House Pictures - Now with Siding!

I've been waiting to post pictures until the siding is done. But I feel like sharing a little early.  This has been Brad's project this summer when he isn't at work.  He has done a beautiful job and the back of the house is actually even a little further now then when I took these.  It's going to be so beautiful when complete.  Having pictures to share now will make future pictures more fun anyway.  :)

The siding is a muted green color.

(Above) This is the east side of the house - the one that faces the fields and not the road.  People driving by don't get to see it, but this is what I see when I pull in and get out of my van.  Makes me smile pretty much every time.

(Above) This is the public face of the house.  Faces north - you can see it as you drive up.  The gables will get a split shake shingle in a dark brown.  Added little detail we are excited about.  The porch has a future as well, but serves it's purpose quite well right now.  In fact, it's totally fine with me that you can only access it from the house.  Makes it tough for animals and strangers to be up there.  :)

(Above) This is the west side and faces the road.  The picture makes it look dark.  Looking forward to some creative landscaping around those basement windows.

(Above) This is the south side and the most complicated as far as siding goes.  The little angles on each side of the chimney had to be roofed, and Brad had to build a little roof thing over there on the right (above that door), just to even things out and make it look right.  Plus there are just a lot of tiny little pieces of siding to cut.  That skinny roof over there doesn't actually serve much of a purpose other than aesthetically.  The house plans had a screened in porch coming out of that door, so eventually we will add that.  Looking forward to the chimney being trimmed out.  I think it will look really cool with the finishing touches.  

Oh, yeah, and check out that grass!!  Very fun to have grass over most of our yard now.  Still pretty bumpy, but one thing at a time. :)

Ever had a house remodeling project go on FOREVER?  Yeah, we can relate to that.  Building, remodeling, whatever.  Pretty sure on almost everyone's house, there is always something that needs to be done.  

Look!

As much as I love photos and scrapbooking, I'm terrible at getting pictures posted online.  I just don't have the patience for it.  But let's start 2012 out with some pictures of our new life.  I am back - yearning to blog, excited for the new year and our new life in our new home.  We have new goals now, a new schedule and a new routine.  I'm excited about what this year will bring for us.

A lot of people have asked to see pictures of our house.  Remember - I have 3 kids one of whom feels it's his mission to undo everything I do.  So getting pictures of a clean room is a challenge.  Somehow, though, I've gathered a variety of pictures showing some of my favorite things about the house and our life here. 

One of my favorite things about my kitchen - there are a lot actually - is my pantry.  The right side, modeled here by Edwin, is food.  The left side (fixed shelves instead of the pull out) is for art supplies for my children.  The first week Eddie thought climbing in and out of the moving lower drawer was pretty awesome. 

And could he be more adorable here?  Yes, he needed a haircut.  But it only added to his charm.  :)  And while we're at it, here he is in another favorite activity that first week.  This is the view of the back of the cabinets under our countertop (and the back cabinet on the end). 

Turns out I did manage to snap a picture of our living room after I decorated for Christmas.  It gives an overview of the room that is decent.  The high ceiling makes the room look enormous here, but it's actually pretty cozy. 

The wall with the fireplace is the south wall.  The opposite living room wall is the open staircase, which you can see the start of behind Edwin here.  Mostly this is just a super cute picture of my boy so I had to include it.  :)

Standing below the staircase, this is what you see.  It's a ton of crazy angles that my husband figured out to make our house the way it is.  For the math-challenged like me, I can't imagine attempting this.  For my geometrically-minded husband, it was a success.  He did a beautiful job on trimming the stairway too.  It's not quite finished, but it still looks amazing. 

All the woodwork was stained by my mother-in-law, her sister, or me.  Eileen did the most for sure - all the baseboard, and it looks incredible.  Here is my laundry room door for a better idea of the style and the colors that flow through our house.  As you can see, the door is not trimmed yet.  That will happen eventually.  (Uppercase Living Expression courtesy Jenny DeSchepper.  Love her.  Love that stuff.  The door says THE LAUNDRY ROOM: get all the good dirt here. :)

Another favorite - we had this deep space next to the refrigerator where I wanted to keep my recipe books.  We had a cabinet put in place there so it would continue the flow of the cabinets.  I love this space!!

Right below that is my tupperware cabinet.  Organizing guru and good friend, Jan, came over to help me make it work.  Tupperware storage has always been impossible for me, but this system is actually working!!

In celebration of our new home, Sophie's birthday, and the Christmas season we opened our house up the week before Christmas and had a big party.  Here is Sophia in our kitchen.  (We have a formal dining room, but we currently have it set up as an office).  This is where we spend most of our time.  I love the big windows and all the light that comes in.  I had been worried it wouldn't be big enough for us, but it's perfect.

Every day I look around in amazement that we really live here now!  It's changed everything.  We are so thankful.  There is still plenty of work to be done on the house.  But it seems everyone I talk to feels the same way about their house.  Home building is only partially about the structure you live in.  As I was recently reminded by an inspiring woman, building a home is largely about the relationships it shelters.

The home building continues. 

Clare + Camera = Ham

These pictures of Clare are hilarious so I'm sharing. When there is a camera around she thinks it's fun to make a series of funny faces for the pictures and then look at the camera to see herself. :) It always includes a fish face, tongue-sticking-out, a kissy face, and other various looks she can come up with before the camera disappears again. She does this with pretend cameras also, AND will request that I make these faces for pictures she takes of me with her "camera" as well. :) quite amusing.