Total Whirlwind

We had a CRAZY week last week getting ready to put our house in the market.  I don't even remember how many 2-4 hours nights of sleep we got last week.  We did pretty much every project we'd ever planned to do "eventually" in the span of 9 days.  Our house was full of contractors helping us and I attempted to pack up and keep things running in the office, which became pretty much impossible.

Saturday morning (the day of the first open house) we woke up early to get started on our unfinished projects.  At 6, Dave ran to Home Depot to buy a new drill because we'd packed ours up and sent it to live in the Pod for a month... he added the missing hardware on the extra kitchen cabinets we'd done a year or so ago. (Yes, until this point they'd been just sitting there, naked and topped with plywood... On Friday the carpenters came and installed the butcher block and did the trimwork.)  I ran around with only one contact in (I tore my left one in the rush) pretty much legally blind in my left eye, squinting to do the paint touch-ups.  (It was at this point that I almost lost it...  I'd been pretty chill the whole 9 days along but when I realized I couldn't see it was - Dave- "It's almost over."  And me- "But I can't see!!! How am I supposed to look at anythig with a critical eye if I can't see?!!!"  --- Yes, I really said that.  Not my best moment.  He knows me pretty well and just didn't say anything.  God I love that man. )  I frantically cut hyrangea & spread them around the house in jars, all the while worrying about the funny smell of the paint in our basement because the contractors had just finished with the ceiling.  Every time I finished with a room, I'd close the door and the kids' security clearances were revoked.

{Yes, that's a muffin squished into his eye.}

 (By the end they were relegated to the foyer as our realtor helped them put on their shoes and fed them cookies & that's when I knew it was the home stretch.) I jumped in the back or our minivan to feed (wailing) baby Luke as Dave turned the car on and "blasted" the air at my behest while people arrived early for the open house.   Dave ran through the yard with the lawn mower (Him- "A mowed lawn is important to men.") as Christian & Justin got extra allowance for picking up sticks.  I watched and thought about how I'd wished I'd gotten more weeding done in the gardens as the van (which was blasting air) got hotter and hotter.  I opened the door because the hot air outside was better than the inside.  The baby's tiny little body stuck to my dress and we were a sweaty mess.  When Dave finally showed back up to load the kids in the car it was, "Oh sorry babe, I'd had the heat on." 

We drove a few houses down so I could feed the baby before driving to the eye doctor's.  We watched as the cars came pouring down our street for the open house.  (I know that sounds creepy and I hoped no one would notice us, but with the hungry baby, we really had no choice.)  As more time went by and none of the cars had left yet, we felt a little better.  Anytime there was a lag in the stream of cars, we worried.  We noticed cars leaving, driving around and going back.  That was a good sign. 

Once the baby had had his fill, it was off to the eye doctors' and then to my mom's house where we showerd and promptly DROPPED.  (We had already decided we were not going home Saturday night because there was no way we could keep our house clean for even a night for Sunday's open house.)  We waited for news from our realtors and I was in total shock as they called and told us the good news.  (I typically worst-case scenario everything at the last minute, and by the end of the day had convinced myself that no one could ever want our house.)  Saturday night was great as two of my best friends stopped by to celebrate (One who I haven't seen in over a year just home from Paris!) and we gorged (or maybe it was just me who gorged) on food from the Lebanese Taverna. 

{Habeeb.com}

We stayed at my mom's all day Sunday and reviewed offers that night.  This (below) was the awesome note we came home to:

{The "Buy me" note was a last-minute attempt as I dashed out of the house before the open house}

...We are now officially under contract and are set to move mid-September!!!  I'm definitely sad to leave this place (getting teary honestly) but I am so happy that the people buying our house seem to love it as much as we do.  I think they'll take great care of this place we've poured so much into & I'm sure they'll make it their own in no time.  I'll miss some of our neighbors terribly but know that they're friends for life & moving won't change that. 

I'll be back this week to share some long overdue before & afters of our house...  sort of a little goodbye string of posts I have planned.  I am DEFINITELY making a video tour of my house before I leave so I can "visit" whenever I want.  (I know I have issues ;)

Also, thank you so much to all of the readers who came out to see our house!!  Hope you enjoyed & thank you so much for the support!!



If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Open Shelving in the Kitchen- the great debate

Wow.  Our house is officially for sale today!!!  I'm feeling really great about it.  But putting your house on the market makes you take another look at it, from a buyer's point of view and makes you analyze every little thing.  I used to do real estate staging & a large part of it is de-personalizing the home vs. making it unique & personal (which is what I do now.)  One of the things I think that's more personal & taste-specific in our home is the open shelving in our kitchen. (In our kitchen we have a mix of open shelving and upper cabinets but the main wall is all open shelving.)

{our kitchen}

People seem to have very strong opinions about doing open shelving in the kitchen instead of upper cabinets.  They either seem to love it or hate it.

I thought I'd share my experience with them since I've had them for three years now.

I orginally opted for open shelving because I wanted to give my kitchen an open & airier feeling. It's a great way to make a kitchen feel larger.  My kitchen felt a bit confined & heavy to me so I wanted to visually lighten it up.  The assymetrical angle of my kitchen ceiling looked too awkward with a row of dark upper cabinets calling attention to it. 

{my kitchen "before" with the awkward angles}

SO.. I thought I'd give it a go, more for form over function but I ended up loving the "function" side of it too!

{my kitchen "after" with open shelving}

One of my favorite things about open shelving is that I can see everything at a glance.  Guests too can grab what they need easily or put things back without searching through every cabinet. 

One of the biggest "cons" I've heard brought up about open shelving is that your things "get dusty" and dirty with cooking grime.  Dusty & grimey things have never been an issue for us in our kitchen.  We use almost everything on our shelving daily or weekly and it comes off of the shelf perfectly clean because it's constantly getting use.  I store a few barely-used items on my upper shelf and when I take them down once or twice a year, there is some dust on them and I simply rinse them off before using them.  (Just as I have to rinse off the rarely-used items in my dining room sideboard before use.)  Friends of mine who have open shelving have said the same thing.  I find it's people who've never actually had it (or who don't frequently use the things on their shelves) who seem to worry the most about this "dust" issue.

I also love the look of functional beauty in open shelving.  A kitchen is for cooking and eating & so I love seeing my "tools" displayed around me. 

I have collected my platters and bowls and pitchers over time and love being able to enjoy them even when they're not in use.  I think they're beautiful and I didn't want to hide them in cabinets.

Working in our kitchen is so easy because everything is within reach and I can get to it quickly.  (In our house, we move like crazy people.  It seems we're almost always rushing -gotta change that- and I can grab things off the shelves like  a speed demon.)  Putting away the dishes now seems like so much less of a chore than it did when I was putting everything into cabinets. 

{Sally Wheat}

Another "con" I've heard about open shelving is that it looks cluttered.  I think this is more a matter of personal taste.  For me, I think the key to our open shelving looking good is that we've limited what types of items we put on our shelves.  (In our kitchen I have white ware, glass ware and stainless steel for the most part and I sometimes mix in other colors/ materials seasonally.)  I do have some patterned and colorful dishes on my open shelving but from standing in the kitchen, they are viewed from the side and from below, so they look white.  However, there are some open-shelved kitchens look great because the homeowners are less rigid with what they put on their shelves and they come across as charming and homey: 

I reserve closed drawers and cabinets for food items and kitchen appliances and my open shelves for the things we use all the time.

As with many things in design, I don't think think there's a general wrong or right in uppers vs shelving, just wrong or right for certain people. 

Personally, I won't ever be without my open shelving in the kitchen (and plan to do it again in our new house because it's perfect for our busy, casual lifestyle- once you go open, you never go back ;) ;)  but it's all in the eye of the beholder.

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Our moving story & open house

Our house has been a serious labor of love.  When we found it, I was in love.  And I still am. 

...Which is why our move is so crazy.

But here's our story:

4 years ago, my husband (Dave) & I sold the townhouse that we'd bought as newlyweds at the height of the market... for a huge loss.  We moved into my parents' basement to recup & soon after, I started this blog.  I had just gotten my design business going & my mom generously babysat for our then-one-year old (Christian) so I could meet with clients and work.  Living with my parents was actually pretty awesome (free babysitting, good food, quick runs out to the movies while the baby was sleeping, getting to be with my little sister who lived there-  she's 15 years younger than me) .. but all we thought about was buying our own house again.  It felt like such a longshot.  

 {our basement family room}

Here I was designing houses for other people and I couldn't even afford my own.  We did as much as we could with our basement & would peruse real estate listings frequently.  Sometimes it depressed us & other times it got us dreaming about the future. 

We decided to start taking some drives with an agent and I started sharing the houses we were looking at... And in this area, it wasn't much.  Some of the houses actually scared my parents because they were so unlivable, but we saw potential in them.  My parents talk about how I looked over the yard of a ramshackle 836 square foot house with tears in my eyes because I thought it was so great & could picture our family there.  hahahah  

I thought about what we could do with the wrecks and how we could make them work. 

We finally find our house and I remember when I first saw the online listing...  I saw a living room wall of windows and so much green outside of the windows. 

 It was contemporary, which was a big change for me, but I was excited.  It had been on the market for 4 years and my husband drove by it one day after work and said it was in a culdesac and was actually surround by trees.   We went to see it with our agent.  It was the first house we looked at that day and we looked at 18 others but once I'd seen it, I just knew.  After that, we weren't interested in the center hall colonials we were seeing, we wanted the split foyer!!

{then}

I knew it wasn't pretty.

And that it was creepy.

Family members told us not to buy it and our agents weren't very keen on it either...  but we were set on it.

After begging & wrestling the house from the original owners (They bought in the 70s) we were thrilled to move in & start making it ours. 

{now}

I chronicled all of our projects in this blog showing you probably waaaaaay too many photos of the minute changes we'd make.  We've been in Heaven fixing this place up & making it perfect for our family.  We love the neighborhood and our town and pictured ourselves living here for years to come.

..Still I perused the real estate listings out of curiosity and always with a tiny hope in the back of my mind that I might find something we loved & something we could afford right near my mom.  

It was while checking out listings for one town that a listing in another town oddly popped up on my search engine and it intriqued me.  I was sitting in the back seat of our minivan holding the pacifier in baby Luke's mouth on the way home from the beach andI read the house's description aloud to Dave as he drove. 

We were laughing as I read more & more and it just sounded to perfect for us.  (me- "2 car garage."  him- "SOLD.")

I tried to understand the floorplan and figure out which rooms were where and how many rooms there were.  (Was the rec room the same as the family room or was it actually another room??  I had to know it all.)

I jokingly texted my little sister who was also driving home from the beach a few miles behind us that she needed to tell our mom to be scared because we'd found a house we loved.  We were laughing and kidding but the laughs were insterspersed with "what ifs?" 

There was an open house the next day and we decided to go just for fun.  As we pulled up, we could see that it was packed with people and I told them from inside my car to "Get outta my house!"  (Don't worry, the car windows were closed.)  We walked in and this is what we saw:

{yes, that's actually tile up the wall.}

I loved it.

We walked around the house and yard over & over.  I wanted it but couldn't get over leaving our current house and town. 

Dave was down.  (Grandmother, if you're reading, that means "up for it" or "game." ;)

I stayed at the open house almost the entire time & tried to work out ways to remedy the floorplan and make it better.  (All while trying to keep our exhausted kids from running around like the maniacs that they are.)  I didn't feel like I could think of moving to the house until I could envision how we'd fix it.  I finally figured it out and was okay to leave so we could think.

We called our families & told them we were seriously considering it.

And then we seriously considered it.

The biggest con for me was (and is) leaving a place we've poured so much into and a town/ community that I love so much. We've FINALLY gotten our house exactly where we want it to be and what do we do?  We go looking at new houses.

Add a 5 year-old, a 2 year old and a newborn into the mix along with a home-based business that both I and my husband support the family off of and we're starting to sound insane. 

I know all of this.  I really do.

But somehow this house is calling to us.

We did pros & cons.  We prayed about it.  I stayed up at night reworking the floorplan and envisioning what life would be like there.  And if I'd be okay leaving.

Still unsure, we took another trip to see the house to see how it felt. 

And it felt right.

I suddenly felt that it would be okay to move on, to start a new chapter.

I see so much potential in this house and I've never seen my husband so excited about something this big before.  We talked and we decided we wanted to put in an offer.  We went over again with our fingers crossed as my parents saw the house and we waited to hear if our offer would be accepted.  Someone else had submitted an offer too and as we ate dinner with my family at a loud restaurant, we strained to hear the phone's ring, hoping it woud be good news.

We got a call: The owners were deliberating between the offers and wouldn't be getting back to us until the next day.

Try sleeping on that one.

I went to meet with clients the next day and Dave drove with the baby in the car so I could feed him before & after the meeting.  During the meeting, he got the call that our offer was accepted!!!

It was so surreal.

Our house is going on the market this weekend.  My other baby.

It's very bittersweet.   I love our house and our life here and I'm sad to leave.  Yet I am sooooo excited for a new place to make home.  This new house is challenging & different and I can't wait to stretch myself creatively a bit. 

The real estate photgrapher came in this weekend and it started to feel more real as I cleared off surfaces and depersonalized the house a bit.  Our agents are having an open house both Saturday and Sunday of this weekend, so if you're in the area and are interested, feel free to email them for details.  (but promise me, no judging!!!  ;)  ;)

 Paige@kw.com

everydayherohomes@gmail.com

I'll be back soon to share pic & plans of our new house!!

To read the blogpost from when I first revealed that we'd moved into my parents' basement .. click here .  I was  so embarrassed at the time and will never forget my now-friends who commented on that post and how their comments really did make me feel better.  It was one of the first times I realized what true  friends my  'blog friends ' really were.

To read about my plans for our current house before we bought it, click here  ...  Reading through it just made me teary now...  dreaming about the wisteria-covered pergola Dave would build me one day and that I now have.

To read about our last house purchase, go .here  Again, the comments from my blog friends helped us and I won't ever forget it. 

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

We're moving!!!

I can't believe we're doing it, but just as we've finished with our labor of love, we're on to another one.  We're in the the middle of packing...

...And it's so surreal.  I'm off to a client's installation but will be back with details!




If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Big Change

Some serious changes are brewing around here and I am soooooo excited!! 

{Looove the feeling here...  and it relates to my big "change"}

I know I'm being annoyingly cryptic, but I just cannot CONTAIN myself!!!!  As soon as I can, I'll be back with some really exciting news.  

Sorry for the total tease of a post.  If I could, I would.  (And staying completely silent has been hard enough this past week so I had to come on the blog and blurt!!)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Front Porch Coming Together

We're just finishing up on a front porch for a client and it's just in time for the HEAT WAVE we've been having around here.  My client lives in a adorable 1920s bungalow in a great neighborhood and now that we've finished with her main living areas inside the house, it was only natural to move outside.  The porch was beautiful before we even started, and my client- who is really creative and loves entertaining-wants to be able to sit on her porch and read/ relax/ have drinks with friends.

Here's a photo of the house:

We've added a little table & chairs, rugs, curtains and a super comfy porch swing. 

Here's a little peek of the the rope swing we had made before it was hung:

We did the pillows in an indoor-outdoor fabric and have used a mostly neutral palette that blends with the house's current paint colors.  I'll be adding some blue in the accessories to compliment the blue interiors.  Now that the main pieces are in, the porch feels like the perfect place to drink iced lemonade!!

We're finishing up with accessories & potted plants soon & I can't WAIT!!  I'll be sure to share the afters. :)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Happy Monday!

{This kid is so happy = awesome}

I start up back at work today and so normally I'm not really a "Happy Monday" type of person but this Monday is a little different.  Taking these past 8 weeks sort of off (as "off" as things can ever get with your own business) to spend time with baby Luke & the family has reinvigorated me a bit.  I'm SOOOOO excited about some of our upcoming projects and can't wait to see all of our clients & get back into the swing of things. 

We're off to install the front porch of our client's bungalow-  will share pics this week!!

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Simple Pleasures Friday

Evening walks...

...are the best. 

Have you been on one lately?  

 It's something that can happen almost any day but sometimes I feel so "busy" that I forget about talking walks with my family & get out of the habit.  I'm going to try to remember the mental exhale a good walk gives me.

Have an amazing weekend!!

*walking along the Currituck Sound

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

The treasure map to my slapper of gold

I walked into the kithen the other morning and found this treasure map on the fridge:

"A cruncher like this would be too BOLD, but seek and ye may find a slapper of GOLD!"

At first I thought it was a little treaure hunt/ game that my husband had made for the kids. But then I read it again...  I call the 3-hole punch in our office the "cruncher:"

And so I realized that "slapper" must mean stapler...

And I had just seen the prettiest stapler EVAAA when we were at Pottery Barn...

So I followed to the end of the map...

I saw the drawing of the banana peel & had no idea what that meant  (He just told me that it was a chandelier)

wups!

... but I recoginzed the shelf with binders & boxes and glasss jugs on it as the one from the

back office:

{See the shelf all the way to the right?}

And I ran down there and on top of the shelf where X had marked the spot, there was the beautiful brass stapler that I'd been eyeing!!

eeeeeeeek!!

Here's a quick pic I snapped of it:

{The "slapper" of gold i.e. a brass stapler from Pottery Barn}

I love it!! 

 I'm not five years old any more, but my husband understands that I still get excited about things like a five year-old.  

...and that makes me really happy.

ps- I love that he thinks that a brass crucher (3 hold punch) would be too "bold" ...  I think he's right ;) ;)

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

The Boys' Lake Cottage Bedroom

We recently visited my dad, who lives on a lake, and I did a few things to the boys' bedroom there.  Christian, our 5 year old (today's his birthday!!!) and Justin, our 2 "and-a-half" year old sleep in the room that used to be my dad's  and my Uncle Teddy's when they were boys.

Our family's had the cottage since the 50s and our boys love visiting now...

Whenever I visit my dad, I get a few things done here and there. Lots of it is fast and unplanned which means most of it is antique shops & retail..  This time, I did a little in the boys' bedroom.  Here's the view from the door...

I switched out some of the "girlier" fabrics and colors  (The aqua and corals I'd put in 10 years ago just weren't quite making it boyish enough ;) and added a few things from around the house & a few new ones.  I pulled in the old Ikea chair we'd had and am eying another chair to swap it our with but will have to wait on that one.  It's a nice spot to read with the boys.  I DEFINITELY need to add some blackout matchstick shades (they wake up waaaaaay to early with the sun & the time change) and plan on adding a wall of old family photos across from the bed so the boys will see their great-grandparents and the rest of the family when this lakehouse was in its heyday.  (It used to be packed every weekend with family but we live so far away it's not the same.)  We still all get together there, just not often enough. 

One of my favorite additions to the room is the set of basket fish we hung from the ceiling:

{found at the PB kids store}

I "borrowed" this vintage ship model of my dad's from another room in the house:

{A secret: The curtains I hung are too short for the windows but are mostly hidden behind furniture.  When the shades get added, I'll hand the rods a bit higher and add more fabric to the panels - probably in a contrasting fabric.  But for now = shhhhhhhh }

Christian sleeps on the left and Justin is on the right with the bed rails to keep him from falling out.  I love tucking them in at night and climbing into bed with one of  them.  Justin kicked me out this trip saying I should "snuggle with Trin Trin" instead.  (I guess I'm a bed hog.)  We watched fireworks  from the window the other night and I fell asleep.  It made me really happy.

I know it would have been a prettier pic without Justin's bed rails but that would have taken too long ;) ;)

I love the size of this room.  The ceilings give the illusion of even more space and there's not much "stuff" at all in here because we just bring our clothes when we come.   At home, the boys' room is so tiny that just 1 t-shirt on the floor makes it feel like a mess.  (Add in unmade beds and toys and books and the room looks trashed daily.)  They love playing with toys in here and even when they're not all picked up, the room still feels good.  I WISH this room was in our house at home.

Here are the boys "hanging out."  (Actually, me stealing them away form a game of hide-and-seek to make them sit o the bed so I could get a picture of them in their new room.  Ah vell.)

{"Are you done yet Mom?!!"}

In a couple of years, Luke  will join them in the big boys' room...  probably with a sleeping bag. 



AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BIG 5 YEAR OLD!!!!!

ps- As I mentioned, I've been LOVING instagram on my phone and have been sharing little peeks of projects and tidbits on there.  I showed some pics of this room on there last week & looove playing with the photo editing to make the pics look cool.  (I'm really bad at it right now, I'll be honest, but I have hope.)  I'm not sure how to link over to it but my name on there is LaurenLiess and as soon as I can figure out how, I'll be sure to share a link on the blog so you can find me.  I've been having so much fun seeing everyone's phone photos and it's a little like twitter but waaaaaay better.

If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.