Thursday, September 24, 2020

Back to School and a High Schooler/Driver!

 Welp, the Covid-19 pandemic threw a wrench in the school year we'd always envisioned. This was supposed to be the year Lorelei walked through the doors of her high school, a freshman, and Gryffin started 7th grade. I was supposed to be working at Gryffin's school.


(Seriously can't believe this girl is in high school!)

Instead, the kids are home learning online through Virtual Ed, which has had a lot of hiccups and scheduling snafus, but that we're also super grateful for because we aren't of the opinion that schools right now are safe. This week, our country hit 200,000 deaths, and with an aerosolized virus, being huddled into small classrooms doesn't feel like a great idea, and our health department has strongly advised the school leaders against it.

Feeling unsafe, I quit my school job before the school year started because our district decided to ignore the gating criteria of the Johnson County Dept. of Health, and settled for a more watered down version... so I got a new job and start next week. After training, I get to work from home, so it's perfect! 

Meanwhile, the kids are absolutely LOVING getting to school from home, and think this is the best school year ever. Seriously, they're glowing. And I kind of love that they love being at home, even as much as I'd hoped for a normal school year.

We did the usual start-of-year traditions: no-bake cookies on back to school week, and a visit from the Backpack Fairy who brought some Canadian cherry blaster candies and water balloons, both a huge hit.



Lorelei went to the high school to pick up her MacBook.

And Gryffin invited friends over on the first day of school for what we now call "lunch bunch." These boys (almost all in Virtual Ed, and most of them scouts) gather in a different driveway every single day at lunch time. 





This was our first day driveway lunch bunch. Gryffin wouldn't cooperate for pics.

I joke that each time I pull away, I feel like they're turning into this bunch of old men I photographed in Greece. Ha!

Most of the time, the kids are taking over the dining room table for their Zoom classes, but sometimes go off into their own rooms. I don't check on them too much; they're both responsible and I trust them to be on top of things, which is such a huge blessing. This photo was from their first day, which was a bit confusing especially for Lorelei, who has been assigned no less than four AP Euro teachers. We're just doing our best to give everyone grace, and hope that grace is returned in this tumultuous year. So far, the teachers have been champs, and so have these kids. So proud of them!

And one last bit of back-to-school news: today, Lorelei passed the exam and just snagged that coveted learner's permit! She studied her heart out for that one. We celebrated with some Starbucks mango passionfruit and pumpkin latte drinks. Excited to have a driver-in-training. Look out, Overland Park! ;)
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and safe school year!

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

House decisions

Some people stress out over design decisions, but I love getting to design a home! We've put so much thought into little details, so I'm going to try and record some of those ideas and decisions here. 

These are samples of tile, countertops (plain old gray quartz and white quartz), paint and flooring that we chose, and I love that they all flow together so well. They've been piling up around our house as we've been sorting through samples galore.
We picked out our floors and are going with Palladio "White Wash" white oak as our color. It's the most similar to another floor we all loved (Stuga Fika - which by the way has incredible customer service!) but that was above our price range, and the Palladio is in our budget. We saw Palladio floors in some other homes and fell in love with the wide planks and textures, and I love the light color that's not too honey and not too pink--exactly what we were after.

We found the bricks I want to lay in a herringbone pattern on our mudroom and powder floor on clearance. Most of our other tile looks like concrete and ties right in.

We're still deliberating over wall colors, but are definitely going with white and are leaning toward "Cloud White" by Benjamin Moore. We want a clean, fresh look (I've been having dreams for 2 years of painting walls white), but also want it to feel warm and not stark. Gryffin prefers "Simply White," Lorelei begs for "Swiss Coffee," and "Cloud White" is right in the middle--a good compromise.
Here are the three whites we like, side-by-side. I know grays are in but I love the fresh, minimalist look of white walls.

For our interior doors, we chose Lynden Door "Aberdeen" with the exception of a barn door we're doing in "Mercer" and painting with chalkboard paint in the kitchen/pantry.

I've been deliberating lately on hardware but think we're going with round concrete knobs mixed with silver pulls in the kitchen and islands and maybe some bathrooms, and these gold and concrete beauties (but XXL size) in the center of our mudroom lockers. Still deciding which green to paint those lockers.

Here are some elements from our kitchen and our exact "Patagonia granite" slab. Mark's ordering a giant LED panel to light it from behind.

Here's what the Patagonia granite looks like when it's back-lit. This will be in the nook behind the stove.


Here's the actual layout and measurements for our kitchen (though I'll need to double-check on those sinks because they look a little small compared with the ones we ordered).

This is kind of what our nook will look like on the back kitchen wall. 

And this is what we envision it will look like if you're looking straight in at the kitchen. We picked up those funky mid-century lights from West Elm.

Here are the great room measurements with a TV area that will look like concrete. We love the extra bench seating on either side of the TV for when we entertain, and all the storage beneath for games. 

Here's an example of what the great room's supposed to look like, with a moving ladder (ignore the paint colors and hanging lamp--they're not in this room).


But let's go back to that lamp, because I worked my heart out to make this and everyone in my family doubted me. First try, the balloon mold popped and the papier mache splattered all over me and the garage. Second try, a gust of wind blew it over and it toppled into mush. Third try was a charm, and now I'm hanging it over our round breakfast and game table (just off the great room in the breakfast/piano room on the other side of the fireplace) to remind everyone that I'm a winner and a badass. :)

I painted the outside white and am debating whether to paint the inside of the lamp gold, or leave it gray. It's going to have a giant edison bulb inside to match the giant edison bulbs in our entry way.


Here's an example of what it looks like past the see-through vertical fireplace looking from the great room into the breakfast room, where that lamp goes.

Because I want our house to feel playful and joyful, we had our electrician wire an outlet into the ceiling for string lights to hang over our great room like in this picture. We've also added some rustic beams over the great room and dining room.


 Here's the master bath cabinet drawings. We have some vessel sinks that look like big stone bowls and our faucets will come out of the wall from a ledge that the mirrors will sit on.


Here's my PowerPoint design as an idea.

This is the opposite side showing the bath and shower. The bathtub is going to sit in a bed of stones like our bath at the Model Angkor Resort we fell in love with in Cambodia.


This was our Cambodian hotel room that we loved so much. We adored that bathtub and those concrete walls!

Kids' bath cabinets. Lorelei gets her own tub and a separate shower, and picked out those cool concrete knobs below.

We're downsizing to a smaller master bedroom from our current home, but get a much larger master closet with a laundry space instead which is a big bonus. This room below is inspiration for our bedroom, which will have a built-in headboard with lights on dimmers on either side for reading at night, and a platform bed.

Here are the cabinet drawings for an extra bedroom upstairs that we converted into a shared home office where Mark will also keep his keyboard (meaning he'll pretty much live in this room--I like to joke he's having an affair with his keyboard). These two windows are where the kids' desks are, and they have a gorgeous view of the high school (what they'll be looking at when they're doing remote learning-ha!).

A birds-eye view of that shared office room. Mark will LOVE having his own desk without all of my clutter and post-its.

Inside the upstairs balcony is the kids' entertainment area with a secret hidden bookcase doorway into Gryffin's room (which is no longer secret--shh!).

The kids' (upstairs) laundry room cabinet design. Not sure on the color yet but I do love this blue.

I've even designed how I want the concrete poured for our entry (concrete blocks surrounded by stones) and driveway (angled).

And this is the color scheme of our house on a color sample house that looks nothing like ours: this stone, cedar colored lap siding, and Benjamin Moore Iron Mountain paint for the board and batten areas.
Basically, if you've read through this entire post, I'm kind of picky and know what I want. :) Still so many design decisions to go, and I love that we've really designed this home together as a family and with our family's needs in mind. I can't wait to see it come together! 

House Progress: August-September

I have a feeling our builder won't finish our house by contract date (December 2) since a) our front and balcony doors won't arrive from China until December 6, and b) Braklow Homes has advised us not to lock in a rate yet even with a 4-month window, putting us possibly even into a late January move-in... big bummer. 

But we have finally seen some more progress on "Longbottom," so I thought I'd at least post an update because I'd love to look back on our home in progress. So, here's what happened in August and September, according to my iPhone.

Back in late July/early August, our house looked like this:



We were super excited about our front courtyard being poured. We've always loved to hang out in the front of our home to watch neighbors walk by and picnic. I think this spot's going to get a lot of use.
Here's the skylight hole we added to our bedroom. We debated about whether to hang a fan from the center on some cross beams, but decided we like the simple look of light streaming in and stars twinkling over us at night.

Both the kids have lofts in their rooms, also with skylights so they can sleep up there and gaze at the stars.
The balcony went in, which is our other favorite hangout. We have a view of the entire neighborhood, and Gryffin said he feels like a "king of the neighborhood" up there. :)
View from the corner. The builder ordered the wrong roof color (thankfully, I caught it), then told us the roof we wanted was no longer being produced and we'd have to settle for a different color. So I called the manufacturer and local distributors, and it turns out our roof color (Tamko Heritage Black Walnut) was still being produced and available all over town. Phew. 

We wanted windows with black frames on both the outside and inside, and were thrilled with how they turned out when we pulled up and saw them installed one day. I love black windows.
We watched all the "guts" of the house go in which is mind-boggling to me: HVAC, plumbing, and right now we're at the electrical phase before the "stuffing" (insulation) and drywall. Mark and I got the "ok" from our builder to wire surround sound ourselves, so we've been working on the house a lot in the evenings when the workers are gone. 
A view into our kitchen from the great room. They had to push these transom windows out toward the walls because of the "nook" area over our stovetop, and we'll have open shelves beneath the transoms. I'm so excited about this kitchen since I spend so much time cooking, and so does Lorelei who is our resident baker and wants to open a bakery in the Cotswolds or Scotland or France.
Another look into Lorelei's loft. She'll have a ladder to climb up there, and Gryffin has a rock wall and a ladder into his as well.
This was part of the TV wall, but the framers built it to the old plan and it was too small.
The builder was going to charge us extra to fix it even though it was their mistake, but gave us permission to just expand it ourselves. Never thought we'd be building our own house, but we've put a lot of sweat into this place and it's actually been pretty rewarding and fun.
And we were super thrilled when they started putting the siding up. We wanted a very specific width for the boards and battens, which will be painted charcoal gray (Benjamin Moore Iron Mountain), and the horizontal lap siding areas will be stained like cedar-colored wood, to give it the modern transitional look we're after. The flower box, pillars on the balcony, and halfway up the garage areas will be done in stone. Can't wait to see it come together!
And that's a wrap for August-September progress. Hoping to be at drywall stage soon!