House Update

The painters are painting the inside of the house this week. The sidewalks and driveway have been poured. I am trying to make all of my final selections this week. As much as I love decorating, I want to be done with the decisions!!! I'm ready to move in!!!

The front sidewalks

A side view of the sidewalks
The driveway
I had to add my personal touch to our new sidewalk:)
A view from the front door
Another view of the dining room
I like the tan. I can't wait to see the stone on the fireplace.
This is hard to see, but it is one of the guest bedrooms. It is tan with a red border at the top.
We like to call this the green room...
The beadboard in the master bathroom. I can't wait to see the blue with it.

Friendship Friday- Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!! I dedicate my Friendship Friday to our group of friends who we always celebrate Thanksgiving with. We have been enjoying this tradition for five years now. We changed it up a bit this year because Mike had to work on Thanksgiving. We got together at Chad and Sara's house (since our house is full of boxes) on Wednesday night, and had some delicious food and company. This is a really special group of people, and we look forward to this gathering all year. We might not see each other all of the time, but when we get together it seems like no time has passed. That's when you know they're great friends!!

Mike and I

(I wasn't feeling well, and unfortunately I can see it on my face)

Chad and Sara carving the fried turkey
Luke and Clark
Susu and Daniel
Brandon, Melanie, Michelle and Adam
The girls
We have a tradition of gathering around before the prayer to take turns talking about what we are thankful for.
It was a really tough year for me and Mike, so this Thanksgiving was bittersweet. It was during this reflection time last year that we announced that we were pregnant and everyone was so surprised and excited for us. My brother had died the night before Thanksgiving, so I knew that we had some hard days ahead of us. When we got home from his funeral, we went to the doctor for our first appointment. We found out that the pregnancy wasn't viable, so I ended up in the hospital. Even though it was an extremely tough time in our lives, we knew that we had so much support from our friends and family. All of our hard times have made us stronger, and we appreciate what we do have in our lives that much more!! We look forward to what is in our future- a new home, a new job for me and hopefully expanding our family in the near future. Thank you to everyone for being there for us!! We LOVE our friends and family!!!
Luke has also been through a rough time. I know this was a hard time for him since his father just passed away, but we want you to know that we are always here for you!! We're so glad that you were able to be with him, and time will help heal you.
Finally sitting down for dinner!! It was very late, but it was worth the wait!!

House Update

The house is progressing right along. We are working on all our final selections, and hopefully will be done with decisions next week. Finally!! Building a custom house is a lot of work, and like a full time job. I have enjoyed it, though. They are pouring the concrete sidewalks and driveway today and finishing all of the trim work on the inside of the house. The painters will start painting inside on Monday. I'm just ready to be in there!!! Hopefully, we will move before Christmas.

They built the front steps this week.

They put the bronze roof on the bay window.
This is the trim work in the dining room. It will all be painted white.
Here's a view of the kitchen from the great room.
They even put crown moulding in our closet!! We weren't expecting that, and our builder wasn't too happy about that (they get paid by the piece of crown moulding so he felt like they were trying to run up the bill).
This is the bead board in our master bathroom.
Here are the reds that I have tried for the dining room. The winner is the one on the top left. It is a special color formulated by my Sherwin Williams store called Chicken Garnet. Apparently, a Carolina baseball player helped them come up with the perfect Gamecock color. I love it!!!
The great room and hallways are going to be tan. I have tried several, and still have not decided on one. I think I like one that is not in this picture. I will update my decision later.

Our kitchen is going to be the terra cotta on the left. It is a Pottery Barn color from Benjamin Moore called Audobon Russet.
Our master bedroom and bath is going to be a variation of the blue on the right. I have had them add some gray to this color to soften it a bit. It is called Blue Heron by Sherwin Williams. It is in their special Historic Charleston color set.
This green will be in one of the guest bedrooms. It is called Palm Leaf by Ralph Lauren. I'm going to pair this with black and white toile bedding. I saw something similar at The Parade of Homes, and it looks so good!!!
After so much searching for granite for the kitchen countertops, I finally found one that I liked. It is hard to see all the colors in this pic, but it has whites, tans, terra cottas, chocolate and black. I think it will look great with the white cabinets and terra cotta walls.

Thursday Thirteen

Here's thirteen new pictures of my house.

Dena and Annie in my closet

The garage concrete floor has been poured
The upstairs bonus room
Another view of the upstairs bonus room
The built-ins and drawers have been primed in the master bedroom
My vanity in the master bathroom, the walk-in shower is on the left and Mike's vanity is in the middle of the room
Mike's vanity with the casement for the drop-in jacuzzi tub behind it
The transom window in the doorway to the kitchen (Sorry, I forgot to rotate the picture)
The great room built-ins have been primed

The kitchen cabinets have been primed and they built the wall behind the kitchen cabinets where the eat at bar will be
Another view of the kitchen cabinets
The window trim is done in a few of the rooms
Here are the double closet doors and the room door for one of the guest bedrooms

Wordless Wednesday

Even though it's supposed to be Wordless Wednesday, I have to add some explanation words. My husband was so tired after our day of shopping in Charlotte on Monday that he didn't even bother to take the throw pillows off the bed before he went to sleep. Since Ashleigh has to be right next to her Daddy, she had to lay on top of the pillows in order to get right next to him. You can't really see it in the picture, but her back end was all jacked up on top of the pillows with her head much lower. Mike had one hand completely up in the air for some reason. It was just a super cute photo op, and the flash of the camera didn't even wake my husband!!