For a school assignment Ad had to disguise a turkey so the pilgrims wouldn’t want to eat him.
But I’m afraid they’ll want to eat this even more so I’m not sure if we succeeded on this little project. :)

Kole and I may or may not have watched The Grinch last night.

And I may or may not have slept in my Christmas pajamas.

I asked Kenny the day after Halloween if we could put our tree up.
Him:  Are you kidding!?  There’s so much we still have to unpack. 
Me:  I know!  We’ll unpack the tree!

 You’ll notice in this picture the kids are holding gift sacks for treat bags.  Our treat bags are.. you guessed it!  Lost in the garage somewhere.  I made an emergency run to Target between class parties to buy something for the kids to take trick or treating and everything Halloween was SO picked over.  Gift bags to the rescue!  “Whatever works” seems to be my new motto these days.  It was a fun Halloween.  Crazy just like they all are.

Hi everyone!  Sorry the Q & A took me forever!  You all asked a lot of questions!  Plus I tend to ramble so when you put those two things together you get a Q & A post that goes on for miles.  :)  I split the post in two so if you don’t see your question in this post hopefully it will show up in the next one!

My husband and I are thinking about building a house.  We are so nervous!  What advice do you have to finally pull the trigger and just do it?  

Oh boy.  What to say to this one…  I would love to say just go for it!  But I have to be honest.  So my answer is this – take your time to decide if building is the best plan for you.  When I think about our experience building a house, the best way I can explain it is to compare it to being in the newborn stage with a new baby.  It’s amazing and wonderful and the best.  It’s also exhausting and overwhelming and sometimes not the best.  Building a house comes with a lot of work and it’s very time consuming.  You will be taking on as many hours as a part time job (or more depending on the size of your house and how custom you make it) so make sure you are in a position to spend that kind of time on it.  Parts of the process are so fun and exciting, but other parts are exhausting and stressful.  It’s hard on your marriage – and not because you want white cabinets and he doesn’t – that stuff can be worked out.  It’s hard because you reach a point where you are both so exhausted from all of the work building involves that you have nothing left to give.  Kinda like in the newborn stage when you snap at each other not because you are mad, but because you have been up all night listening to a crying baby for weeks and are just plain tired.  Aside from the constant decision making, problems and glitches pop up right and left and you have to solve them (the solution always costs more money).  The never ending finances of it all can wear on you.  You are making a big investment with your hard earned cash and you feel a lot of pressure to get it right and not make mistakes.  Plus you feel rushed.  Time is money when you build and you have to make decisions quickly to keep everything moving.  (I have definitely struggled with the quick part!)  Kenny and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago and you know what we gave each other?  A high five for surviving the past year.   We both agree that if we still love each other after this experience, we’re not going anywhere.  :)

Now that I’ve scared you to death, let me also say that I’m so happy we did this.  I have LOVED so many parts of the building process.  I mean how cool to design a house that is totally and uniquely you!?  I’ve met so many wonderful people.  Some who will be life long friends.  I adore my house and I feel truly blessed every time I’m in it.  It’s an amazing process to see something that was just an idea in your head actually come to life.  Each stage is so exciting.  So to me, all of the headaches will absolutely be worth it.  Did I make mistakes?  Yes.  Are there things I wish I would have done differently?  For sure.  Do I want to do it again?  Not any time soon.  :)  But still SO worth it in the end.  My best advice to you is to just understand what the next year or two will be like for you and your family while you are building before you decide to pull the trigger.  Make sure you are in a position to take on the project (from a time and financial stand point) and if so, JUST DO IT!!  :)  I’m so glad we did!

** Side note – there are SO many things I have learned from this process.  Things that we did that made the process smoother and things we wish we would have done differently.  I’m going to write a post including all of my best tips for building a house.  As soon as I recover from building ours.  :)  

Would you please post a sketch or drawing of your floor plan?  I’ve been following along and would really love to know how it all fits together.

I totally understand why so many of you have asked this!  First of all, I think the main layout of my house will make a lot more sense when I share more pics after we’ve moved in.  But as far as sharing a complete floor plan, I’ve chosen not to.  While I’ll share a lot of our rooms/spaces as I decorate them on the blog, I think it’s important to keep some things private.  You all know I’m such an open person and I would love to share everything and then some with all of you!  I truly consider my readers to be friends.  But this is our home.  And I can’t be naive to the fact that I have no control over who is reading my blog.  So some things about our home I’ll share and other things I’ll have to try really hard not to.  :)  I hope you all understand!

What is the square footage of your beautiful home?  Bedrooms/Bathrooms?

Hmmm.. another tough question that keeps popping up.  :)  There is a master bathroom, powder bath, shared office/guest bathroom, Kole’s bathroom, the girls’ share a bathroom, and a small pool bathroom outside. As far as square footage goes – I’ll just tell you that our current house we’ve lived in for the last 11 years is 2300 square feet.  The new house is obviously bigger than that.  :)  It’s big enough to have lots of friends over, to make lots of memories in, and to be a marvelous place for my kids to play hide and seek.  How did I do avoiding that question?  I know that’s exactly what you all wanted to hear.  ;)

I would love to know where you picked your carpet and what you chose for your runner?

I’d love to share places I shopped with anyone in the San Diego area!  Just send me an e-mail for details. As far as the carpet runner, I let all of you choose and went with the trellis pattern from this post.  

Carpet is being installed today!  You will all be in big trouble if it doesn’t look good.  Seriously.  I will hunt you down.  ;)  I will post pics of the stairs when they are done!

I would love to hear more about your paint and lighting selections.

Lots of questions about paint and lights!  Once we’ve moved in the house and are settled I plan to do a post sharing all of the paint colors I chose (so glad to have paint behind me – that was a time consuming stage!).  I’ll answer the most common paint questions I keep getting here and you can e-mail if you are wondering about another color.  If you’re not in a hurry, I’ll share them all in a month or so.  Same with the lighting.  At some point when I have time I will share all of the lights I chose (lighting was one of my favorite parts of this process – I love fun fixtures!).  E-mail me if you want a light source ASAP and I will do my best to get back to you.  I have some fun lights left to show you!  :)

What color/brand did you end up painting the exterior of the house?

The exterior color of our house is a custom color.  We took the color “Capricorn” by Frazee and made it just a tad darker.

Some of you have asked about Frazee paint.  It’s a paint that is made in California specifically for climate conditions in the southwestern US.  There are Frazee paint stores all over California, Arizona and Nevada so that may explain why some of you have never heard of Frazee paint.  Frazee is a sister company to Kwal so if you can’t get Frazee you can try getting the same color through Kwal Paint.

I love the wall color in the foyer.  What color is it?

Entry paint is the main color I used throughout the body of my house.  It’s “Seattle” by Frazee and I adore it!  It’s a great grey.  Not too blue.  Not too green.  Not too purple.  Not too light.  Not too dark. :)  If you are thinking of painting something in your house grey I would recommend painting a big swatch on the wall and then checking it out at different times of the day and in different lighting.  Greys are tricky!  There were so many shades of grey that I loved on-line but when I put them up in my house they just didn’t look right.  Then certain greys I picked looked great in some spaces in my house and not great in others depending on the lighting.  So take the time to really test your grey paint and you will be much happier with the end result!

Sure!  Kole’s room paint is “Himalayan Trek” by Benjamin Moore.  We also painted Kenny’s office and a bathroom that color.  It’s definitely a brown grey.

I love the color of your scrapbook room!  Could you let me know what color/brand it is?

Thanks!  Rather fond of that color myself.  :)  It’s “Tinted Ice” by Dunn Edwards.

What are the dimensions of your pool?

Our pool is 42 x 22.

What is a shamu shelf?

A shamu shelf is a shallow “shelf” or spot in a pool.  (I think there are other names for them.)  They are used to lounge in and are great for babies/small kids to splash and play on.  Some of you were asking about our pool layout.  I love curvy pools, but we decided on a rectangle shaped pool and put the hot tub inside of the pool for one reason – safety.  We wanted to be able to cover the whole thing when we aren’t using the pool and keep it totally safe for little ones running around.  We made the pool extra wide so we could fit the hot tub, a shamu shelf and still have a lane for swimming laps.  

They just installed the cover last week!  (It’s not quite finished – the coping – large blocks – still need to be installed over the ledge so you don’t see the mechanics of the cover.)

So now we can go from this…

 To this…

with the flip of a switch.  These covers aren’t the prettiest or the most cost effective option, but they definitely give you peace of mind when you have a three year old on the loose.  Which was our goal.  :)

Here is a look at how my office/scrapbook/homework/craft room is coming along!  We started putting on the hardware.  Ignore all of the blue tape.  And the rest of the mess.  Definitely still a work in progress!

I put white porcelain knobs with black plates on all of my craftsman style doors.  Throw back to a different era.  I adore them.

They are so fun!  The whole thing spins and then each smaller fan on the side spins (together or separate).  Now the kids get their fans and I still get to have a fun light in their rooms.  Win win.  :)

And a quick peek of our family room fixture.  It’s galvanized and has a cool silvery gold look to it.  The couches I ordered for this room have a linen fabric that is similar in color.

For years I used my Time Management Binder and it worked so well for me.  I still use the sticky note shopping list system!  So easy to grab a sticky note and head to the store.

And a big section in the middle where you can write the weeks’ dinner menu.  LOVE this.  I am really trying to plan our dinners a week at a time because I don’t have time to run to the grocery store as often as I used to.  Even if our meal for the evening is chicken nuggets and corn on the cob – writing it down and making sure I have everything ready a week at a time has been a big time saver for me lately.

This is my planner right now.  I recognize it looks ridiculous with everything blocked out so you can’t read it.  I had no choice since I work for the CIA and my daily assignments (a.k.a missions) are top secret.  You can see how I am using the left side for appointments/activities and the right side for meal planning and notes.  I divide my notes into two sections (CIA agents do that) – a section for miscellaneous to-do’s and one for house stuff that needs to be taken care of ASAP.  Anything house related that needs to be done but not right at this second goes into my notebook.  Which I appropriately refer to as “the motherload.”

End of story is that I’m really loving my new planner!  It’s a great solution for busy moms (and anyone else trying to save the world).  Plus you can get it for a great price.  You can check out the details (and other fun planners) at Day Timer.