The Fun Stuff

After much debate, we finally signed on our house!!

Now comes the fun part!

One thing we need to decide is the exterior color. I had already planned it out for the European elevation, but things changed and we are now going with their "Victorian" elevation. I'm sure they will want to charge a million dollars to have the shutters be a different color than the trim, but I really hope not.    

The following pictures are made with Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer.

Note: this is not our house, but our house does have shutters and a porch so you get the idea.

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  Andre really likes that last one, the contrast of the bright yellow and dark shutters. I don't think you can tell in the picture but the shutters are a really dark green.  I also like that one and the first one.  What's your favorite??

Disappointed

Why is it, that even when a decision makes sense and is the right thing to do, there is still this period of mourning what was lost? We decided to take the house off the market. It was my feeling that we really shouldn't sell right now, but I knew that if it happened it would also be fine. Then we got an offer on our house and started working the numbers more seriously because this time it wasn't just talk, we could really sell our house.  It just didn't make sense...at all. Writing it all out I am starting to feel less sad about the loss of opportunity and more hope for the future.  Who knows what will happen in the next few months, raises, school, work, maybe even the house we want will become even cheaper! That's a grand idea.  I think I will be a little sad if it didn't work out that way though, if prices and interest rates sky rocket all of the sudden, someone buys the lot we wanted and there's no where to go, but I suppose that would be that negative guy sneaking into my thoughts again.  GO AWAY YOU! It will be fine.

Daybreak European Style Homes (Eastlake)

We are thinking about having a new home built.  We put ours on the market last week. We really love where we are at and we've done a lot to our home to make it quite the comfortable place to be, but there are a few things that we'd like that we don't have.

The home we are looking at has a few exterior style options.  Craftsman, Victorian and European.  We originally loved the craftsman, but they weren't sure if that was going to be an option for the lot we wanted since there were already 2 of them on the street.  So we started getting into the european option.

I was a little worried that it might be too blah at first, but then I walked over to some previously built homes with similar styling and decided they were actually okay.

I  still want to explore possible exterior options though and after walking around Eastlake I found a few homes that were inspiring.  Here are a few european/tudor style homes that I found to be quite darling.

So we'll see, maybe we'll add some shutters, stone/brick, or false half-timbering.

Most of them are brown though.  Here is a blue european style stucco home.  What do you think?

 There are a few more houses that I didn't get pictures of that are more similar to the actual house we are interested in with full brick/stone on the front portion of the house.  I'll have to get those later.  Until then, ttfn.

Spring Planting

Gardening got under way early this year, thank you mild winter! I was starting to wonder why specific plants and flowers I bought last year haven't been available this year.  Then I realized that last year we didn't start doing yard stuff until well in to June and some of those plants just aren't available this early.  Petunias for example.

I never really liked petunias, but now I can't wait for them to come out. Quick growing and colorful they really are a great addition to my planters.  My pepper plants and petunias got along wonderfully last year.

My salvias that I saved from the Lowe's "dying" (and therefore clearanced) plants are growing beautifully.  That's so rewarding!

I also planted some spring and summer bulbs that I got at Lowe's for $1 each!  I figured if they didn't come up it was a good and cheap experiment at the least, but I think we might have some luck.

My gladiolus are coming up and that is also super exciting, can't wait to see how everything looks this year.

My neighbors planted bulbs straight in the ground last fall and they have all come up.  I backfilled all my plants with potting soil, but I don't think I will do it anymore since everyone else's plants seem to be doing fine.

Russian Sage

For the first month of Spring I lamented quite often that our front yard was the worst looking one on the strip of homes all built and landscaped by the same builder. I really felt like we had somehow gotten the shaft when it came to number and quality of plantings. Now that we are well into summer however, I quite like what we have going on. We have some of the biggest and best looking russian sage plants and another funny little plant that must be some kind of herb as well, because it smells fantastic whenever I break off a stem. I almost wish we had our own hive of bees since the are loving our russian sage plants, we might as well get some of the honey they are making from them.

Side Yard Project

I spent what seems like weeks trying to get this how I wanted it. It all started when we found out we could submit our landscape plans at the garden fair and get the $75 fee waved. I scrambled the night before to get my drawn-to-scale sketch ready. We changed a few things since then and below is the final design.

Patio pavers were on sale at Lowes, 20% off and I had a 10% off coupon as well so I wanted to get as much of our supplies as I could in one go, especially since we would have it all delivered and I only wanted to pay one delivery fee.

This is how it started out. Well almost. We had to move a ton of rocks in the yard and used them to build up the patio space. So many rocks!!! And the ground is full of more rocks.

Since our yard is mostly shaded during the day I wanted to do a little shade garden in one of the corners.

And here it is after we got all of our mulch around the perimeter and in the center is our biograss garden soil spread with lawn seed. I sure hope it grows a lush beautiful lawn! Until then, we'll enjoy that we don't have to mow.

And here is our paver patio. Its a little less than perfect, but we did our best given how tired we were by the end. A few pavers sit a little higher or lower than they probably should, but at 11 at night after a full day of yard work, we weren't really noticing it as much. Hopefully it will stand the test of time. Just imagine some potted citrus trees on the corners and a patio set...oh and the lawn and we are almost there!

A New Appreciation for Topsoil

While putting in our side yard we have had to clear a lot of rocks and dig several holes for our plants. The ground out here is nothing but clay and rocks. You can't put a shovel to it without hitting a rock or 20. Needless to say, it has been quite the task to put anything in the ground.

Growing up, the family business was a sand and gravel company. My grandparents and all their kids contributed in the mining operation where they mined and sold topsoil and sand. Today as I dug several holes in our yard I couldn't help but have a new appreciation for rich topsoil, the kind that is found on the family property.

I feel slightly like Scarlet O'Hara from Gone with the Wind when she comes to understand her relationship to Tara.