House stuff

I love when we have a short week. I love having my people around me. For the first time ever I had to wake both older boys up for school this morning. Austin was up late studying for a couple tests and I think Blake was just hoping I would let him get his holiday started a little early. We are staying put for Thanksgiving instead of going to the farm because of the puppy. Grandparents are coming to us this time. It feels good to settle in- start some holiday memories in this house.

Have I mentioned that little Huddy Hud has a girlfriend that lives right behind us? My neighbors got a girl Goldie on the same day we got Hudson (actually theirs is a doodle but she looks exactly like Hud). I can’t wait to see how they change as they get bigger. Too bad we don’t have a gate in the back so they can play.

I have been asked a few times lately about our dog shower in the last house. No, we did not put a dog shower in our new mudroom. We have a big farm sink in there that all of the dogs currently fit in that has a sprayer but obviously that is going to change when Hud becomes a 100 lb. dog. As I was cleaning him off I told Andy “man we really should have done another dog shower”. Fortunately there is room- it would just require more plumbing I think. But for now he fits in the big sink and when he doesn’t I will worry about that then. I know we will always have a big dog so if this turns into our long term house then we will eventually have to add one.

I have to admit that when we were trying to work thru our plans for this house I gave up a lot of my “wants”. It’s hard to work over an existing footprint, we would have been better off tearing the whole house down and if we had not already finished out the basement that’s what we would have done. Although the basement ended up flooding so…

Anyway- working with what we had was a huge challenge and often times I would just throw up my hands and say “I don’t care” when asked to make yet another decision. I just wanted a home. I had already given up the ideas I wanted for my “dream” home. What difference did it make now?

But when I look at my Pinterest board it’s kinda cool to see so many of my saved pins ideas that I used on this house.

I gave this pic to my contractor and said- laundry room. Make it happen. And he did.

This is the idea I wanted for my kitchen. We didn’t do this look exactly but same basic idea

This was the pic I saved for my fireplace and that’s what I got

I was in love with the idea of a side porch off the driveway- where the kids could come into the mudroom and drop their dirty sports stuff or whatever. Got that too. I LOVE that side porch.

I had to have these front doors

I wanted white cabinets but with something different for the island. And our splurge was the “super white” granite. This was my inspiration for the kitchen counter and cabinets. We decided to do gray instead of black.

This tub

This light

And then you need to call it a day. Finish the house and realize that some things will be added later. Like this

I also didn’t get this – phase two?

I am off to the gym for one last good workout before the feasting begins- Eva loves to cook. First thing on the list- cookies of course