Our house. For the holidays :)

Sorry, I'm lazy.  I haven't gotten around to taking any pictures of our mostly finished home until now.  And it's only the bottom floor.  I'll get around to top at some point.

 

 

 

Lucy is a couch potato (hog).

Merry Christmas!!!

New Year!!

This past holiday season was extra special; We had so much family to celebrate with!  And of course, you can't have this much family together without doing some pretty awesome things.  Like paintball.  And downtown New Years Eve festivities.  Like I said before, awesome.

 

Somebody was tuckered out by the end of the night!  He didn't even wake up to get his food from McDs!

 

Just in case you ever were to doubt my dad's alumni...

My dad went to Clemson University in SC.  And in SC, you're either for Clemson, or you're not.  There just isn't another option (at least in our family's case).  Right now, my dad lives in Florida, and just so people don't get him confused for another allegiance, he placed a few decals on his car.

 

Normal looking car...

1st simple decal, placed on rear driver's side

FOUR more (FIVE if you're including the license plate holder)

Obviously, you have to match decals on the passenger rear side

And of course, if someone is coming at you from the front, they'll know too...

But wait!  Who can forget the headrests!?!

...And the floor mat...

And just so you have Clemson memorabilia wherever you go...

And last but not least, if you have a decked out Clemson car, you must have a decked out Clemson keychain.

My father, a Clemson tiger through and through.  :)

Our house is starting to get painted!!!

Seeeeee???  The top part is a greyish-greenish color.  The bottom will be a sage green, but for now it's just primed.  :)

Tutu and bow-tie

This weekend was spent watching two of the cutest kids I could get my hands on.  Naturally, their cuteness made me want to make something.  Soooo, Pinterest DIY called and I looked up how to make a tutu for Aubrey, and a little bow-tie for Trey.

I got some UNC fabric for the bow-tie--all you really need is about a square foot for both the bow-tie and the piece that holds it together.

I cut the bow-tie to about 6.25" x 5.25" and turned it inside-out and began to sew it by hand...you know, because I'm suddenly Susie home-maker.  Well, it looked horrible and I could tell it wouldn't hold up...

 

See..??  Yuck.  So I turned to my trusty sewing machine--Taylor used it last with a heavy duty leather needle for making a cover for his golf-cart (he's much better at sewing than me..go figure).  The bow-tie literally took just a minute to sew up (make sure you leave space at the end to turn it inside-out again)!  Yay, technology!!  

The bow-tie should look like a  little square patch about 6"x5".  Sorry, no picture.  For the next part, you want to make a piece of fabric about 1"x3" to tie around the middle.  I hand-sewed this part (which you can see in the picture..and I know it looks horrible, but it's the thought that counts!!).  Then I put a snap on and the other part of the snap on the little one-sie.  What is nice about this is that as Trey grows, I can always place another snap on a T-shirt or whatever he wants to snap the bow-tie to!

 

Next, the tutu!!  I bought about 9 yards of light blue tulle white tulle--you know, Carolina's colors.  :)  I folded it in half, then in half again so it would be easier to cut.  

I measured 16" and cut at the end so that the tutu, when wrapped around the piece of elastic (oh yeah, I sewed a piece of elastic in a ring about 16" in circumference) so that when the tulle stuck out, it was about 7" long.  You can also tie the tulle in a knot around the elastic.  Either way, the best part is that you don't have to sew!!  (Sorry, no pics--turns out it's really difficult to take a picture putting it all together..maybe next time).  Oh, and I alternated colors so that it would look decent.

Ta-Da!! 

And the best part...

Siding!

Siding is COMPLETE!!!  Porch and paint is soon to come!

More house pics :)

Ta-Da!!!  The top portion on the right is our bedroom (complete with porch on the far right :) ), and to the left is our bathroom.  The front door is underneath the bathroom with, yes, tree posts!!

Part of our bedroom.

Old Man Oak--thanks Angela!!

Walter.  He doesn't come with the house, but he was excited to help out!

Our front yard and a quite large cumulus cloud coming over the mountain.

Our house and address

WE HAVE OUR ADDRESS!!!  WOOHOO!!!

7 Bethel Dr.
Asheville, NC 28803

Our beautiful guest room complete with HUGE dormer window!!!

Handsome T and John Sanke working on roof...can't complain about the more-than-perfect weather!

Our House!!

Handsome Taylor and I are building a house (yay!!)!  We looked for places around Asheville, but we couldn't find anything that fit both our price range, as well as location.  We found the cutest little house in a cute little neighborhood (see previous blog post), but that was bought within the weekend that we found it!

Anyway, in high school, I was able to take an interior design class that I absolutely LOVED.  (I think it's my secret passion, besides biology).  Well, I designed my dream house in that class, as well as picked out all of my furnishings by scoping out Pottary Barn catalogs.

Taylor's family gave some beautiful pasture land in south Asheville that we decided to build on, and obviously we couldn't build out exact dream house, but a mini version of the design with some minor changes (sans Pottery Barn).  And since I couldn't figure out how to put the plans on the blog so you could see the final product, here are some pictures.  Enjoy!

The foundation on Valentines Day!

The kitchen, and one of our builders, Greg.

This is a "pop-out" office, modeled after some of the old Victorian style homes in Asheville, along with the bathroom (which hasn't been walled off yet).

Bottom floor--garage is on the right (it will have several windows), the kitchen in the middle, and the living/dining area on the left.

Left to right: living room (modeled after craftsman style), dining area with bay window, and kitchen.

Window seat in the living room.

Pop-out office and garage on left.

We have stairs!!

The second story is up!  Our bedroom is the one with the partial roof over it right now.

Looking at our bedroom above the living room--pop-out office is to the left beside the garage.

Yay for roofs!!

Framing for second guest bedroom.

Framing the dormer over the garage (hi Greg!).

I'll be sure to post more pictures as we're moving along.  By the way, we have AWESOME builders!  John Sanke, Greg, and David (sorry, I don't know their last names), are by far the most amazing people to have for this job.  We have been building since February and already they're done with framing!!  This house will be done by May!  More pics to come!