Last night we had our first snow storm. It was awesome! Then today the house was so bright with all the snow outside. It was beautiful. I took these pictures this morning. Hope everyone got to see snow and is safe and sound! Marty slid off the road turning onto our street. My sister was at the intersection and saw the whole thing and was totally impressed by his calmness and the way he avoided a telephone pole, and just got back on the road. She was ready to pull him out of a ditch if need be, but luckily that didn't happen! Tis' the season! Much love to you all!

Dec '08

House warming party a success!

Ok, so I cannot believe that we didn't get get a single picture of this great event last night! Marty and I were giving tours all night to nearly 50 people (adults and children). I didn't get to taste any of the food till nearly 9:00pm when just a few guests remained. We stayed up till 12:30 am playing speed scrabble with a few friends. It was such a fun evening. People slowly trickled in and then the whole house was bustling with people. Marty said he looked into the kitchen, and it looked like everyone had migrated into it. Others sat on the sofas watching the slideshow of our house being built, while a couple people cozied up in the family room chatting in the comfy arm chairs. The basement was a hit with the kids, especially the pool table, which we had to put the cover on, because someone's fingers were going to get smashed. I had brought all the toys down there too, so they did bowling, built a huge train track, stacked legos, played with beanie babies, and had a great time. We figured out that there were 14 children and 34 adults that passed through our home last night. People were really wowed, awe strucked and amazed. We also recieved some nice house plants--a poinsetta and a Christmas cactus, some gift certificates to local nurseries, a great plaque/sign, candle holder, and even a fig tree! We had a blast, and hope that those who attended did too. We look forward to having just a family over at a time though so we can visit more and play more games :o) Oh and you can't miss our house now-- I lined the driveway with alternating strands of blue and green lights. I really am turning into my mother. I'm still debating about whether to keep them up year round though, like she does :o)


The sign from Hailey and Claudia, put up immediately on a nail I already had up in the basement over our mini Christmas display. I just love this saying!!

Our first thanksgiving in the new house

There's nothing I love more than food and family, which is why I love Thanksgiving so much! The new kitchen is a dream to cook in, and the open floor plan made it so easy to talk to people from the kitchen. My mom, sister, brother, and our friend Mandi came over to celebrate. Of course we ate too much, but that's part of the beauty of this holiday. Then there's leftovers for a week which I love even more. I made a turkey and stuffing casserole tonight, mmm. We also played a good game of Cranium, and danced in the family room. Coco can really bust a move. I'm so grateful at this time of year to refelect on my blessings, and to express gratitude for all I've been blessed with. I love my family so much and am so grateful to have them so close.

Basement up and running

Our friend, Christian Beck who helped Marty put in the laminate flooring in the basement, gave us a pool table that someone had given to him, so now we have a working game room! The two of them spent 4 hours playing last night. Some other friends have an air hockey table that they plan to give us when they get tired of it. Now all we need is the flat screen TV and surround sound speakers and we never have to leave the house again! :o) Our dream of having a game room in the basement is coming true a lot sooner than we thought. I'm so glad we decided to finish the basement! Marty also enjoys coming down to work in the mornings. Can't wait for our house warming party next week (Friday Dec 5th 6:30 pm). Hope to see you all there!


Christian chillin' in the game room


Guy playing pool with a short stick


Marty hard at work

Laminate flooring goes in

Coco now has no safe place except for the laundry room where she doesn't slip and slide all over the place when overly excited. Marty and our friend Christian Beck started laying the laminate flooring last night after work, and I think they'll be finished tonight. Of course Coco had to supervise to make sure they were doing it right, because how could I tell? I'm positive it would've taken at least twice as long if Marty and I were doing it by ourselves. Christian helps his dad install wood floors so he's got considerably more experience, plus the right kinds of saws! We'd like to have our house warming party in a couple weeks but wanted to see if we could get this floor finished first. We still have to paint the trim in the basement, but we might be able to get that done before the party too, we'll see.

From dreams to reality

My friend Kirsten thought it would be cool to see the computer generated pictures from the design program I used to design the house, and then look at them next to the completed project so here they are. Amazing how close they are!

You can see I added a window where I thought I'd have a hutch. I love the window so much better!

You don't even want to know how many hours I spent on this program, working on the floor plans! Glad that's behind us now.

The kitchen looks pretty much identical, just with more lighting. Don't worry I don't usually have them all on at the same time.

Notice I got rid of the 1/2 wall, and Linoleum flooring in the kitchen. Also the kitchen wall color is now a sage green, not a blue.

Where we started

Our little cabin on Bank Road

Sarah B. thought it would be fun to post some pictures of the cabin, just to show what a small space we lived in to save up to build our house. The cabin had a loft where we slept, a place for our desk (no dining table), a small kitchen with very limited storage, and a small living room with just enough room for our couch and TV stand. Of course we had a bathroom and 1 closet as well. It was about 350 sq ft. It was definately cozy! In the new house, our garage is actually bigger than our whole cabin!

We spent just over 3 years in the cabin, saving for, planning, and designing the new house. We've been in the new house for just over a week but it feels like we've lived here forever. Maybe because I've been seeing it on paper, and imagining it for so long. Whatever the reason, it just feels like home. We love it. My mom and I made dinner together in the new kitchen--ahhh what a joy! We used our china for the first time, and sat down all together at the dining room table. It was so nice. Then mom grabbed her flashlight, and with her dog Dodge at her side, headed back home.

Front door/office area under the loft

Kitchen/Living room

Back porch/yard

Dinner anyone?

The dining set came today and it's even more beautiful than I remember. Of course there's no scratches on it, like the display model (that we were going to get), and the microfiber fabric coordinates perfectly with our new furniture. I can't wait to have our first thanksgiving here. It's hard to believe that Marty and I have been married for 3 years and this is our first dining table. Marty was going to surprise me and have dinner all ready for us so we could eat at the new table, but some friends from out of town are taking us out to eat. I told him I'd definately take a rain check. Speaking of rain, this weather here is down right depressing. It's very dark and dreary. It's been pouring down rain all day! Welcome to winter in Washington. At least we have a nice dry house to hibernate in :o)

ALL MOVED IN!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry to keep you all deprived of picts of the house. We didn't take many of the unpacking stage because everything was such a huge mess. We started unpacking Thursday night and moving over the big stuff. Marty's parents came up to help, and we just worked and worked and worked! While everyone else went to bed, I'd be up till 3 am putting things away. We just have a few more boxes of photo albums that will go down in the basement once we have shelving up. We have a place now for everyting, its amazing. I want to wait until we get the basement flooring in before we have the house warming party. Hopefully we can pick up the flooring this weekend. We have the upstairs though and it has plenty of room!

How nice it is to have a place for guests to stay, a great kitchen to cook in, comfortable seating for everyone, a bedroom you can stand up in, a closet for just clothes, a washer and dryer, and room for Coco! I could go on and on, I just love every inch of this house. There are little things I may have done differently, but for the most part everything turned out just the way I had wanted. Its a little surreal though looking at the finished project and being able to remember so clearly what it looked like 7 months ago--all trees and bushes! You're all welcome to stop by anytime. I don't think we'll be leaving the house much, so there's a very good chance you'll catch us at home. Or just give me a call. Hope to welcome you into our new home soon!

Unpacking--what a mess, and view when you walk in the front door

Living room, Coco's corner, and hallway to the bedrooms.

Kitchen--I made my first meal in it last night! I love this kitchen!

Cozy seating by the fire, and a beautiful view of the trees from the dining room

Future nursery, guest bedroom, and master bedroom

Somebody pinch me!

The day we've been waiting for has finally arrived, we got the ok to move into our new house!!!! I still can't really believe it. I feel like I'm dreaming. A different inspector came out and she was great! She saw the grass seed, the hand rail, and the finished basement, and just signed the final approval. She didn't even come upstairs. Which was probably good because there was a hole in the roof where they were putting in the stove pipe, which is also done. I can't wait to go home and start a fire. We're going to spend the night over there on one of the new airbeds we got for our guests, and then this weekend we'll move in the bigger furniture. AHHHH, I can't believe it, I'm just soooooooooo excited right now. I have hardly stopped smiling all afternoon!

Still no certificate of occupancy :o(

Ok, so these are pretty boring pictures, but they're all I've got :o) We were able to finish 3/6 closets with organizers, and hopefully will get the rest done this week. We spent a fortune on the materials buying them on the island. Literally double what we would've paid at Lowes. I didn't want to make the trip to Seattle Sat to get the stuff, 'cause I really wanted to get the organizers up (in case we could start moving in this week). However it was a lot of money and I should've just made the trip to town! Oh well. If you couldn't tell I'm a "get it done, want it done, NOW, kind of person" (not much patience).


I'm pretty annoyed because I haven't heard from our contractor since Tues (he left on wed to got to a wedding in Mexico), so I have no idea if he spoke with the inspector, and whether we'll be able to be re-inspected this week. He was suppose to call me back wed, urgh!! We've only got 1/2 the yard seeded because the excavator never came back this week either to level out the dirt piles in the yard, which means we didn't plant grass on that side yet. It is just pure tortue to have this big, beautiful, new, warm home sitting there and no one living in it! On a positive note, the wood stove installers are finally coming on Tuesday to put in the new stove, yay!!! Oh, and we got a call that our furniture is ready at Macy's too, yay!! SO when we do finally get that occupancy we'll have our furniture, and be able to curl up next to a warm fire, plus space in the closets to organize everything! If only the inspector was from Vashon, right gals!

Thanks for all your encouragement and support. I need it. I really appreciate it. It helps me from not going totally nuts to know I have friends who empathize and see things as I do. Love to you all!!

Minor fixes

Here's a couple of the "fixes" they did today--handrail, and arrows highlighting where it says tempered glass.


Cabinet pulls went on today. I love the cabinets even more now. The electricians came and installed the undercabinet lighting, and the door bell as well today. It's killing me that EVERYTHING is all set to move in and we can't.


I know, it's totally ridiculous all the stuff this new guy had a problem with. Marty will be out planting grass this week or weekend. Trace has never had an inspector say you have to have grass. Hopefully the final grading can get done before then, if not we'll just have to re-seed everything again after the final grading. I want to move in too, Hailey :o( Trace will be talking with the inspector tomorrow. We may not be ready for re-inspection until next Tues. :o( Guess that gives me more time to clean & pack :o)