A little update and Happy New Year!!

Hope you had a wonderful Holiday season and the happiest of the New Year!! The last month has been a blur. We did try to be present and really enjoy it however it was a tad preoccupying knowing that we had to start packing the entire house the day after Christmas!! Amidst the already hectic days of December, we decided to throw in a full fledge remodel of our new fixer upper, a kitchen ,4 baths, - laundry, we built some stairs, opened up a sheer wall, backyard, pool remodel,  added some beams and shiplap and oh yes the whole exterior will get a facelift (paint, shutters, new doors, some new Windows, garage doors, driveway, stone work) and we are packing and moving, as well! It would not be my first choice to do it during this time but when an opportunity comes along, you have to just roll with it, right? And not just one move..two. 

So, our stuff is being moved in tomorrow...ha ha! The floors are almost complete(just not the  stairs). The countertops and appliances are not in yet. So, of course no plumbing fixtures. No toilets. And none of the fun stuff yet like lighting. But, so soon. The painting is just getting started and I cannot wait for everything to be bright white except for some black doors. Here are a few photos of where we are now!! I cannot wait until we have  some real progress and after photos to show you. We will be in a rental for a couple of weeks until the house is livable. But here we are...and oh yeah...big warning...these are not pretty...lots of construction photos!

I am pretty excited about the kiddos bathroom. I chose larger subway tile and then made a big statement with the cement tiles on the floor and shower pan. I am quite in love with the combo. And then the honed marble slab bench and dam is quite something!! The countertop will be made out of the same slab.

The kitchen progress is moving along. The quartz countertops were just installed and the subway tile is being installed as I write this:) Next up, bye bye orange and hello white everything!Yay!

Here is the beginning of the Laundry room. Classic white 

tile and we are going to 

keep things light and bright in here...after all who likes doing laundry in a dark room. Well, who really likes doing laundry at all!! 

The living room is patiently waiting for its first coat of white paint. A built in cabinet with a tv and sconces will be going on that main wall.

The upstairs den will also be white (shocker!) with a marble fireplace. Floors are going in during this photo.

Another view of the living room. We will be replacing all of the slider doors with taller ones.

Quite a few people have asked about these floors. Here is the info...Monarch plank and they are the Boulevard Collection and the color is Chapelle. So far, I am so in love and they seem very durable! They kind of have to be with 2 very active kiddos and 2 messy dogs and cats!! I will keep you posted!

Here is the start to the master shower. We are putting a free standing tub next to this...can't wait!

And, this is the progress on another bathroom in the house. Kind of obsessed with 

Carrera marble right now. Going to funk it up with some fun accessories and lighting!

Will be back soon 

with some more updates!

Xo, Paige

Our new house!

Hey!

It has been so long since I have blogged. Almost a year! Not like I was ever a "blogger" but I did enjoy it and sharing our journey. Over the last year, I had various ideas for blogging ...recipes../some good finds, ideas, decorating, etc but then the excitement about the idea of writing a post wore off and then it just never happened. But, you can make time for anything that is important to you, right? So, here goes. I thought I would give it a whirl again and set a goal for the upcoming year and blog at least once a week. So many sweet friends and people I have never even met have reached out to me with sweet words of encouragement....so here I go!!  I hope you will join me on this journey.

So, we are beginning our next adventure. A little bit about me. I am a Virginia girl born and raised until I moved to California when I was 24. I lived in the same beautiful brick house for almost 20 years that my parents built. My parents ended up selling that house and building another house when I was 19 and they are still there today. So, my mom, and some of my friends always wonder why do I like to move so much since my childhood was very stable?! I am not sure how to answer that besides the fact that I love remodeling, enjoy change, and maybe we have not found what we were looking for yet. I did believe this last house was our forever house though. This will be our 4th move in 11 years!! Well, we have been living in a fairly rural part of San Diego but still somewhat close to the beaches restaurants, etc. And, as much as I am a country girl at heart, we realized we missed the coastal lifestyle where we can walk and bike to the beach and restaurants and have an active lifestyle. And a little less house and yard to maintain. So, we put our house on the market in May and closed on it almost 2 months ago. So, here goes our next adventure. And for the record, I think this is our forever house. But, never say never, right?!The Buyers are the sweetest family and are so gracious and allowed us to rent back for 3 months.  This allowed us to find a home and start the remodeling process. We were in escrow on another home but had to cancel because the inspections turned up a lot of deep issues...I will save that for another blog post.  I am not sure if our house will be ready January 7th which is when we need to be out of our house.  Well, I know it will not but we hope it is somewhat livable:)

I wanted to give you a quick tour and show you where we are presently:

Here are a few photos of what the house looked like in the MLS:

Nothing terrible...just a little dated and dirty carpet and tile, etc. But, one of the first things we had to tackle was building a proper staircase.  The spiral staircase is not our style..ha ha and it could be very dangerous among other things. So, that went bye bye.  We were going to salvage the kitchen cabinets but the closer we looked, they were in bad shape and we were tweaking so many things (i.e. there was not a dishwasher near the sink?) therefore we all ended up deciding that we could justify taking them out and replacing.  BYE BYE Budget!! A couple other things that we are dealing with...we were going to salvage the master bathroom. It had decent white tile.  But again, and after taking a closer look..it was pretty dirty, the shower was too small and the old Jacuzzi tub had broken jets, etc..  There was no way to get out the tub without messing up the tile. So, we demoed the master bathroom. We were able to save the cabinets...we are refacing them. I am so glad we made the decision because when we ripped out the shower there was a ton of dry rot that we think was caused from a window that was not properly sealed.  We ended up taking out the shower window and replacing all the wood. Another issue..a wall that we wanted to take down to open up a stairwell on the other side of the house..turned out to be a shear wall.  Now, we are dealing with an engineer to figure it all out!!

We have 5 weeks until move in and this is where we are...well these photos are from about a week ago.  Everything has been cleaned up...we are awaiting a couple more construction projects..opening up that wall and completing the framing of the master bath and then we are ready for some pretty stuff finally!!

Everything will be painted white, black front door, lanterns and barn lights, new driveway, new roof, and add some stone

 

Hardwood floors throughout and white brick on the double sided fireplace, paint everything white, beams and boards on the ceiling...these pictures were obviously taken out night so they are not great

 

 

Stairwell built..just need drywall at this point and railings will come later

 

 

Will be doing new subfloor in here to even it all out, drywall repairs and paint, cabinets will be installed the week of December 15th

 

 

Bathrooms framed out

 

Master bedroom...added a wall for the bed and a walk in closet..we were thinking about putting it against the windows but then you cannot see the view which is why we bought the house!!

 

So, let's take a look at some pretty stuff and the direction that we are taking the house!!

 

All white exterior with a dark gray roof and some black accents..would love copper gutters...

 

 

White brick fireplace

 

Lighter oak floors

 

 

Obsessed with basket lights!

 

Beautiful tile from Cle Tile

This is for the upstairs den fireplace

Below tile is for the kiddos' shared bath floor and shower pan...Cement Tile Shop

 

 

 

Obsessed with Watermark plumbing fixtures in brass and black

 

Beautiful lighting from Studio McGee...swoon!!

 

 

 Ceiling inspo..so good via One King's Lane!

 

  Built in inspo via Amber Interiors

 

Kiddos bath inspo..black and brass for the win!

 

Master bath inspo

 

Overall vibe inspo via Kate Mark Interiors

 

 

Thanks for checking it out!!  There is a lot going on.  I will be updating the blog often and going room by room with design plans and progress!! Hope you will join me on this adventure...would love to know your thoughts!!  And, do you think we will be in January 7th..ha ha? xo, Paige

 

 

 

A little Holiday tour

Hi and welcome to our little Christmas home tour. Christmas is so magical.  I love the natural décor and the lights.  Garland makes everything look so beautiful. I prefer thing pretty simple and natural. I get a little anxious with too much stuff going on. 

 

Because I pay attention to Instagram and some bloggers out there...I began to panic when it was over a week before Thanksgiving and everybody was already "decorated" for the Holidays!  Boy, was I behind! We were out of town for Thanksgiving and by the time we retuned home and got settled...there was a lot to do. But I had to take a deep breath and realize that is ok..we all have to do things at our own pace and it really varies for me from year to year. It is kind of nice to enjoy the process of it as it evolves.   While I have some decorations that keep coming out from year to year..I like to collect some new pieces each year to mix it up a bit. Also, I love to bring in the natural/live elements which obviously have to be bought each year.

 

We placed our Christmas tree in the foyer this year.  It is an abnormally large foyer so it works well for a Christmas tree and I love that you see it when you walk through the door as well as from outside.  We have an open floor plan so you can see it from most rooms, too, which is pretty special.

 

 

 

Of course, I had to deck the deer head with a wreath.  I know some people have opposing views on taxidermy.  I love animals and I would never hurt one.  But, my thoughts, are that I do appreciate their beauty and this guy is so handsome that I could not pass up on him.

 

 

I added little live wreaths to just about all of our mirrors and some windows.

 

 

This is one of my favorite views in our home.  This is from the foyer looking into the dining room.The lighting is just so good in here.  Again, you will see wreaths, a cute little fake flocked tree from Homegoods that I added this year and a fun bucket from Anthropologie that it sits in.  I move it around everywhere as you will see in the photos!! The faux fur sheepskin is also from Homegoods.  I really need to go grab some more of those.  It is so cozy and stylish and looks good everywhere!

 

I layered real and fake garland about everyplace possible.  It instantly says "Holidays" and lets "celebrate"!

 

 

 

 

I love this cute little "Merry Christmas" banner that I bought at our church gift shop.

 

I kept it pretty simple in our kitchen adding just a few little Christmas trees.  I feel like there is already too much stuff in the kitchen this time of the year...cookies, Gingerbread houses, etc.  that I have to have some quiet areas.

 

 

I do, however, love the garland that is on the barn wood as you walk into the kitchen.

 

 

 

Back to our Christmas tree. We went with a flocked one this year and I am hooked.  This may be our new tradition.  It is so peaceful and it really looks like snow.  This is about as close to snow as we will get since we live in San Diego.  The faux fur tree skirt is from Home Goods.

 

 

I had the white feathers and wood stars already.  I really wanted it to be simple and pure.  I bought a box of ornaments from Home Depot..shocker..I was impressed.  They were so inexpensive and look really nice.  The silver and gold really make it look "pretty".

 

This is the first year that I have had a "big girl" tree.  And, I must admit it feels so good! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not, to worry, though the kids do not feel left out.  They have their own cute little tree that is perfect for their size. They were not super happy about all of this change at first.  Both of my kiddos had near breakdowns at the Christmas tree lot when we let hem know we were getting a flocked tree this year.  What we thought would be pure excitement nearly turned into tears. Thank goodness, the sadness did not last too long and these two were pretty happy to bring home their own little tree and start decorating.

 

 

Nights during the Holidays are so peaceful..that moment when it starts getting dark and you turn on the Christmas lights...it is so magical.  I picked up the little copper lights on the antlers below from Anthropologie this year...they are so cute and I am sure they will be on sale after Christmas.  I will definitely be picking up a few more.

 

 

 

I also picked up these pretty little copper/gold pots below from Anthropologie and added some baby fir trees to them.  I layered our dining table with some garland, copper lanterns (a gift from a dear friend, also from Anthropologie) and some natural branches and greens in the clear vases.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this little Christmas tour of ours.  May your Holiday season be joyous and bright and filled with lots of love and happiness! Wishing you a beautiful Christmas from our family to yours! xo, Paige