weekend greeting giveaway {winner}

Last week's weekend greeting winner is ... ShellyW!  I had a hard time deciding, as all the comments were deserving ... but adoption has a special place in my heart.  My one and only godchild was adopted from Guatemala.  She just celebrated her very first 'Forever Family' day, and I feel so blessed to be a part of her life.

Shelly, please email me your mailing address and I'll get the cards out to you {after the new year, as I'll be traveling 'til then}.

And since I love posting a photo when I can ... I thought I'd leave y'all with a peek from my new office.  Check out the wallpaper {I love, love, love it!!}.  I first saw it here and knew I had to have it.  Do you love it?  It's from Graham & Brown and you can buy it here.

construction update

As you can see from the photos, progress has been made {and it's also been a long time since I've posted about it}.

Construction should be done in two weeks.  Honestly, I don't think you'd guess that by walking through ... but I'm all about trust!  :)

I tried some fancy numbering on my photos:

#1 - where the girls beds will be placed ... one by each window

#2 - a view of their playroom

#3 - another view of their playroom

#4 - the fireplace in my office!!!!  {giddy? just a little}

#5 - an alcove {the color is actually fuchsia} above each girl's closet, where a personalized illustration of each of my girls will hang. {emilee rose is hard at work on them}

progress on construction ...

Things are moving along on our construction project ... yay!  I took the girls through the other day and they are quite excited.  Although, miss teenager is a little ... eh-hum ... shall we say green?

This photo is of my office ... the fireplace will be in the right{ish} hand corner, to the left of the blue plastic.  And the blue plastic will be replaced with windows.  We love as much window light as we can get ... the problem that leaves me with, is not enough wall space for photos {and kid art ... love kid art!}.  I've also included a photo of progress on my chimney.  Mmmmm, I can already smell the burning wood ...

The photo on the left is the hallway outside my office that runs from the existing house to the new bedroom.  The door shown is the girls old bathroom that will stay intact, but be repainted.

I had fun showing the girls the space and in fact, a wall of my new office space is one of their old bedroom walls.  When we were in there, we saw some little hooks still up from where their 'chore charts' used to hang.

The photo on the right is of their new bedroom space, looking toward the closets and playroom area.  Today, we picked out where each one will have their space.

These photos show the siding is going up ... the final siding will be painted a weathered grey to match the rest of the house.  And you can also see the roof is getting tiled, actually, that should be complete now.

The patio I was standing on to take the picture is right outside our bedroom and the stones in the foreground lead to our bedroom patio door.

You may have to click to enlarge these and take a better look ... I was standing on our bedroom patio taking the photos and saw my reflection and thought I'd take a shot.  These are looking directly into our bedroom, you can't see much because of the reflection, but I thought they turned out kinda cool and that I would share.  If you look closely in the photo on the left, you can see the through the windows to the other side of the house.  As you can see ... we really do like a lot of windows!

{p.s. my construction photography pretty much sucks ... how's one supposed to take sexy photos of plywood?}

construction update

I was so excited to come home on Friday and find a chimney! I can't believe how quickly things are moving along ... they hope to have the entire addition closed in by the end of this week. And something was mentioned about starting to drywall soon. Yippee!

Here's a close up of the nursery, where all 3 little girls are rooming. With closet space limited, we put the two older girls clothes in the play area {photo above & below} ... kinda ruins the view.

Here's an interior of where they're sleeping. Piper loves sleeping on the top bunk! And if you look closely, can you tell which of my daughter's win the pack rat competition? That girl needs to sleep with just about every possession she owns ... and she's pretty much been that way since I can remember. Even when we travel ... she sleeps with her carry-on bag, which of course includes as many of her belongings as she can squeeze into it.

adding more space

My husband built his {our, pre-me} house in 1987 with an architect by the name of Charles Moore. The style is scandinavian barn-house. There are beautiful elements all over the house that are unexpected and fun to discover. 2001{ish}, enter me ... and we decided to gut the interior of house and give it a fresh start. We had two children at the time and didn't necessarily plan on more, so the number of bedrooms worked. When Wynter was born, it still worked ... we moved Piper out of the nursery and into the 'big girl room.' When Hunter was born, she got the nursery and Wynter moved in with Piper. I'm getting visions of Peter Pan here scooting these children out of their nursery!

Things worked okay ... but in the back of my mind, I was dreaming of adding more bedrooms to the house. As the baby got older and joined us in the girls bathroom on school mornings trying to brush teeth, comb hair, take care of business ... it got quite crowded! Many times we'd find 5 of us squeezed in there trying to get everyone ready for school.

The time came when I was finally able to convince my husband to add on to the house! Score one for me! And I somehow convinced him to include a new office for me. We currently share an office ... I have to fight for my desired lighting, temperature {I'm freezing as I write this}, etc. Double score!

Anyway.

When we met with the builder {a woman} to discuss our plan, I had a crazy idea to put all three of them in one room and use the nursery as a guest room. I talked it over with her and some of the pros & cons. This statement sold me, "It depends what you want to foster in them as they grow. Do you want them all together? Or do you want them to have separate rooms?" Bingo ... into one room they go! And so we started ...

We enlisted Genesis Architecture, who we used in our first remodel and finalized our plans. Ken was awesome to work with the first time around. His primary concern was maintaining the integrity of the house and original work of Moore, and was very careful to preserve it. In fact, this past week, architect Steven Harby who studied under Moore, contacted us asking if he could visit the house as he was passing through town. His life goal is to visit every Moore building. I explained to him, it may not resemble much of Moore's original plan, as we have done a lot of renovating. He assured us as he toured the house, he could see many of the things that Moore was famous for and that he would've been pleased.

The new construction is going on right outside of the girls {old} bedroom, so they were able to watch it closely from the beginning. I can't believe how excited they are! Although, given how excited I am with my new office ... it makes sense. OH! And the fact that hammering and pounding starts at 7:00 am right outside where the girls are currently sleeping? Not so exciting!

Their bedroom has now been demolished and will be rebuilt into my new office {I'm even getting a fireplace!!}. In working with the builder and architect, I was careful to think about the things that girls {sisters} would argue about. I've got one sister and we argued plenty! So I knew closet space and bathroom space were priorities. We designed an amazing space that will allow each of the girls to have a closet with dual entry ... one going to the bedroom space and one going to the bathroom space. In the bathroom, they will each have their own sink & 'vanity' area, two toilet areas, and two showers. Can I move in?

I've tried to keep the decorating for the girls room pretty simple and girly ... mostly Pottery Barn Kids stuff ... pinks, greens ... and I have most of it purchased and planned for. My office on the other hand, is still causing me some grief. I can not decide on a color theme! First I thought a beautiful shade of granny smith apple green ... but now I feel that might be getting old. I love yellow & grey. Blue. The list goes on. I've been closely monitoring the inspiration boards at Snippet & Ink hoping something will scream out to me, "pick me, I'm the color{s} you can't live without!" But the truth is, that happens with every post they do.

I've included some photos of what we're working on and I look forward to giving you updates in the future.

{view from inside girls old bedroom & view from construction into their old bedroom}

{view directly outside of the bath tub area & view from the playroom ... we're blessed to have a nicely wooded property}

{view of closets & view of bedroom area}