Look What I Found...

Remember my living room, all painted mauve and sponge painted white on top? I suspected wood paneling underneath one of the walls.

And I was right.

Naturally, it needed to be uncovered...

Art Studio

And finally, after living here nearly a year, and after taking off pretty much a year and a half from anything art related, we have our art studio. The first day it was operational, the kids and I literally spent the entire day together in it. It is what makes me happiest, I'll be honest.

The space we had for this was a large unfinished area of the house. We needed to divide it into two rooms though, with my husband needing a larger portion of the room for his home office. Of the large unfinished space,  7' x 14'  could be for the studio. We also needed my art room to double as space for the laundry room, food storage, sewing room, and future kitchen when we redo our kitchen. Sound daunting? Our mantra throughout the planning process was "think like New Yorkers!!" And in the end, I was able to consolidate what was in our previous home 2 much larger rooms, into this small space.

Entering the art studio. Sewing table pushed against door to furnace room since we rarely need to get in there.

The kids work area. Cabinets in this room are all from Ikea, as are most of the other storage solutions. These cupboards contain the kids art supplies as well as mine.

Laundry at the end of the room. We had to get new stackables because we really needed to squeeze every inch of workspace out of this room that we could.

Most of these cupboards contain our food storage.

The computer is only temporarily in here. Like I said, we need every inch of workspace possible. Also, we put in a mini-fridge for when we will be using this room as our kitchen. Right now it contains "special drinks" for my husband. (Anyone else hooked on Bundaberg Ginger Beer and San Pellegrino Aranciata and Limonata?)

This is the larger space that is my husbands office, which is separated from my art studio by a pocket door.

Bathroom Renovation Update

A big sigh of relief. Phase Two of the renovation is nearly complete. An office, an art room, but first up, a bathroom. I am a before and after junkie. ANY before and after - a haircut, a weight loss, a good cleaning, and especially, a renovation. Good or bad. I love to see what people do. So, lest we forget, bathroom BEFORE:

And after. We demo'd the whole bathroom and started fresh, mostly out of necessity. Carpet needed to go, and a heat vent in the floor had gotten rusty. We knew we wanted to make the whole back area a big, open shower, and I'm really happy with the result.

We really didn't know where to start on a bathroom. We had seen plenty we liked, but nothing we absolutely loved. Finally we came across some tile that we loved (American Olean, for the mosaic and the blue on the wall) and went from there. I had also seen some frameless shower doors and thought they looked so cool, we went with it. Also, we really loved the Duravit sink.

I love cutouts in showers (mostly because I dislike hang-y, caddy things because they look like an afterthought).

FiFi

I feel like life has been "not normal" for the past year. The kids know it too. M regularly prays for "things to get back to normal" and L asks when we'll be unpacking the "project stuff." Ahh, poor kids, life really has been turned upside down. But some of the "not normal" is good. Actually, most of it is great, but new little sis is the best part of the change so far.

Called "FiFi" by G. (**note, her name is not actually fi fi.) Called just "New Baby" by L.

Part of our "not normal" is that we have been living in our living room for 3 weeks and will be in there for 2 more. So if you are thinking of moving into an older home that needs work, and then remodeling while you live in it, as we have done, this is how you should be prepared to live:

And even though our house is a constant parade of electricians, patchers, plumbers, painters, window repairman, carpenters....I don't have many pictures to show yet. However, the stairwell lighting has been changed. Yay! Even more yay for extremely good online deals that make the lighting you want affordable. We got these George Nelson lamps, only for a fraction of the price online because we found them (slightly) used. (left is before, right is after)

The move: Why we didn't just build

I include this only by way of information for others that may have similar interests as us, and who may toy with the idea of building a "dream home" that is more contemporary, or modern.

After several years of trying to hunt down the perfect house, and being involved in a few deals on houses that didn't work out, we thought "why not build? It's the perfect time. Land is cheap! You can use your own builder! Your own plans!" And nearly every builder/lot/neighborhood used exactly that to try to entice you to buy their land. And they were all right, to a point.

New living room, another view. Change lighting, knock out part of wall on the right to open it up partially into the kitchen.

After a few frustrating failures in buying other homes, we got a babysitter one Saturday and scouted out every SINGLE piece of available land in our county and the one south of us. We saw it all. Most of it was easy to weed out. But we narrowed it down to a few and got really excited, because, like I said, builders now are pretty much willing to do anything to have work in this market.

We wanted to build something in a Mid-Century Modern/Contemporary style. And we thought that when you bought and owned land, that you got to build what you wanted. I will only share our first experience in trying to buy land/build what we want, but it was a scenario that was repeated a number of times.

 This is the basement bathroom, slated to be totally gutted. Should be a real beauty of a before and after.

So we're ready to buy a lot, and I decide to talk to the city to make sure our plans were within code. The city planner told me that they weren't - that their city didn't allow flat roof structures. After lengthy discussions with him as to why, it was an ordinance put into place specifically to prevent homes like what we wanted to build from being built in their city. Ok, I say, so a butterfly roof then, is that ok. Well, says city planner of the city I am starting to dislike, not exactly - people in this city have been known to sue (sue?!) if they feel a house is being built that will "lower their property value". I felt like my head was going to explode. NO, I am by no means rich, but I was not going to build a "trashy" house. In fact on the street we were wanting to build on, it would have easily been one of the nicer houses. So city planner of city I am now starting dislike its people says I need to petition the neighbors on the street, show them the plans and get them to agree to it. So I do it. I print out plans, write a letter, and hit the pavement.

In defense of the neighbors, most of them could care less. However, half of them were very concerned. In conversations with them, they called my modern house plans "trashy". They were concerned about their property value. They said the house didn't match the rest of the houses on the street. (Keep in mind, this was a street with a log cabin looking home, a mcmansion (or 3) and and arts and crafts style home). There was no cohesion in look anyway.

Master Bedroom in new house. Chandelier is being changed and moved, curtains will be changed. Carpet and paint. But the wood paneling will stay.

So we bailed on that particular street. But the scenario was repeated in one form or another in many other lots. They tout that you can use your own plans...but only if you want something with stucco and brown brick, typically with a minimum of 1700 sq feet on one level, and not to be smaller in total than 3300 square feet. You had to have a vinyl fence, and your plans had to pass an architectural review commitee. And there is nothing wrong with that kind of house - its just not at all what we wanted to do.

We were beyond frustrated with our experience in trying to build. Were there lots that we could of gotten away with doing what we want? Absolutely. In not super great parts of Salt Lake. And I love Salt Lake. But I'm not single/without children. I couldn't see having my kids make the biggest sacrifice in our move just so I could have a house I really wanted. What is best for them was way at the top of the list of what was important in the move. We were only committed to make this happen if we could keep them in a safe, child friendly neighborhood.

What we learned:
1.If you want to do something different, modern, contemporary, or otherwise, check with the city first.
2. The only county you could get away with it in Northern Utah is Salt Lake. Maybe Utah County, but we didn't check there. Or if you buy land in a rural/mountain area where your modern home will not be seen by anyone. And I'm not being sarcastic - that's the truth.

Why move...

1. We traded a 45-50 minute commute for a 15-20 minute one. We tried public transportation but that took 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Each way. Not ideal for a man who essentially has two jobs. (Day, and freelance).

Stairway in new house. To be done: take carpet off stairs, refinish the wood underneath, cover in these, new, up-to-code railings, put up new lighting, remove wood paneling that is sliver-causing, remove rock garden and turn into a play area. Not because I don't like the rock garden, but because it's kind of a bad idea with children.

#2. We traded New for Old. (Or you could call that "new" for "lots of work".) We've pretty much always wanted an older home to update. This could be a post all by itself, but I'll spare you the details for now. We've been looking for several years and had several failed attempts at moving, but, finally, it all aligned. Good house, good neighborhood, closer to work.

Entryway in new house. To be done, remove wood paneling(maybe), replace tile with either new tile or hardwood.We may end up going with something similar though, still not sure,

#3. We traded bigger for littler. !!?? What??!! You downsized??? Yes, but only by a few hundred square feet. We have always kind of devoured architecture magazines and books and decided that in general, when you have less space you have to be more creative, and being more creative is way more fun, and yeilds super interesting results. Also, you fill up whatever size house you have, so moving has given us a really really good reason to purge of all the "stuff" we don't need. It's sickening. Once again, "stuff" could be a whole other post. But for now, it's simple: less "stuff" to take care of means more time to do things you want to do. I am well aware that my status as a middle-class American puts me at a much higher living standard then the rest of the world, and therefore will never, ever, lament that I don't have a 4500 square foot house.

Only a partial view of the new living room.  To be done: paint over that mauve paint, retile fireplace with something stoneish, new window coverings.

#4 We traded more rooms for less rooms. Kind of related to #3, I guess. Actually, totally related to #3. We have less rooms, but the ones we have are bigger. I've never felt like kids have to have their own room. I've also never felt like I needed 3 living rooms, with therefore a need for 3 sets of couches. We'll all be in closer quarters and I think as a family, that brings us closer to our goal of togetherness. Bryan and I will share studio space, Kids will share rooms.

Back deck. Runs length of the house, floor to ceiling windows along the back of the house. It's one of the big selling features, in my mind. The first thing I do each morning is throw open all the curtains. I love it. **And yes, those railings are insanely dangerous and are in the process of being brought up to code - in a good way, I promise.

The last disco party

With most of our things in boxes (but not the disco ball!) we decided to have one last party in our first home. The home we lived in for 9 years. The home we brought home 3 (of our soon to be 4) children home to. It still makes me a little sad to see this disco party picture, because that room was my favorite one of the whole house. I love the orange grove Bryan painted. I loved my two oldest sharing that room, sleeping in their little beds that my dad built for them. And, I loved disco parties with the kids.

And even in our new house if we painted the orange grove, it probably wouldn't feel the same. So we won't. And now, I don't even know if we'll be having disco parties. Mostly because at the end of this last disco party, or rather, what caused the party to end, the disco ball crashed, maybe beyond repair. Maybe some things are better left behind.

The move is exciting. We love our new house. We love our new neighborhood. It was the right thing to do. But it doesn't change that most of our married life memories took place there. So many great friends and neighbors that we left. So we need to make new memories in our new home, so that we can all grow attached to it. And we will. Starting with welcoming a new little sister. That will be a pretty good place to start.