Has it really been a year already?

Next week marks one year since we got our Certificate of Occupancy for the house...

This is a photo taken from the top of the driveway...Still have lots of clearing of the rubbish bushes that flank the drive and hide the gorgeous dogwoods at the moment..

We still need grass but the garden beds is coming along nicely..

The view from the opposite side of the yard...From here it almost looks like we do have lawn, but really it is all just weeds lol...

Blessings Kelsie

Sharing today at the following Linky parties...
Mosaic Monday @ http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/
Show off your Cottage Monday @ http://houseinroses.blogspot.com/

One Year Ago Today....

We began clearing the way to build our family home on the location we believe is very close to, if not on the place the original homestead stood over a century ago...I also began this blog on that day as a way to document and share this journey with our family and friends...Along the way both the blog and the house have become so much more than I ever dared to dream...


This photo was taken from the top of the driveway when we arrived for the first time in Feb of 2004...The old trailer had been the home to Hubby's Great Uncle, the final family member to live on the property before we moved here a couple of yrs after he passed away...He is still our neighbor as he is buried in the family plot that shares a border with our 5 acre parcel.


Following are some then and now photos taken from the same spots in the yard one year apart...

Top of Driveway

17th November 2009, minutes before clearing began

20th November 2009, clearing completed

17th November 2010


North West Corner of Front Yard.

17th November 2009, minutes before clearing began

20th November 2009, clearing completed

17th November 2010

Thank you for traveling this far with us...I hope you will stay with us as we see what lies ahead...

Will be sharing this anniversary for

And

While the baby sleeps, let's take a walk in the garden...

Both lil Sara and myself awoke this morning with a case of allergies...I popped a couple of antihistamines early knowing they would kick in in time for me to get ready for church with a somewhat clear head...Oh but poor lil Sara was just miserable and nose would not stop running, so I relented and gave her some of her own allergy meds...Now this is a 50/50 bet as to if it will but her to sleep or make her hyper...neither a good option for going to church, but I just could not let her suffer any longer...Within minutes she is looking better and in a much better mood..

So off to the closet us girls head to get ready for church...She chooses her "Princess Dress" and promptly stripes herself off in excited anticipation of wearing her FAVORITE dress...and though I usually prefer to dress her last minute to ensure we avoid any toddler dirt mishaps I can not resist that cute excited face...As soon as the dress is on, she runs to her crib (which is in the master bedroom as she does not always sleep thru and for when she requires breathing treatments throughout the night)...well anyway she loves to play in the crib, I think she is imagining she is SnowWhite or SleepingBeauty because a pretty dress will spark the want to do this...So I head back into the closet to get my own clothes...I am gone just seconds but when I step back out into the bedroom I can hear the soft sound of her snoring...not her pretend snoring which is very loud but the sound of a baby sleeping soundly...*sigh* well I guess I am having a quiet morning at home today....

So while she is sleeping I thought I would share some images of the new front garden now we have added the mulch and it actually looks like a garden.

Taken from the driveway...it has been awhile since I shared this view with you...You probably need to click and enlarge the image to actually see the garden here...I am still dreaming of the day we can afford to add the porch railing and the white picket fence.


Side view of the garden, it should not take to long for the shrubs to spread out...We will also be adding a pathway to the front steps from this spot, as eventually this will be where the garden gate will go...Once we have laid out the path, then David will be able to plant the lawn seed and we will be rid of the lovely white builders sand...Oh how I will miss sweeping this out of my house a dozen times a day lol.



A little close up of the corner under the master bedroom window...As you can see my cherub has found a home...I also added a Sheppard's hook and hanging plant...this seems to be enough to deter my lazy old dog from stepping off of the porch into the garden and digging her a nice "sleeping hole"...You can see in the other photos we added wire garden "fencing" to keep her and the ducks out also.


This is the view from the porch...I also have a Mosquito plant on the porch and yesterday transplanted two small rosemary cuttings into pots now they have developed roots from being in water.


The pots either side of the front steps are doing well...You can also see the vincas I transplanted from the old garden have taken well to their new home...Not bad for volunteers that were being strangled by grass before I moved them.


I always love when you get a colorful surprise from your flowers...Did not expect to see any orange marigolds since I had purchased a pot of yellows.

Well that is our humble little garden for now...Wish I had a big budget and could do a full landscaping all at once, but since gardening is about patience, slow and sure will just have to do.

Happy blessed Sunday all
Kelsie

Finding treasure in the old garden...

Today I was able to grab a few moments to myself and wandered over to the old house and take stock of the over grown garden and what can be moved to the new house...(For those of you that are new to our blog, we have lived on the property for the last 6yrs in a mobile home while we saved to buy/build the new house on the opposite side of the 5 acres)...
Who would have thought I would find a perfect before and after candidate during my little stroll thru the weeds..

While poking around in amongst the weeds, I found this long forgotten plant trellis I purchased from Dollar General on sale years ago...At the time it caught my eye as cute, but it has never really POPPED for me...UNTIL TODAY.

After a couple of coats of white spray paint, it takes on a whole new look and is perfect against our little blue and white house.

Originally I thought it would look cute just poking our of the dirt, but then inspiration completely hit and I hung it on the wall between the two windows as a piece of delicate artwork above the garden bed where earlier this week I planted the Mex petunias and the butterfly bushes...This garden has now been officially dubbed the "butterfly garden"...Maybe some time this weekend I will get the mulch laid.

Of course I had camera with me on my little walk today and took some pictures of some other lovely treasures to share with yall.

No surprise one of my favorite flowering shrubs is the bottle brush...This was also my school flower growing up in Western Australia...

I hope in the new garden to also add some Kangaroo Paws.

The hibiscus have given a really good showing this yr, once they are done I will transplant them.

Can't remember the name of this flowering vine but the blooms are gorgeous, another one I can't wait to transplant.

This lonely lovely is a volunteer from some long ago mixed seeds packet..

Was thrilled to see the water lily bloomed again this year, even though the fish pond is so over grown with the leaves we can no longer tell if there are still fish down there..(last time this happened the fish bred like bunnies...so here's hoping lol)

And last but not least, we have dozens of these shrubs growing wild all over the property...If anyone could tell me the name of them and if the berries are poisonous I would appreciate it.

I hope you enjoyed visiting my old garden with me and the transformation of a newly loved old treasure.

I am sharing this today for Show and Tell Friday at Cindy's Romantic Home

Curb Appeal Challenge.

So here it is, the front of the finished house...no building materials on the porch, no saw-horses in the front yard...but this photo is very deceptive...In reality, we have no front lawn...this lovely lush green lawn is courtesy of my computer...



This is the real front of the house...The four of us spent hours out the front of the house pulling out weeds and bramble and the underbrush that was trying to return...You have to remember it was less than a year ago this was nothing but an over grown mess of wild cherry trees, rotten water oaks and lots and lots of bramble...so thick we could not even walk around.

So the challenge is to take these supplies and start creating some defined areas for both garden beds and the lawn areas.... All these border packs came to me at 50% off...I cleaned out Dollar General and now have 100ft of borders, which should be enough to do the beds in the front of the house and around the pecan tree. I did the math and worked out I paid just 35cents per ft...Now the down side is they are black, but that is nothing a can of white spray paint can't fix...Which is the job on the top of my "Hope to do" list today.

I did find the time to dead head the butterfly bushes and they are looking great now...Even got a few blooms to show for my trouble of rescuing them from the clearance bin....Hubby went back and got the rest, so now we have a total of 5 to spread around the garden.


Hope yall are having a great weekend
Kelsie

Kitchen Finishing Touches

Since I just did not have time over the weekend to do anything because my dear sweet Sara was sick, I thought I would share one more picture of my kitchen now we are actually moved in.


We decided to just keep our old white microwave simply because it is still working really well. When it finally needs replacing, we will get a stainless one to match the rest of the appliances.

We had them paint the corbels on the breakfast bar black since they could not find a stain to match the Espresso of the island cabinets...As you can see the black works nicely with the dark granite counter tops....Plus the legs of our table are also painted black so it became a repeated element.

Last Tuesday the cabinet guy also came by to do some minor touch ups...tweak doors and drawers and finish the silicon edging now the cabinets and house have had a couple of months to "settle". It was small stuff but made the world of difference...It is all in the details :)

I still have to work on the window treatment. Window treatments seem to be my most challenging part of any room. Ever noticed how few pics of window treatments in the home decor magazines? And lastly the lovely blue plastic trash can needs to be replaced or relocated.

Now about Princess Sara.

This was taken last night after her bath...She was feeling much better after some "super breathing treatments" and dose of steriods from the ER yesterday...It is truly scary how quickly these episodes come on. I have to run her to the Doctors for a follow up visit this morning...I am not sure how much is going to be achieved this week as she will be taking a course of steroids for the next 4 days and they make her a little hard to get along with, but I will take a grumpy toddler over a not breathing properly toddler any day.

Hope yall have a wonderful Monday.
Kelsie

Settling into our new home...

I can't believe it has been 3weeks since my last post...As it always does, moving and settling in has taken longer than I had hoped it would...I had grand dreams that I would be finished by now and just adding tiny touches to the interior decorating....Oh I am so silly and optimistic...I do not even have curtains in the living room yet lol.

So besides moving furniture and packing and unpacking boxes we have started working on some wonderful new memories in the new house.

Here is Sara taking her first nap in the new house.
It is hard work being this cute and getting underfoot :)

We were so happy that Mic was able to leave for Prom from here,
even if we did only slide in by 3 days....Doesn't she look gorgeous..

We have also had a couple of award nights at the school...She made A/B Honor roll for the entire Senior Yr....Last night was Band awards and she received her Senior Plaque, her pin and School Letter....Tonight will be the last time the seniors perform with the School Band..

Only 10days till Graduation night.

These next couple of pictures were taken thru the glass from the back door and the quality is pretty bad....But I had to share....The other morning while making coffee I looked up and saw 6 turkeys making their way across the hay field...it was 5 hens and a gobbler, as you can see he was putting on quite a show for his ladies with his tail all sprayed out.

This picture gives you an idea just how far from the house they actually were....Sadly I have not seen them again since, I am hoping it is just a timing thing and that they stay on the property so come Turkey Season they will not end up in someones freezer.


Only 4 days left until Mum and Aunt Nina arrive to visit with us from Australia...I can't wait...Though I hope they don't get to bored out here in the sticks.

Kelsie

PS: As I have time and feel inspired I will do a room by room review of the house (and the contractors work) now we are living in it.

TODAY IS MOVING DAY.....

To celebrate moving day here (finally) are pix of the completed kitchen...well there are some minor things...Like the corbels still need to be stained, the outlet covers on the island are still white and the cabinets are waiting for Tom to come back and do the touch ups on the paint that got chipped during installation...BUT that is ok...TODAY WE ARE MOVING IN...Tonight I get to finally sleep under our new roof and cook (reheat ) in my new kitchen.

So that all being said, not sure when I will have time to post next as our internet service will be limited for a few days...In the mean time you can enjoy all the pix of my pretty shiny new kitchen.




Don't forget to check out how the kitchen rated on HGTV.com Rate My Space

It's mine all mine...well ours!

This view of the house seem to be appropriate for the crazy Topsy turvy week it has been....Each night I have crawl to my bed exhausted and unable to think straight let alone write anything...I know I owe many of you emails and believe me when I say that I appreciate all the lovely comments and support everyone has given us during this adventure...(though the adventure is not over, this was just chapter one lol)...Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Finally with the dumbster removed we can see the back of the house.

Anyway in the last post the big question was, did we pass final inspection...YES and did the final walk thru with Leon of Built Wright Custom Homes on Thursday evening....So the house is now officially OURS and we are super excited....Now the long haul of trying to get moved in around a toddlers sleeping schedule (that changes daily) and David's uncooperative work schedule (that seems to be designed just to be the most inconvenient this week)

I have been trying to take final photographs of the kitchen for Leon's scrapbook before we move in, and I got some really nice ones on my Nikon 990, but alas I forgot to format the memory card to that camera last time I cleared it and now my computer will not read them...So I will try again today (if baby will let me)

She is slowly getting better and I will be glad with the antibiotics are almost over...I hope this is the last bout for the season...and also that the new house and super filtered A/C unit will help keep her allergies at bay from now on.

I finally got all the USA Graduation Announcements done and in the mail yesterday morning...Mic looks so gorgeous in her hat and gown....For those of you in Australia, yours are coming too, just have to have time to get to them....I do not know what I was thinking taking on building a house during the same yr as having one child graduating high school and the other one hitting the terrible 2's.

So on that note, much to get done today...

Week 16_While we wait....

So today was supposed to be the final inspection...Did the inspector come by?? Did we pass?? Who knows...We have not heard yet, leaving me wound a little tight right now...Can you imagine that, me wound tight??...because I am usually such a level heading, go with the flow type gal...*watch the sarcasm drip from your monitor here*

So while we wait, I thought I would share a couple more pictures of my kitchen with yall...Below is the view of the kitchen from the front door.


...I had hoped to be sharing photos of a completely finished kitchen by this point...but the cleaners did not show up on the weekend so
A: The blue plastic on the appliances can't be removed yet
B:And the corbels should have been stained to match the espresso cabinets , but the painters will not do the final little bits until the cleaners have been.


The white power outlets will be switched out with black ones...I did not even think about them until after I saw black backsplash in place...oops...So right now the remaining 2 are on special order and should arrive any day now...Another thing with the black splash, it actually cracked while being installed, so will be completely replaced by the end of the week...Since this is only cosmetic it has no baring on the final inspection.

As you can see, we finally have the fan inside the ceiling tray installed...I think it looks really pretty...though the glass is white and does not match the kitchen/dining glass, I will have to shop around to find a suitable glass light shade to replace it, but this was the only fan that I like the style and the metal finish matched the rest of my fixtures, never know I might learn to live with the mix of white and amber shades.

Bath vanities are in place and looking very nice. Really glad I opted for the espresso cabinets in the bathrooms, I think they needed the darker color to ground the space...The cultured marble tops are "light coco"...wonder if the mix of the 2 make my bathroom Mocha?? (ok...that was a lame attempt at humor)
Besides being on edge about the inspection, it has been a pretty stressful couple of days around here....The baby has been sick...Nothing too serious, but a sick toddler is never fun...and then this weekend really provided me with good photos to show you why we are so anxious to get the house finished and move out of the mobile home.

We had a severe storm move thru the area and our place took more damage during it that when the hurricanes came thru in 2004...Below shows the south side with the skirting torn away, the table and BBQ's where all around the corner, behind the house before the storm.


You can see here the buckling in the skirting along the back of the trailer...All in all made for a pretty scary Sunday...Worst still the baby and I were not home, but at Church when this took place, leaving Mic to have to ride it out by herself....She was cooler about the whole thing than me though...even while I was calling her to check she was ok.


I am grateful this is all that took place on Sunday, and in no time at all David had it cleaned up and the skirting back how it should be...I count us very blessed.