House Tour-Pool House (the before)

Welcome to my Pool House! This is a small little building that is attached to the pool area. I actually took these pictures many, many weeks ago. Currently, you can't walk in it. See that white cabinet right there? That was in the twins' nursery that you saw last week! Removing that began the mess that is now my Pool House as everything in it got set on the couch. That was the plan though! First, I'll show you how it was and then tell you what I am up to . . . There is a bathroom that I will show you with the 'after' of this redo. This space has worked great for what I have needed it for. That would be to hold spare drinks, be the bathroom where wet bathing suits land (should be on a hook but it always seems to be the floor) and allow my parents a quiet place to sleep when they stay here! I didn't show you the fridge because it's boring and ugly but it is behind the door when you walk in to the left. It is full size and is fabulous for extra drinks and more freezer storage. We live FAR from a grocery store so this is a necessity. The couch is a sofa bed and though it is fine, it is not the most comfortable thing. The storage was minimal but worked for the room.

So why am I changing it? My home is very open and flows from room to room and anyone that lives this way knows the only problem--no storage! No closets! I LOVE my house but I need a place for STUFF! What stuff? Sewing, crafting, gift giving, client items I am holding, insane amount of kitchen books and magazines I keep for work inspirations, projects I am working on, decor items and I'm sure other things I'm not thinking of. Even silly stuff like I am hosting bunko and have bought stuff--I have no where to STASH it! I will have several 'project/event' bins and that would become a project until the event is over! My scrapbooking area in the house is perfect and is staying as it. The other craft items are crowding it so they will go away and allow me to scrapbook inside and go to the pool house for everything else. I am nervous about how much space a bed will take up but my parents do need a more comfortable place to sleep when they visit so a queen size bed will fit in as well. I'm quite excited to get it done!

As far as the style of the new room, I am getting rid of any basic 'country' blue but am sticking with the yellow, softer green and more teal blue tones, like the pictures about. LOTS of white will be coming in with some natural tones and rot iron but my 'rule' is no black, dark brown or any red! I LOVE black and red and it is everywhere so I want this room to have a different feel than the rest of my home. I was born in Cape Cod and am trying hard to evoke that feeling without having anything say 'beach', since I don't live on the beach! Do you know how hard that is? Seems everything cute in these tones says "beach"! We'll see if I pull it off! When I walk in, I want to feel relaxed and calm yet inspired and happy.

Here's a fun grouping over the couch that I need to find a home for. Every year in high school, my friends and I had our portrait taken. Then in 2007, the 12 of us that have stayed insanely close and vacation together every year had a 'redo' taken in Atlanta! So 5 pictures that we all LOVE to look at must stay! Many of them have slept in this room and they are all coming here for a long weekend in July and some will stay here so these must work into the space somehow! The name plates are hard to read but it has the year each was taken, 1986-1990 and then 2007.
I hope I get done with this room soon, though I'm guessing it won't be until April at the rate things are going! I've been VERY busy with work and will show you what I've been up to soon!

House Tour-Home Office

This part of my House Tour is my Home Office. Though I have to tell you, it is NOT just a home office. It is a home office, craft room, tv room, mudroom, pantry and main family entry. Oh, and it gets better--it's only 7' wide. One 'issue' with a farmhouse, at least the way we made it, is that is has to be symetrical. Our house has a center and then even sides and 2 stories so 4 'boxes' exactly the same size where all the rooms fit. So if I wanted one room to be bigger, I had to widen all 4 sections. Basically, to finish this long explanation, this 'room' ended up crammed! I was rather distraught with this space as I dreamed of a huge workroom with a work island in the center but knew that it was the only 'make sense' option when I finalized the plans. I spent a lot of time while designing this space to keep it open while maximizing the storage and ensuring that every inch was used wisely. I don't think you will feel like this space has too much in it but you will notice that every inch of these walls has something built into it or something on it!

Because it is a long alley of a room, it is very hard to photograph so I will do my best!

Here is my desk which is what you see from the entry while looking through the dining room. These cabinets hold TONS! The upper cabinets are deep in order to fit drawer systems and the open display helps prevent this area from looking like a big wall of cabinets. I am a big binder girl so I love my binders being out and available at any moment. I had a plug planned for this cabinet and in the basket by my binder is all our chargers--just put in your ipod or phone and it's not out on a counter!

This area is to the right of the desk. I had fun designing this wall because it was a big challenge--the window and small area had me stumped for a while! The window seat is something I drew with my carpenter and then had him cut it and nail it and I did the rest. It has storage underneath and holds things that I don't need often but want available. The craft cabinet has lots of scrapbooking items as well as a drawer that holds this year's school work that the kids bring home that I want to keep.

Here is a view of this area from the other end of the room. You can see that across from the cabinets is a built in area that keeps ALL my craft items!

The skirt hides boring storage and hides glue sticks and other functional craft tools, scrapbook work in progress, page supplies and pending scrapbook work. Above the cabinet is my jar heaven. I blogged about this before but to keep this together for the House Tour, I'll repeat a bit! The jars don't need much explanation--any craft item I have is here. I use my ribbon weekly and love that jar! The magazine bins at the very top hold things that I call 'resources'--things that I want just in case like scrapbook magazines or catalogs for future inspiration, catalogs that I don't plan to shop from right now but want for possible future shopping, kids yearbooks, volunteer reference items that I have to hold onto, every packet of school pictures where you use 5 of them and don't know what to do with the rest, etc.

Sitting to the left of the cabinets in a fun spinning system that holds all my scrapbook embellishments and above that is where I keep my often looked at catalogs along with things I need by the door--coupons, gift cards and items I need to take somewhere such as deposits.

The pantry is pretty simple--great storage. I had an outlet put inside so my roomba is always charging and my pencil sharpener is always plugged in too, but I don't have to see it.

Here is a view from the pantry and mudroom end. The door, which is our side entrance, is in between the craft/office space and the pantry/mudroom space. At the end of this long room is our half bathroom. You can see that the side of the pantry is where I keep my calendar system. I use Outlook and print my calendar every few weeks for my family to view. That way my husband can't say he didn't know because I can then point out that the calendar is right by the door!

This mudroom area is right across from the pantry. Shoes go under the bench, and the left basket has my younger son's sports items and the right basket has things that need to go out of the house like umbrellas, sports glasses and anything that we need to take somewhere or that just belongs in our cars! The bins above have storage for things we need randomly like scouting items, cooler bag for long games, sports items, etc. The boxes above hold photos from my pre-digital days.

This space is maxed out in storage even though it is not a big room. I hope it shows you that you can get function out of any space with the right planning!

House Tour-Red and White 1/2 Bath

This is our 1/2 bathroom which is off our side entrance.

My "pretty" item in this bathroom is the sink and wall mounted faucet. I love vessel sinks but I am not contemporary at all and 90% of vessels are. I spent a long time shopping and found this one on ebay, perfect for our farmhouse! I love ebay!

My something "neat" item is next. This large corner behind the door needed something and these baskets were a housewarming gift from my friend Amy! We are in a rural 'swampy' area and have a pool so it is filled with bug spray and sunscreen along with lotions and, or course, TP!

The funny wire bride on top of the rolled towels is something I made for my wedding and the jar has a bridesmaid boquet in it. I was married in a rose garden and there are little red roses scattered at her neck and waist. I made 3 or 4 of these brides and they were spread out on the buffet table if I recall. I kept one and never had anything to do with it until we moved here. I thought it blended right into the red and white bathroom!

Since this is a house tour and I want you to feel like you are truly a guest here, I should show you what is always a conversation piece when I have company. If you were really here, you would come out of the bathroom chuckling and if you didn't live in our area, you would ask me WHY! It's pretty self explanatory--we have a septic and some don't understand that you can't put a lot down the drain! Every time I had a large group of girls over, we would be calling a plumber days later. SO, I made these and put little bags in them that I found online at a hotel supply site. There isn't one in my bathroom or my kids but the guestroom bath, this bathroom and the pool house all have a color coordinated bag! You do what you have to do right??

I love decorating this bathroom for Christmas and switch out all the smaller red towels with fun, whimsical ones and it's quite cute in here!

Tour of My Home

Welcome to my Home! If I were a Gardener, you'd want to see what my yard looked like, right? You can certainly see that I'm not a landscaper! That is on my list of things to do, I promise! Dentists had better have white teeth! And hairdressers should always have great hair! So I assume you wonder, how do I live? My #1 goal with my customers and with my blog is to bring beautiful living and functional living together and I would love to show you how I live.

We have been here since the Spring of 2007. I drew the plans for this house years ago and always had a 'vision' of what my dream home would look like. When we finally found land, I took my drawings to our structural engineer and we had blueprints done and submitted for permitting 2 months later! Nine months later, the house was done! You can do things fast when you know what you love and what you want. I enjoyed the process immensely and loved planning it all from the 'big picture' items to even the smallest details!

I'm still not done, but who ever is? In almost every room, I see things that I need to do or things that aren't complete in my opinion but I will go ahead and start this so you can see how it is now and as things change, I'll show you that as a project!

Because my goal is to always make something beautiful as well as functional, I will show you each room and then point out something "pretty" that was either a focal point or something I created for that space and then something "neat" that helps myself or my family use that space better or easier.

I will try to put up a new room every week until our tour is done!