a heavenly home

Haven't quite gotten the hang of this blog thing yet, but I'm going to try to be a little more consistent with my posts now. 

Have I mentioned that I love houses? or that we've moved 5 times in 11 years of marriage? And we're getting ready to make move #6? Except move #6 is a little more daunting. It's the "big" one. As in...(drumroll please) our dream house. y-i-k-e-s. for some reason, I am a little freaked out by this fact. Hubby is hesitant to even call it a dream house, for fear that "dream house" conjures up images of gilded statues in the lawn and a toilet seat warmer. He is the practical one - have I mentioned that? 

But for all intents and purposes this will be our dream house. And why not, I ask him. We've been saving and planning for this for years. But getting ready to build our possible forever home is more than nerve wracking for me. I don't know why really. Maybe it's the perfectionist in me, but I keep wondering if somehow I'll mess things up. I have a million what-ifs running through my head. What if the mudroom isn't big enough for the kids' 79 pairs of shoes? What if the southern exposure - midday sun fries my beautiful window mistreatments ala the Nester ? What if Chloe keeps locking Lauren out of the supposedly blissful Jack & Jill (or is it Jill & Jill??) bathroom they share? what if, what if, what if?

deep breath. when I start having these conversations with myself, I try to remember this: It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter one bit what kind of house we have, how big our house is, or where I'm going to store my old pottery barn catalogs. what matters most is the people who share this home with me and the kind of life that we live. 

Lord, help us to be thankful for your many many blessings. Help us to not set our sights on material things, but on the everlasting love you have freely given us. Help us to yearn for the heavenly home you've created for us. And hopefully there will be a nice sunny spot there where I can curl up and read a good magazine :)

*above image from the awesomely talented architects Shope Reno Wharton and no, that's not the house we're going to build. although it is pretty nice, huh?

house people

Well, I'm still knee deep in clipping masks and photoshop actions. Even though the blog doesn't look very good right now - I guess I should still post, huh?

Hubby and I have always been house people. We've moved 5 times in 11 years of marriage and are planning on building again in the spring of 2012. Thankfully hubby is very handy, and can do all the labor himself. We find houses that are in need of lots of love, fix them up and resell them, sometimes living in them along the way.

It also helps that we have a partner in all this - my in-laws. They are awesome people and we are truly blessed to have them in our lives! My father-in-law helps hubby out with all the labor, and it's a great way for them to spend quality time together (doesn't hurt that they're making money while they're at it!)

Ok, so now you sort of know our background. Here's our current project:

A lovely little 3 bedroom ranch in a small town just over yonder from ours. We're almost done with it and just have a few finishing touches to add (and by we, I really mean they. They do all the work; I'm just the designer behind the scenes with the big ideas that nobody really wants to implement.) So we're hoping to get it on the market this weekend, so I'm being summoned to go get the last few things (towel bars, shutters, etc...). And of course I have to go out on the coldest day of the year (you know it's cold when my dog comes inside with half frozen whiskers after only running out to pee and coming right back in!)

I've also finally made a decision on light fixtures for the half bath off the master and the kitchen dining area. Here's some of the finalists:

1. Hinkley light from csnlighting $86.33
2. Royce Lighting exterior pendant $75
3. Seagull Lighting stainless steel pendant $60.88
4. Hampton Bay Kristin mini chandelier $99.97
5. Barnlight shallow bowl pendant - $139

and if money were no object, I'd get this from pottery barn:

but for some reason my hubby thinks $399 is a little too much to spend on a light for a rehab house. grrr.

So the winners are....#1 for the kitchen and #4 for the master bath. I'll let you know how they look once installed. The finish line is close!

photshop fun

I've spent the past few days trying to figure out this blog stuff. I'm still not happy with the look, but while I'm messing around with everything and trying to educate myself in the fine tunings of blog design - I thought I'd share what I'm learning. 

The good news for us newbies is there are TONS of great sites and free downloads out there. Which, because of my darn indecisiveness, is probably part bad news as well. There's so much to choose from, my brain is spinning. backgrounds, headers, widgets, brushes, bling, patterns, papers, etc... now I know why people pay other people to do this for them! But I actually think learning this stuff is kinda fun, and I've always been a glutton for punishment. So please bear (bare?) with me. 

One of the great sites I found is digital-retouching.net And I followed one of her photoshop tutorials and was actually able to make this cutie:

which I placed on this cutie:

who is now this 7 year old cutie:

how is it possible that i have a 7 year old when I'm only 21? just kidding. but gosh, she is getting too big too fast...

so hopefully this link will work and you can try out this fun photoshop tut. you can make awesome labels that say whatever you want. like for instance, bestest, skinniest, non-frumpiest mom in the world...er or something like that :)

how to make embossed labels in photoshop