I realized the other day that I forgot to write my Friday Instagram installment. Ooops! So, please accept an Instagram Sunday post in its place!
a bug’s eye view of our zucchini plant
the last of the hydrangea blooms
a cloudy Sunday
You can follow me on Instagram @onuwriter06
Hope you all had a lovely weekend and are looking forward to a short holiday week ahead! I’m hoping to get a mini blog project (or two!) completed, but we’ll see how that goes!
Hope everyone is having a wonderful Saturday. It’s very hot here in southwestern Ohio, so it seemed like a good day to stay inside and finish our home tour! We’ve covered the first floor, now it’s on to the second!
At the top of the stairs, we have a “bonus” room, or a game room, as it was called on the floorplan brochure. We have yet to play games in it, though. Right now, it’s largely empty, with the exception of an elliptical, some free weights, a balance ball, and a bookshelf. So I guess you could say it’s a workout room. We’re planning on moving all of our workout equipment to the basement eventually, but for now, it does a nice job of filling up one corner of this room!
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Across from the bonus room is Tom’s office. I would bet that this room will never get decorated unless I decide it needs to be done, haha! Although, Tom did hang his diploma on the wall already!
Then we have two completely empty bedrooms. I didn’t bother taking pictures of those, since there’s nothing to see! There’s a hall bathroom for the bedrooms to share, and then our laundry room (yes! on the second floor! it’s amazing!)
And at the end of the hallway is the master bedroom.
We have a walk-in closet that I’m pretty sure we could fit a bed into if we needed to! There’s a lot that we could do with this space someday. Custom closet system, anyone?
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We each have our own vanity in the bathroom. Initially, I thought it was strange that the soaking tub bisected the sink area. But now that we’re moved in, I really like this layout – we don’t clutter up each other’s space with hair, toothpaste, etc.
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We also have a full basement. It looks like a typical basement right now, full of concrete, bad lighting, boxes and dead bugs. Maybe someday, in 10 years, we’ll finish it off!
Just to round it all out, or to give you a better sense of the layout, here’s a snapshot of our floorplan. It’s not 100% accurate – the game room dimensions are the same as the family room beneath it, but this should give you a sense of the flow of our home!
First Floor
Second Floor
And that does it for our Home Tour! We have so many cool ideas, we barely know where to start. I think I’m going to start a tradition of doing a virtual home tour every year to see how each room will change and evolve as we settle in and start a family – and as our decorating tastes change, too!
I’ve been thinking that our family room palette needs an accent color. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the eggplant & lilac tones, but it feels a little flat. I think a few splashes of something bright, maybe a little bold, could pull it all together. I’m also trying to think ahead for our future Kitchen Backsplash project – we’re both gravitating toward a colored mosaic tile rather than neutral tones (we have enough brown tones in our kitchen).
My original vision for the family room was a palette along these lines.
I haven’t quite achieved it, and I don’t think that Tom is 100% on board with the “deep peony” and “dusty lavender” colors. It seems to have landed more in this palette:
And while I love these tones, I think it needs a pop of something that’s the complete opposite of purple (maybe not literally). Now, if it were completely up to me, it would probably wind up looking like a rainbow threw up in our room, 1) because I love color and 2) because I’m indecisive. Tom is a staunch lover of safe neutrals. So somehow, we strike a balance.
Here are some top color contenders. I’d like to keep it focused on just one of these, bringing in small splashes through accents like a vase, a blanket or throw, some artwork, more pillows (!), etc.
Which would you vote for?
I’ve been eagerly watching the progress of our veggie garden, and just in the last week, it seemed to explode overnight! Suddenly, the squash leaves were as big as my head, the cantaloup was vining everywhere, and the tomatoes were in need of some cages to help wrangle and straighten them out. So this past Sunday, Tom, my parents and I rolled up our proverbial sleeves (it was waaaayy too hot for actual sleeves) and got to work fixing up the veggie garden. We removed the netting that was keeping out the deer, set up the cages, and tied up the drooping tomatoes. Then Tom rigged up some posts so we could turn the draped netting into a “fence” around the garden.
Taken June 5, right after we dug the garden
Taken June 26 (exactly 3 weeks later!)
I think it’s looking pretty good! I’ll be excited if we get 1 tomato out of all this!
One of Tom’s aunts gave us great advice at the beginning of the building process: photograph EVERYTHING before the drywall goes up. This way, you’ll know where all the wiring, ductwork and pipes are located before you start putting holes in the walls (or ceiling). And hopefully, this would mitigate any surprises should we choose to remodel down the road.
We had a scheduled pre-drywall inspection with the builder, so we came prepared with a yardstick, notepad, measuring tape, camera and video camera. We photographed, recorded and took notes on all of the major items, room-by-room.
distance between studs on the first floor
electrical wiring between dining room and kitchen
ductwork in ceiling
I had intended to type up all of the notes in a shared Google document or something, but that hasn’t happened yet. At least we have the photos and footage!
Do you have any tips for builders/remodelers?