room #2

The Master Bedroom!

From the rear, garage side. I’m thinking my garden will fit nicely in that area behind the garage there!

The rear, bedroom side. A little extra cleared room as part of the backyard.

And the best part of the site visit was finding this little gem just a few minutes away from our home! SOOO going to be making friends with the owners for access to an AMAZING photo location! I’m already dreaming up cool ideas for family and senior sessions here!

A Master Closet Case

Published on July 29, 2013July 31, 2013 by Jenna2 Comments

As promised, here’s my plans for our Master closet. We decided to forgo having the builder install any shelving in the closets because we didn’t want to have to ‘work around’ the builder basic shelving or worse rip it out to make it functional for us. So without further a’do here’s the grand plan for our closet!

We will each get one side of the closet – of course mine is the bigger side – and my full length jewelry cabinet mirror will hang on the back wall. There is a funny little indent into the closet at the back because of our toilet being in a separate room in our Master Bath which is next door to the closet. At first that made me worry that it would be difficult to design around, but in the end it worked out pretty well for what we needed.

My side will have double bar space, laundry baskets like this, a couple shelves and a tall hanging space. Here’s the drawing of the layout. I still need to measure everything out, but since it’s a simple design I figure we can move things to fit the materials and space.

Matt’s side will be much simpler with just two rods for hanging and a top shelf along the entire space. We don’t really use the shelving in our rental’s closet so we figure we don’t need much in our house.

The funny little pop out wall will hold my high heel shoes with something like this and my boots will sit in a pretty copper boot tray at the bottom of the wall. I plan to add some sort of hanging space for my larger costume jewelry that doesn’t fit well in the mirror cabinet above the shoes.

Then the back wall will hold the mirror cabinet, which we plan to mount in the wall. Based on our preliminary measurements of the framing it should fit between the studs with just a slight shaving of the boards.

The crawlspace access is almost smack dab in the middle of the floor of our closet so we plan to put down an area rug to cover it. I figure you usually come into the closet from the bathroom to get dressed and thus want something soft and warm underfoot while choosing an outfit anyway.

Since it’s a fairly simple layout we should be able to get it set up the first day we’re in the house, especially if we measure and purchase the materials before hand, so they’re ready to be installed. The simple design also means we won’t be spending oodles on some fancy closet kit either! I think that might just be the best part of the whole project!

So that’s the master plan. What do you think?

Progress…

Published on July 25, 2013July 31, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

The last time I shared pictures of our home construction, it was little more than a hole in the ground with concrete footers. A lot has changed in the 10 days since! I went back to see the progress the following Saturday and found the floor joists finished and exterior walls going up.

From the driveway.

From the back corner of the back yard.

I met the hubs at the site yesterday since I had the day off. There had been quite a bit more progress! All of the interior walls are up and they are set to begin installing the roof trusses.

The garage. I love how that huge door makes my truck look teeny tiny!

The man door in the garage. The other opening will be the electrical panel.

Entering the house from the garage, where the laundry room will be and my new studio off the kitchen.

The dining room and back door from the kitchen.

The kitchen with my PANTRY framed in!

The great room from the dining room.

The hallway to the bedrooms off the great room and the entry way next to my studio.

The hubs envisioning the ‘view’ from bed out the slider in our master.

The other view from bed, the closet on the left and the bathroom on the right.

The master closet. I’m already planning this space out to be as efficient as possible. Watch for a post about that soon. And guest room #1.

Guest room #2.

The back side of the house.

A more straight on shot of the back of the house so you can see ALL THOSE WINDOWS!

And of course we had to make sure the garage door would be high enough to fit the hub’s big rig! 🙂

Stay tuned for more pictures of the progress and little projects of choosing things as we move on to the details. I’m hoping to get some shots with the roof on in the next week!

Broken Ground

Published on July 15, 2013July 31, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

At last we have broken ground on our new home!! That’s what’s kept me so busy and unable to post regularly last week. It sure is a lot of fun picking out all the details, but it takes a lot of time, especially when you’re working within a budget. 🙂

So here’s a little look at the progress thus far. This is the view heading toward our property. This is where the pavement ends. We are still two more bends in the road away. Notice all the fireweed lining the road? Some of that is gonna end up in my garden!

And here’s the driveway from in front of the house. Yes that is a slight bit of a mountain view through the trees! Something I hadn’t expected, but absolutely love!

Here’s the foundation thus far from the front corner of the garage.

And from the side. With the well going in just beyond.

This is the yard on the side of the garage. The septic system will go here, so some of this will be filled in before construction is finished. The rest will be filled in at some point later by us to make it more usable. I’m thinking some of this area, possibly closer to the driveway, may end up being used for my rain garden due to the natural slope.

A little more mountain view from the back corner!
I’m thinking I’m going to need a bench out front to enjoy that!

This will be the view out the back of the house for now.
We will clear a bit more to create a yard for the dogs next summer.

Here is the view from the area near the well. I love that you can just barely see the edge of the neighbor’s driveway, but not the neighbors themselves! And that means they can’t see us either! Just how we planned it!

The view from the front of the house. The pink flags on the trees are the property line. But the lot next door is the same size as ours so it’s likely that when it sells and is built on the owners will build farther forward so we won’t really see them either.

And the best view of all.. our well hitting water at 135′! Read more about that on my photography blog.

Stay tuned. There will be more pictures as things progress!

A Sneak Peek At Our New Kitchen!

Published on July 3, 2013July 31, 2013 by Jenna2 Comments

We are finally breaking ground on our new home this week! HALLELUIAH!!! Now that means we’ve been given the green light to get all of our materials chosen, including cabinets and counter tops for the kitchen. We had these done up at Home Depot and even ended up almost $1,600 BELOW our cabinetry allowance! Now we’re trying to work that same magic on the counter tops and flooring.

Ignore the additional walls in the background. They were used in the design software to plan out the bathroom vanities but the computer ‘sees’ them and renders them as plotted.

You’ll have to imagine our invisible pantry door on that corner wall, and our fridge will be a 3 door, but it’s close enough for a rendering. We will also have a more mid-tone variegated flooring and a warm tan/beige wall color, so the contrast won’t be so pronounced.

I left these two adjacent to give you a panorama effect of the back and side wall. What’s ~~scary~~ great is that we’re such planners we already know what each cabinet shall hold!

And all of the drawers and cabinets are quiet close! *Cue heavenly music* Depending on when our builder orders them we may also get a free double cutlery divider in one of our drawers and roll-out bins rather than shelves in a few too! Now we have to sit and count out how many knobs and handles we have to order. We found some pretty ORB style hardware that run about $2.50 each so that shouldn’t break the bank either.

Lighting. Check. Cabinets. Check. Counter tops. In Progress. Flooring. Still the budget buster, final decision TBD.

I Can See The Light

Published on June 30, 2013February 6, 2014 by JennaLeave a comment

Now that we are moving forward with construction on our new home – finally breaking ground THIS WEEK!! EEKK! – I’m starting to think obsess about the little details we will soon be choosing. Light fixtures are my current focus. I know it’s one of the LAST things we will need to pick out, but it’s what my brain wants to think about apparently.

Ever since I heard someone on HGTV describe the basic builder grade fixture as a “nipple light” or “boob light” I’ve been obstinately prejudiced to them. I also don’t want fixtures that will collect dust and require me to climb on ladders to constantly clean or suffer increased allergies if I’m lazy busy. Luckily the hubs isn’t extremely picky when it comes to these types of details and lets me pretty much have free rein since I usually pick something he’s ok with. I really love that we have such similar tastes!

I did drag him to a lighting store downtown that I’d spotted and wanted to check out, but in the end he’s glad I did because we found this! A propeller styled ceiling fan! How cool is that?! (Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic, but that’s the best I could get looking up and trying to crop out the other displays.) Yes, it’s a little spendy, but we can make it fit within our allowance and I think it’s a great fit for his love of flight and the craftsman style of our home. At first he thought I was joking that I liked the prop style, but when he realized I wasn’t kidding the light bulb went on (pun intended) and he was suddenly more interested in the rest of the lighting choices.

The kitchen island will have pendant lights over it which sounds simple, but there are literally hundreds of styles of pendant lights out there these days. I was originally thinking of doing mercury glass shades, but then stumbled upon this idea and found that the hubs really likes it and wants to help make them! I guess we’ll be on the hunt for old insulators now! 🙂

I’ve been eyeing this pottery barn fixture for over year now for the dining room and found similar options like this at the big box stores for much more reasonable prices. Again the hubs liked my suggestion! I’m sensing a trend here…

Then we spotted this ceiling fan at the big box store and both immediately liked it. We thought it would be a nice compliment to the prop fan, but at a lower price tag for the Master Bedroom. We plan to add a light kit the to the bottom, which seems pretty inexpensive and easy to do. We just might have to spray paint a not so pretty brass light with ORB so it jives with the rest of the fan’s hardware.

Although I don’t love its hefty price tag, I absolutely ADORE this fixture and think it would be perfect in the entryway. I didn’t see it at the store the last time I was there and haven’t had much luck tracking it down online, so I might have to go back to the store and ask them to order me one. This is where the hub’s enthusiasm wore out. He apparently doesn’t have an opinion one way or another on this one other than the price. If you know of where I can find something similar please let me know so I can compare!

Granted there are a few spots where I plan to have the builder install a basic fixture which we will change out with a creative DIY later like this little cutie I found on Pinterest. I think it would look nice in the laundry room since I have a subtle rustic Americana theme in my laundry room décor – which is currently packed away since our rental has the washer and dryer in the garage! I’d also like to create something like this for the Studio/Office if I can find some antique crystal decanters, or try my hand at making faux mercury glass with a tutorial I found online.

We have an appointment with a sales rep at the store downtown Monday evening so we’ll see if he can fit it all in within budget. If not, we’ll get a few specialty pieces for the main traffic areas and then supplement basics elsewhere to be swapped out later as inspiration strikes. We are also narrowing in on our final choices for cabinets and counter tops so watch for a post about that soon too!