Mi casa!

Last month I flew out to Idaho to finalize the plans on the house so they could start construction. I will try to make a really long story short by saying that it took me two half days. I came in significantly under budget on day 1 so I worked hard to remedy that on day 2 (ha)! It was a very short trip, but very fun, and very productive. So, let's dive right in with the good stuff:

 

A picture of the exterior. Colors: the roof and shutters will be black. Trim, the tops of the pillars, and garage doors will be white. The stucco (around the garage) will be dark gray (which I'm really hoping isn't going to end up looking like cement - fingers crossed). The vinyl siding (all the horizontal lines) will be a light gray/beige color. The shake (the stuff in that triangle section at the top of the house) will be dark gray. The front door will be bright yellow. I was going for a house that looked classic, but not really dark. Plus, a yellow door is just fun!

Exterior colors. The stone will be set at the bottom of the pillars. The light grayish square in the top left section is the main house color, that darker gray top right is the shake, the white square bottom left is the trim, and that yellow square is the door color (that Justin picked out - I love it)! Ignore that red rectangle, that's nothing.

Better pictures of the paint colors. Isn't it going to be lovely! Also, the stucco color is going to be somewhere between the two main house colors (but probably a little on the darker side).

Moving on (these are in sort of a random order):
Our kitchen cabinets! I love them! These were something that I'd originally skimped on, but when we realized we were underbudget, I upgraded! I love how simple they are. Also, they will be a bright white color. (They didn't have this door style in white, but you can imagine it can't you? It's glorious!)

My dishwasher.

My microwave (and our cabinetry will be raised above the microwave like it is here)>

My stove/oven. I am the most excited about this. It'll be gas and I'm so happy. Muy bonita!

Our kitchen faucet. We will have a stainless steel, undermounted sink to go with it.

Bathroom faucets.

My carpet. Oh, you guys, I wish we had feel-o-vision. You really need to feel how soft and luxurious this carpet is (so see, reason to visit). Trust me, it's ultra soft. I also like that it has flecks of color running through the shag. Gotta hide those stains! The carpet will go in the living room, all the bedrooms, up the stairs, and in the upstairs loft.

Okay, here we go: Top left - our carpet pad (not sure why the design studio lady threw that one in there). Bottom left: The tile that will be the fireplace surround. Middle bottom: The tile that will be in our entryway, master bathroom, and downstairs half bathroom (I love this tile). Above the entry tile: Our carpet (I've already talked about that). Above the carpet: the wall color. It doesn't look like much, but it's actually a light gray. That color will go on all the walls in the house. The trim and ceilings will be white. Middle middle: Our hardwood. This wood will be in the dining room, kitchen, and hallway leading from the kitchen to the garage. Bottom right: the travertine that will go in the master bathroom and downstairs half bath as a backsplash around the sink and as a decorative feature around the master tub. Middle right: that scrap of wood is there to show the color of the kitchen cabinets (and all the bathroom cabinets, since they'll also be white). Top right: our granite countertops. These will be in the kitchen and in the master bath and downstairs half bath. Justin picked out this granite and I think it's spot on. I love the lightness of it and the flecks of burgundy (which are hard to see in this pic - but they're there). Far top right: you can sort of see our kitchen backsplash - but we'll get to that later.

Here's a closer shot of how all the flooring options look together (with the wall color). I think the tile, wood, and carpet will flow together so nicely!

Backsplash time! Our kitchen backsplash will be the pewter subway tile. What's going to happen is that they will lay the pewter subway tile halfway up the backsplash. Then they'll lay one row of those rectangular tiles (but not all six rows of them, they'll only lay 4 rows). Then they'll finish with the pewter subway tiles. Make sense?

Basically, it'll look sort of similar to this (except our row of rectangular tiles won't be so thick AND, ours will be much, much more awesome looking):

Okay, bottom left: upstairs bathroom and laundry room countertops. Top left: upstairs bathroom and laundry room flooring. Middle left: travertine backsplash for the upstairs bathrooms and laundry room. Basically, I saved a little money by NOT upgrading the upstairs bathrooms and laundry room. I think they'll still look nice, but they won't be as nice as the downstairs stuff. I am sure some of you are thinking: "Woah! Just upgrade it all!!" But here's the truth: this ISN'T our forever home. We only intend to live in this house for 5 or so years before we build our perfect dream house. For this reason, we didn't really see the need to go for broke here. We had a budget and we stuck to it. That means that we skimped a little upstairs. No biggie. You already know what the rest of this stuff is. (Except for that little glass sample on the bottom left: that's the textured glass that will go in the window and the shower door of the master bathroom. It's cool.)

Our interior doors will look like this:

Our front door will look like this (except it will be yellow - man alive, I'm excited about this door):

Our shutters will look like this (and stay black):

And that's it (for now)! As a reward to myself for choosing some top notch features, I took myself to lunch at Boise Fry Company (see, it's already a tradition!). Sweet potato fries, brussel sprouts, and a delicious burger! YUM!

About a week after I came home, we got a message from our Idaho realtor with this picture:

They have started the work on our house! They were just leveling the dirt and getting everything ready, but Justin and I were so excited! A pile of dirt never looked so gorgeous! Also, these pictures make our lot look super small. And, while the lot isn't huge (it's .25 of an acre), it's certainly larger than what it appears in these pictures.

The following week, she sent this picture:

They've poured concrete and are putting in footings! The foundation of our house!

So these days, we basically live for pictures and updates from our Idaho realtor (who's awesome by the way) and when we do get them, we pour over the pictures and ooh and aah at the progress. We can't wait to go out there in a few weeks and see what it's looking like in person!

So that's it, we're down to our final stretch here in the Hoosier state. We close on our Indiana house in six days (SIX) and leave for good in 12! It's all happening so fast. I have so many conflicting emotions right now and, depending on the day, you'll either find me in tears or bouncing around with excitement. Real life starts soon. Real, no-more-school, no-more-training, life. It's exciting!

No, you da ho!

Hahaha! Get used to it people, because I'm going to use and abuse that joke for the remainder of my earthly days.

 

Last week, Justin and I flew out to Idaho for a house hunting vacation (yes, vacation, because we went with NO KIDS)!! The week leading up to the trip was incredibly stressful. My floors were raw, we were working desperately to get the house on the market, our dryer broke (hello, Laundromat, you're disgusting), and we had our first showing (before the house was officially listed). The cherry on top was when Justin tore his ACL the DAY before we left (you win again, church basketball, you win again). To say I was a basket case is a serious understatement. I was so tightly wound and stressed and emotional it was ridiculous.

 

The day before we left, my mom flew in. She is basically a saint who volunteered to stay with our children (in a hotel, mind you, because they couldn't walk on the floors while they were being finished) while we were gone. I took Josie with me to pick her up from the airport. When I saw her walking to our car I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. I'm 34 years old and I still, very much, need my mommy. Josie said it best. When she saw Grammy she said, "Mom! There she is! I'm so happy I could cry!" Me too little girl, me too.

 

Honestly, I don't know what I would have done without her. Just being with her for a few hours made me feel so much better. It was like, I knew everything was going to be okay because she was finally there. I really hope my kids still feel that way about me when they're adults! (**Yes, my mom is super cute and yes, she totally copied me with the bangs.**)

The next morning, Justin and I were out of there. The plane ride was actually really nice (for me anyway, poor Justin was such a trooper with his newly torn and incredibly swollen knee). I got to sit, read a book, drink some water, sleep a little (a very little), and have some fun chats with Justin. It's amazing how much I don't mind a long trip when there are no children involved.

We got to Idaho and I immediately rolled my pants up to capri length and fist pumped over my wise decision not to wear socks. The weather was in the 60's! It was dry! The sun was shining! Absolutely gorgeous.

We flew into Boise and, at the recommendation of one of the interns (who is from there) checked out its, sort of surprisingly, very cool and hip downtown. We ate at a really yummy restaurant and took a short walk of the downtown (but we didn't go too far - I was so, so afraid of doing more damage to Justin's knee - not that it could have gotten much worse). After that we drove to Jerome - an hour and a half away. Our hotel was nice and we were just relishing the time we got to spend alone (which, this month, meant we turned on the TV and watched our March Madness brackets bust wide open).

The next day, Monday, was house hunting. As much as I hate (HATE) selling a house, that's how much I love (LOVE) looking for a new one. I adore house hunting. It is possibly one of my favorite things in this life. Even when we're not looking to move, I am constantly looking up houses for sale. Houses for me, for my siblings, for my parents, for my friends, etc. Seriously, I love it. So this was like Christmas. We looked at about 10 existing homes. Some were immediately ruled out (the house with the giant pond in the backyard and the mural of Tuscany painted on the living room wall) and some were awesome but not for us.

 

Then we found this awesome foreclosure. It had everything we could ever want in a house. 7 acres of land, 5200 square feet, updated EVERYTHING, gorgeous. Seriously. It was built for 1.2 million and then the owners walked away. We could have snatched that baby up for $400,000. And we were tempted, oh boy were we tempted. We got preapproved at the bank and everything. We both really, really wanted this house. In the end though, we decided against it. The main deciding factor was that if, for some reason, this job didn't work out, we'd be stuck with a million dollar home that we'd never be able to sell (people in Jerome just don't spend that kind of money on a house). We don't expect that to happen to us, but we'd heard so many cautionary tales that we just couldn't pull the trigger. Not going to lie. I was pretty bummed about it (even though I am 100% sure we made the right decision) but Justin just told me to make notes of what I liked in that house and, someday, we'll build the one I'm dreaming of.

 

So, after a hard day of house hunting, we didn't see anything (reasonable) that we thought would work for our family. Then our realtor took us into this new development. The homes are still being built (although it's mostly all developed at this point). She showed us around and showed us the largest lot that was still available (.23 of an acre) and told us that one option was to build there. I'd looked into it a little bit before we went out and had actually seen a floor plan I liked. Justin and I took about a half a day to mull it over and then we decided to do it. So we got land!

 

Standing together on our land. Notice the blue sky. It was heaven. 

Us on our land. .23 of an acre in a master planned development is far from our dream home, but we're so excited because this is going to be a great place for our family for the next 5 or so years while our kids grow and we save the money to build the house of our dreams on the acreage of our dreams.

While we aren't excited about the small lot size or the proximity of our neighbors, there are a lot of things we LOVE about this neighborhood.
1. See that brick building on the left (in the bottom picture)? That's the elementary school where Noah and Josie will go. Awesome, right? They do elementary school a little different out here. There are two K-3 schools and one 4th and 5th grade center. The 4th and 5th grade center (where Clayton will obviously go) is the furthest school from our house (counting the high school and middle school). Justin and I drove one day from that school to our lot. Less than 4 minutes!! Sweet!
2. What you can't see is that right across the street from the elementary school is a big park. So our yard might not be huge, but we'll be in easy walking distance to a nice park.
3. The church is about a 10 minute walk. I would absolutely NOT do that on a Sunday (in heels, no way). But for scouts or mutual, absolutely.
4. There are sidewalks throughout the neighborhood and, at the end of the development, it drops you off onto a nice biking, running, walking path that goes for three miles one way. It's really an awesome location. I can actually see myself taking a daily run on that path (once I get used to the elevation, of course)!
5. When we went there to look at a few spec homes we noticed that there were kids EVERYWHERE! Honestly, we saw zero adults, but there were tons of kids out. They were running in between yards and down the sidewalks and riding bikes. It was awesome! Especially since there seemed to be quite a few boys who looked like they were Clayton and Noah's ages. Instant friends for our kids. And, from what we could tell, apparently I could just send them outside all day to play with friends! Gotta love small town living.
6. Our realtor was telling us who lives in this community. The new veterinarian, the high school band director, a jewler, a manager at one of the dairies, etc. Basically, it's a community full of young professionals and their families. Perfect for us.
After learning all of this we were sold. Hard. I honestly can't wait!

This is Justin. Licking a rock that we took from our property. You better believe that we brought that rock back with us to Indiana!

These are our neighbors. We are kind of at the end of another dead end street (which we absolutely love). Our realtor told us that the people who live in the green house have four young kids too! Yay!

After signing all the paperwork, we made an appointment to go to the design center in Boise to choose all our finishings. Honestly, I couldn't wait. Being able to choose my own stuff!?! Awesome. Especially because we are viewing this house as a temporary home, this gives me the opportunity to get a few things figured out before we build "the big one" someday!

If you want to see our floor plan, here's the link:
http://www.cbhhomes.com/floor-plan/legacy/sundown-3200/
The only thing that will be different is that we are taking bedroom #4 upstairs and converting it into another bathroom (I really don't need that many bedrooms, but when we have guests, we'll be so happy to have that extra bathroom)! They are currently working on the updated plans, but I don't have them yet.

We drove to Boise on Thursday (we were leaving from there on Friday) and went to eat before our design appointment. We went to Boise Fry Company! This place is going to become a tradition when we go into Boise for sure! Oh my goodness, amazing!

Then it was on to the design studio. Basically, we spent 4 hours there, choosing finishings. Here's a very small sneak peek:

This will (probably) be the flooring. Wood in the dining room, kitchen, entryway, and mud area. Shag carpet in the bedrooms and all throughout the upstairs (well, except the bathrooms and laundry room). Tile in the downstairs bathroom and master bathroom (the two upstairs bathrooms will be getting linoleum - I know linoleum isn't great, but the price was right).

Kitchen preview. The wood floor, the white cabinet (this isn't the actual cabinetry we'll be getting, it's close, but not the same - we are using it because it's white, which is the color we'll be doing), the light colored granite countertop, and the dark gray subway tile for the backsplash with the long rectangular tiles thrown in about halfway for one row. I love it and cannot wait to cook in this kitchen!

Exterior. The middle color (which is a light gray) will be the majority of the house, the white will be the trim, the darker gray will be at the top of the house, the stone will go around the bottom, and the door will be daisy yellow!

The fireplace surround (I think). A large, light gray, glass tile with the long rectangular ones running through it to tie it into the kitchen (it'll be a double sided fireplace between the living room and the dining room so it'll be visible in the kitchen and we thought it'd be nice to have them coordinate somehow).

Half bath sink.

The bathroom faucets (the kitchen one we picked out is also very similar). They will be in a brushed nickel finish though, not so shiny.

Our shutters (bottom left). They will stay black.

After our appointment, we ate one last meal in fabulous downtown Boise, spent one last night yelling at basketball on TV, and then flew home.

As far as the house goes, they are currently working on my updated floor plans. When they're finished (hopefully next week), we'll sign off and they'll start construction! We have a tentative closing date of August 15th. I really want to be in there before the new school year starts but we'll have to see. I'm not really holding my breath for that one.

We came home to four happy kids, brand new floors, and my awesome parents. Seriously, they rock. My mom did most of the heavy lifting. She did crafts with the kids, swam with them almost every day at the hotel, took them all to the Blue and Gold banquet (for scouts), and shared a bed with two kids every night. Seriously, I need to give her some sort of award.

 

My dad came out and helped Clayton start on his Pinewood Derby car. My dad is kind of a Pinewood Derby legend (Clayton thinks he's famous) and it made my heart so happy to watch the two of them work together. My kids are beyond lucky to have these selfless and loving grandparents!

Now we're back to stress over keeping the house clean for showings, surgery for Justin's knee (oh how wrecked it is!), spring break (next week! Yay!), and preparing for our move. It's really making me a little crazy, but I know it's going to be so very worth it. I am excited for our new adventure. Now that we're to this point it seems so real and I feel like these next three months are just going to drag. When they start building our house, I'm going to have our realtor go by and take pictures for us, so those will definitely make it on the blog! Stay tuned! Big things are happening!!

Drum roll please...

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath to find out where the Smith's will be moving to next. Will it be Oregon? Will it be Idaho? Will it be Indiana? Will it be some previously unmentioned exotic destination, like Hawaii or Fiji? (Okay, maybe not some exotic destination, but a girl can daydream.)

Well, wait no longer (and, as always, I appreciate you overlooking the shakiness and ignoring my weird video voice):

That's right folks! The Smiths will be moving to Jerome, Idaho! A few facts about Jerome:
-It's population is about 12,000
-It's about 10 minutes outside Twin Falls. Twin Falls is a bigger city with shopping (Target, Costco), restaurants, etc., etc. This was a big deal for me.
-It's about an 8 hour drive to Vegas! Holla!
-It has good public schools (they teach guitar in 5th grade!) and quite a few preschool options for Sammie.
-It's got a high desert climate. This means warm, dry summers (yay for dry) and moderate winters. I was told that they rarely get snow that sticks to the ground. Apparently shoveling your drive isn't something that people do often out here. Justin and I both like the sound of that!
-It's about an hour away from Boise which is the capitol and also a fairly large city so there's lots to do relatively close.
-It's legal in Twin Falls to base jump without a permit so apparently people regularly just jump off a bridge into the Snake River Gorge. Wild! (Side note: people are idiots.)

Bottom line: We're really excited. When Justin and I left our interview there last month we both knew it was the place for us. This decision turned out to be surprisingly easy. I never in a million years thought we'd pick Idaho (Justin is just as shocked as I am) but we know we're making the right choice and we can't wait to start our lives there!

Idaho? No, you da ho!
Ha! Get used to that one people! It's the 'Hoosier Daddy' for the next phase of my life!