What we wanted - What we Got (That Special Something)

So the journey comes to an end.

You can catch the rest of the tour here (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12).
The last item on this list:

Was my hurridly scribbled (see...I don't always have neat handwriting), notion that I wanted our house to have something special. Something we couldn't quite name, but that I would know when I saw it. Certainly, soon as we walked into this house, the mere fact that it had (or will have) just about everything on our list in due time was testimony enough to that "something special". But really, when I wrote that, I was talking about things like this:


A great view. Now. We have a great view. For days. But before I ever thought we'd luck up into a house on the course, my focus was on getting lucky with a house with a view of the Mt. Our second choice was this place which didn't have a bonus room but DID have this gorgeous perfect picture window that perfectly framed the view of the Mt...and a gorgeous yard too...complete with birdfeeder.

Another house I really liked was this one. It had almost no dining room so that knocked it out for us, but the hammock ALMOST made up for the lack of a dining room. Almost. And then there was also this (same house as above):

Yes people. That is a window into the shower. Say what?! This window was not on a wall in the bathroom, or even a wall looking to the outside. This window was on a hallway outside of the bathroom looking into the shower. Though Robert was a bit excited by this concept, it was just one of those many "there's unique and then there is just plain wtf" that this house seemed to be full of.

Needless to say, we passed.

All in all, I love our place. Don't love cleaning it, but that's cause I don't love cleaning period. Now I hvae a lot of space to clean. And to heat. Which is REALLY another story for another time.

So the journey comes to an end. The last item on the list:

What we wanted - What we Got (High Ceilings)

Coming to the end of our list, #31 was high ceilings. See, I can read that one:

I don't have a bunch of main level photos yet, but those ceilings are the tallest in our place. They are huge. The video that better not make "the internets" demonstrates the house of giants. But we're tall folks...vertically challenged folks might be a bit intimidated in there. What I love about most of our big walls is that they come with big windows.

This is the main set of windows in my Master before blinds and drapes.

This next photo shows the ledge at the high water mark in the bedroom. I had a great photo of the vault in the room, but I've been fighting blogger all night so we'll have to revist that in the before/after decor shots in the next series. For now, the ledge below is above the oversized doors. It's kinda cool to see my husband not have to duck through any doors (he's 6'6" and he didn't have to duck through standard doors, but now he kind of looks "short" relative to entryways).


Outside of our bedroom on the top floor, they are pretty standard size ceilings (with oversize doors), same in the "Mom Please Move in" level. I'll have to measure the main floor. I know we had a 9 foot tree and room to spare.

What we wanted - What we Got (Granite Countertops)

Number 29 on our list was granite countertops.

I think I'm to blame for that one.

Granted, when we were looking at most of the places we stopped in on, granite was pretty standard. Even in the older, remodeled homes. So of course we figured we'd go with the flow there.


You can't really tell that much in the photo above, but we have shiny, BLACK, granite countertops. They looked awesome when we previewed the house. And now, I think they purposefully were crafted to only shine up with my tears. Or my sweat. Or really, a bit of both.

They are awesome to look at. Until someone drops a crumb on them (quite a frequent occurence if you like toasted "everything" bagels) or leaves anything with a bead of water on my countertops. Thankfully, I'm not as OCD as some folks have accused me of being (ahem) so I just go with it. But if I had my way, they would actually be something other than shiny black granite because 99% of my time spent cleaning in this house (yes, I know...but go with me here) is spent on wiping, drying, glossing and glazing those counters. Sure, they look gorgeous, but if I have to deal with someone NOT doing all 90 of those steps above on my counters again...

Don't even get me started on the glass cooktop.

What we wanted - What we Got (Fireplaces)

Skipping quickly passed those we did not get (more on that in another post shortly), we landed on "well, sure no one builds new with real fire anymore but can't you make an exception??"

#28 on our list was a real fireplace.

In our last place, we had a gas fireplace. It stunk to high heaven because we never used it because it stunk so bad. Not like gas, but like "hey, I can tell the fireplace is on because I can smell it when I walk into the house."


While we didn't get real fireplaces in our new house, we did get two fireplaces. There were a few places with fireplaces in the master bedroom and even the master bathroom that I was coveting, but I actually really like the two we have.

This fireplace is our main fireplace on the main level. Robert took the photo and had it printed on metalic paper. It is awesome and goes so well with colors already in place.


And then down in the "Mom Please Move in With Us" space, is the other fireplace. The color is growing on me.

At least in the dark it is.

What we wanted - What we Got (Kitchen Pantry)

#23 must have been a consideration in the moments before I made the decision to just go ahead and purchase (some of the best shrimp I ever had) lunch from a beach vendor. I was starving. And as such, #23 surfaced. I'm pretty certain I can take credit for this one.

Essentially, we wanted a pantry in our kitchen. It wasn't that we didn't have enough storage at our old place. Okay, really it was. We just didn't really realize that we only had two cabinets (upper at that) for food storage because we ate out so dang much. In crunching the numbers for the next place, we had committed to cooking a lot more from home. Hence why I won with the refrigerator wars and made sure that our pantry was our first improvement project.

Now. We moved into a new home. No one has ever lived here, it was built in 2006, there were not a whole bunch of projects to do here beyond the personalization we wanted to do for our selves.

What we love about our builder is that there is a lot of attention to detail. There are higher end finishes. It is easy to just move on in. With our pantry, there was an awesome pantry door already in place and there were great wood shelves in place too. Only "problem" with our place is that it is semi-custom. Moreso in places like the bathrooms and the kitchens. To the extent that 6 times out of 10, you can go to Home Depot and pick up a matching something. Those other 4 times, you drive "all the way into town" and come back bitter and angry about what you couldn't find and will have to create yourself. So was the case with our pantry shelves.

We spent a lot of time drilling little holes and recreating shelves so that we could reclaim the middle corner that was just not working out with the current shelves. All so that we could stuff it full like this:

Which is actually not a great picture because you can't see the third set of shelves (to the left of the door). All to say, I used to work retail, in a grocery store. So you can see that I totally stocked and faced my shelves like any good retailer would do. You might also notice that in that middle shelf (the small one to the left visible in the photo), the third shelf from the top, that is the designated Graham Cracker shelf.

Yeah. I know.

What we wanted - What we Got (Upstairs Laundry)

Honestly, #22 on this list was not added by me.

So for a while, I've been going through the What we Wanted, What we Got series here.

You can find the other entries (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) at those links.

I go as long as possible before doing laundry. I'm the girl who will go shop a lingerie sale before doing laundry. That and I've learned long ago that the best way to preserve my relationship is for him to do his laundry and me to do mine. I mean, I get the sorting colors and whites thing. It's the rest of the label reading that I just don't make much time for. And understanding what all those assorted laundry liquids are for. All I know is that 120 count box of Bounce dryer sheets has lasted like half a year. No. Joke.

All said, once he mentioned that we should have an upstairs laundry, I fully agreed. Generally, we knew we'd be moving into a multilevel house. Maybe that was subconscious, but I'd say it wasn't on purpose. All things said, with the multi levels, we then said we wanted a place with an upstairs master. With an upstairs master, we wanted a laundry upstairs because it is hard enough to get me to fold and put away my laundry when I DON'T have to haul it up and down 40 stairs.

He knows me well.

I love our side by side. We could stack them on top of each other but we think we'll probably build pedestals for these two (more because we're tall than because we want to store stuff), create a counter across the top of them (for folding clothes) and then have some rod work across the wall above these for hanging clothes as we do laundry. Across from these, in the same laundry room, is a huge soaker sink. I think I want to do some shelving above it. To store what, I dont' know...we don't have much going on in our laundry room because the only thing I hate worse than washing clothes is ironing them. To that, I'd like to keep the ironing board tucked behind the door (out of sight, out of mind) and do some framed art on the walls. We shall see.

What we wanted - What we Got (Paint and Steel)

We were certainly people that don't need to be taught a lesson twice. After a long weekend of painting and 4 years of a "never really white" Craigslist side by side fridge, #19.5 was paint on the walls, #20 was stainless appliances and #26 was a side by side fridge only because I knew I would get my way for an upgrade here if I just mentioned "4 years!"

In our old house, in about one long weekend and a few hours, we transformed the place. We have some pretty mellow ideas when it comes to color and had a nice neutral but noticable bit going in the bedroom. It was awesome.

We had a minty fresh green (which he hated) in the living room. Worked well with wood tones, our green furniture and the orange accents.

We converted the yellow mancave to a girly green family entertainment room. I cried when we picked out the color thinking it was hideous and I wanted a pale blue. He talked me out of it definitely not knowing this is the color that would result. I love this color and would love it in my new house. Love it enough to even commit to painting something in my house this color. Keep this next photo in mind. Mellow...smooth...green.

In our new house, you will notice that there are lots of gray tones. Some look a little more tan in my photos, but they are all shades of beautiful gray.

And then there is this:

W.T.F. That is the downstairs level. I call it "chili pepper red". Who does this to a perfectly good wall? The shocker? It totally grew on me as you'll see when I get around to the Christmas photos. And that green furniture? It actually goes remarkably well in here. Who knew. All said, there is just absolutely NO EXCUSE for this though:

Oh. My. God. This is my friggin' scrap room. I would say they wanted it to be a nursery but what child could ever sleep in a room this hideously bright? It's obnoxious. I've not scrapped in here yet. It sucks my creativity because I get so distracted with all the other colors I could paint my room with my little bottles of craft paint. Ick.

Then I get the munchies. And all is well when I go downstairs and open my hard fought and hard won french door fridge. I LOVE this fridge. Almost as much as my husband.

Just saying.

What we wanted - What we Got (Great Room Concept)

So then. Blogger is going to be fun tonight. I can already tell.

Skipping along down the wish list because 1) some of these items are covered by default in another post because we got a bit repetitive with creative use of similar words and 2) I just don't have photos of some of this stuff and I'm already getting bored with the wish list:



We are now here. At #15. We wanted a great room concept that was really open with few walls. Clearly, we don't have kids that we want to hide stuff from. Yet.

In the old place, we had sort of a great room concept. Mostly because we just had really big and open and airy rooms (we lived in a 2200 SF condo...the rooms were pretty big). Best photo of the great room concept is below - this was the view from our living room towards the staircase and powder room with the "yellow" room in the background which is the dining room on the other side of the kitchen. So it was "great" to entertain there because you could see clear across the house with few obstructing walls.


In our new place, we (okay I went) a bit nutso when we walked in cause this is the hallway:


Surely, number 27 on the list is "hallway". For some reason, he was opposed to any hallways. I like hallways because they are truly non-functional walls with lots of space for photos. I got that in spades on this house. But this entry hallway is actually awesome because on the right side of this photo, there are actually art cubbies on the wall. In the house video tour that better the hell NOT end up on the internets (namely, because it actually starts out with "Welcome to [our address]! Come on in" and love ya'll much but...let's hold off on the uninvited guests for a while.

I was saying. On the video, you actually see the canvas we made for someone (who me?!) to paint and put on said walls. The canvas making was a DIY project for the ages in itself. I'll take photos...promise.

On another tangent, you will also notice number 19 (wood floors - REAL wood floors...requested by the girl who never had to deal with shiny new wood floors and keeping them that way) in the photo above.

Moving on.

#15. The Great Room Concept. Once you come down the hallway in the previous photo, you land at those columns. One one side of said colums is number 30 - a dining room. Great room concept and all, it is not a separate walled off space, but it is where our 10 seater rests it's weary, well-traveled, table legs. The view is from the kitchen (#14 - check, we have a kitchen). On the right closer to the bottom edge, you can see the wine bar. Farther back, you can see my fave staircase in the house. There's more than one. The downstairs one is growing on me.

On the other side of the columns is this:



The living room. That cubby is the soon to be custom built entertainment center built in that my better half is working on. Well, right now, he is muttering about the difficulty in buidling his own speakers. Come Saturday, maybe that will be done. Maybe more like Sunday.

More photos of what we've done with this space to come. It is huge, and it was an awesome entertaining space for watching the Cowboys whip the Eagles - for the second week in a row. Bring it Minnesota. Bring. It.

What we wanted - What we Got (Big Back Yard/View)

Number 10 on our wish list was a big backyard closely followed by a view.

In our old place, we lived in a condo where the common areas were less than fun. That whole lawsuit thing and cutting our losses before the work was complete so that we could move from a backyard which showcased views like this when looking towards our house:



To a house that showcased views like this from across the way:

Kind of dreamy huh? Well, from our backyard, we now look out onto the "lake" and the course. Ultimately, our yard will be an extension of all that gorgeousness.

I say ultimately because when you have a large yard, that means you get to do actual yard work.

This is my better half sweating bullets on the first run of his first ever lawn mower. You should have seen him buying that gig in Sears. It was such a cute and tender moment. I'll have to unearth those photos. He was sweating bullets not only of the "am I doing this right" nature, but also because well, our yard was a crazy weed patch when we moved in. There was some sort of maintenance when we came and saw it the first time. By the time we actually moved in a month and some change later, those weeds were THICK. We pulled up about a quarter of them by hand before he was convinced by a very kind neighbor that if he just set that bad boy to mulch, he could just run it over the weeds and take his chances with seeding. We did.

Don't know if he expected Jack and the Beanstalk results in the two or three weeks we had before the first official frost, but I saw tiny shoots of green this past fall and still do to this day. He's of course panicked that he shall not have a perfectly manicured lawn in time for summer. Thankfully, we just got an awesome patio set off Craig's List so we can sit on the deck upstairs and completely bypass views of our own yard for a hot minute.

Soon as the rain and driving winds stop.

What we wanted - What we Got (Add'l Full Bath)

Number 8 on our list was an additional full bath. Essentially, the girl with no kids wanted a place outside of her master suite sanctuary where kids could be scrubbed and rid of their filth in a tub.

Unfortunately, for many reasons, I do not have a photo of our additional full bath or our powder room from the old place. Unfortunate because the powder room color, though lovely for a powder room, would have been a nice transition into my photos of the shocking color on our walls in the Mom Please Move in With Us Suite. Unfortunate also because the shower curtain in our staged additional full bath would have transitioned nicely to the shower curtain I purchased for our new additional full bath.

Above is our main living additonal full bath. This is on the upper floor (with most bedrooms) and has an awesome waffle weave white shower curtain. It's white because I don't have kids. And there is an awesome tealight candle holder deal on the dual vanity countertop - also because I don't have kids. But actually, since I paid 4.99 for that shower curtain at goodwill (and another $1 for the liner at Big Lots) I think I WOULD rock it with kids. It's almost disposable at that price. Almost.

Speaking of powder rooms and additional baths, this is the new powder room on the main level (remember, it is lower, main and upper level in our house - this one is on the main level where we entertain those who dare make the treck out here). The walls here are this really deep awesome gray. With the hardwood floors and pedestal sink, I totally love this small piece of heaven.

Not photographed yet, we also have another full additional bath (be careful what you wish for) all the way down on the lower level in the Mom Please Move in With Us Suite.

Just saying.

What we wanted - What we Got (5 Piece Master Bath)

So #7 on our list of forever was a five piece master bath.



In our old house, our five piece master was awesome. I loved having a tub separate from my shower although I used it, oh, maybe twice. No, I think I used it exactly twice.

In our new place, my favorite feature of our five piece master is actually what I consider the 6th (or 7th) piece. The 6th piece being these wonderful corner windows with a view from the tub out onto the lake. Well, and into our neighbor's daughter's bedroom if the angle is just right.

As I am a prude, we did get some blinds up. But I love these top down, bottom up blinds because I can bring the top down for daylight (and privacy) as I climb down into the tub and I can bring the bottom back up to view the course and the lake once I'm in and covered by sudsy bubbles. Just saying.

You'll also notice a slice of my least favorite feature of our five piece above. The glass enclosure shower was a very "Bernadette feature" - totally decorative, entirely non-functional. Thing being that we don't have a roll in shower (it's an actual stall, not just a tiled floor that is meant to get wet and dries on it's own). So that means we actually need to find some sort of stripping to close that tiny little gap between the stall and the door. Good luck on that one. So much so we almost pried the one off the shower at the Marriott in Palm Desert. I'm just saying. But I digress. It is my least favorite feature because I HATE cleaning bathrooms. And with a glass stall shower, if you don't clean it often, you won't want to use it that often.

Luckily, when I am on my hands and knees scrubbing that joint, I can glance at my awesome Pottery Barn birch candles and reminisce about how gift cards are good because I would never in my live long days pay $60 for two candles. Just saying.

What we wanted - What we Got (Walk In Closet)

In the continued journey through our wish list, #3 on our list was walk in closets.

In our last place, though the photo below doesn't show it, we didn't have any dressers or "functional" storage (I'm all about the useless, fru fru, decorative stuff) in our bedroom because we had an awesome walk in closet that is just to the left in the picture below:

In our new place, this is the crazy state of our master closet right now:

Now. I love that I am married to a super handy dude. Who is also remarkably artistic in ways I never knew (beyond the photography skills at that). He has sketched out an awesome draft of what our closet will one day look like. Since he guards all his important papers from me by throwing them into a heaping pile of God knows What that I would never go near to save my life, I can't scan a photo of that for you. well that and his printer doesn't have a scanner and my printer...well...back to this post on why I really need more of a Bernadette office than I need a bonus room.

The closet after I'm certain will look slightly less a hot mess than it does above.

All that to say that, I get a bit anxious walking into my closet no because the white wire racks are a pet peeve of mine. Sure, they are nice end, quality stuff, BUT, for the rest of the attention to detail in this place, would it have killed folks to use wood or something? This is almost up there with wire hangers for me. But then again, if you look closely, you'll notice that someone is infamouse for using wire hangers too. I deal with it. Marriage. All about compromise. And ridding my closets of wire (hangers, shelving, etc) one small step at a time.

What we wanted - What we Got (Bonus Room)

So on our infamous list of what we wanted in our new house, you'll notice that #1 was "dog".

Just for the record, we were not expecting any owners to leave us their dog, we just wanted to make sure what ever place we purchased was or could be doggified up. Needless to say, a few things have since gotten in the way of the immediate doggy move in, but we are still very much on track for a spring dog show visit which I am certain will be followed by a visit to the pound and a new friend in our house. I've been trying to avoid this. Like the plague. Cause I like to travel, I like my floors and I just know that I'm a hot mess right now and taking care of one more living, breathing being would just be asking for a world of trouble right now. Give me a month.

Moving on.

#2 on our list says Bonus Room.

In our last house, this is what our bonus room looked like:

In our new house, we have two (well, sort of three) bonus options:

This is the upstairs landing. In most of the houses on our block with a similar floorplan, they went ahead and made this into another bedroom. Guess they figured we had plenty of bedrooms at 5 so they left this open. It is directly across from our master suite entry.

This is also our upstairs landing. The short wall on the left frames the stairs. If you walk straight off the stairs you land in the first room above. If you turn left, you end up here. Originally, I thought I would turn this into a scrap cove and the other part of the landing would be more "kid friendly" (says the girl with no kids).

This is currently an "unofficial" 6th bedroom on the lower level (it goes lower, main and upper level with this place). This room is downstairs in what we've dubbed the Mom Please Move in With Us Suite. There is an official bedroom down there (complete with awesome walk in closet) and then there is this extra room. Technically, I believe this is our media room (as advertised) but it's sort of smallish (relatively speaking) for the kind of set up we want (how far back you need to be for optimal screen viewing and surround sound set up) and we're well on our way to building out the main living room entertainment center so...this was quickly pieced together as a guest bedroom for holiday guests.

I suppose what I really need to do is rethink what "bonus room" means to us. Right now, we are sharing an office space. A space that originally, back in my less pay, more service days, I thought I would turn into a work from home/consulting space. He quickly took it over. Which I've obliged because it gives me more say in NOT turning the "unofficial 6th bedroom" into an in-home wood workshop. I'm just saying. Not for ripping up carpet and transitioning spaces that flow into spaces that just really only meet our own very niche needs. Like, say, a scrap room.

All to say, the upper landing is the bonus room space that I think I'm going to go with. Now I just need to figure on what I'm going to do with it.

Currently (photos should probably come here, but they won't cause this post will be long forgotten), the main landing is Christmas tree #3 central and the secondary landing is a reading nook. I think I want to transition the reading nook back over to the main landing (great light over there, might get something really cool going on there) and then the secondary landing I'd love to back a desk up to that short wall and make it into my own office space separate from the shared office.

We'll see what ideas I come across there for transformation.