Memphis mom, parenting & life blogger | a belle, a bean & a chicago dog

The Story of our 4th House, Part 2: Choosing the Best Floor Plan

2013-05-11T18:58:52Z

It’s no secret that we are obsessed with analyzing floor plans and walking through new construction as it’s being built. Not only would I place both of these activities at the top of our “How We Enjoy Spending Our Time” and “Things To Do After We Eat Our 4:30pm Senior Citizens’ Dinners” lists, but they have proven to be helpful hobbies on more than one occasion due to our repeated corporate relocations and history of selling our houses bizarrely fast.

Long ago we reached a point where we no longer needed walls or furnishings to help us “see” if a house offered a layout that we like.

Our brains currently house their own mini Library of Congress home floor plan archives.

The bottom line on all the hours (heck, MONTHS!) of our lives that we’ve spent doing this is: We can accurately tell within moments of walking in a front door whether or not a house has any promise for us.

Another benefit is that we are quick to mentally-modify floor plans in order to make both little and big changes to better accomodate our wish list.

We shopped the floor plans of 3 different builders for what will soon be our 4th house. The floor plan that we decided ticked the most boxes for us was one that we only saw on paper before receiving a contract on our 3rd house. It was being built as a spec home, though, so after we got a contract, we were able to physically walk the floor plan and feel confident that it was the best choice for us.

It was then that we asked if we could take over the build, and if our builder minded if we made some changes to work already done.

Our builder, who has been amazing since Day 1, didn’t flinch at anything we asked about (and made the changes without any “plan change fees”!). They even happily removed 1 closet, filled in a doorway between the kitchen and family room, and extended the cabinets and countertops across that former doorway.

The floor plan we chose can best be described as: everything we liked about our 3rd house without any of the elements we hated about our 3rd house.

For example, our new house has a kitchen that looks directly onto the family room. The formal dining room has its own distinct area instead of being an open extension of the family room and a space that was heavily trafficked. The girls have a bigger, more functional bathroom. We have a utility sink in the laundry room. We have gas cooking instead of electric. We have 1 large and more functional master closet instead of 2 small, oddly-shaped closets. I have a distinct office space. We also have a covered patio in our backyard.

The floor plan of our 1st floor. Their online floor plan is somewhat different than what they build in our neighborhood.

We’ve always had to choose our homes rather quickly, and sometimes only from the existing homes up for resale. While neither Craig nor I see this as our forever home (because – really – what is the likelihood we live out the rest of our days in Tennessee?) this floor plan is extremely well-suited for our family and work needs at this stage of our lives.

Things I Love – and Hate – About Apartment Living

2013-05-12T01:11:56Z

If everything goes as planned, we will have inhabited our furnished rental apartment for 2 nights shy of 4 weeks. Moving to an apartment was a necessary step and best case scenario for the short period of time between the sale of our (previous) home and the purchase of our new build.

It’s been a while since we’ve lived in an apartment. Back when we did, it was just Craig, Jack and me.

Now it’s 2 adults, 2 kids and 2 dogs living in 1,300 sq feet full of not our stuff.

Surprisingly, some parts of our arrangement are kind of OK. For one, it’s not *our* home so if the dog pees on the carpet, I think, “meh”. For another, it’s been great to have a small, fenced patio area to allow the dogs and kids to be outside while still staying close to me. Also, the kitchen isn’t as equipped as expected, so it’s a lot easier to justify extra eating out.

(OK, so that last one’s not really a “pro”, but who doesn’t try to get out of cooking as often as possible?)

The parts of apartment living that I could do without include walking the garbage to the big dumpster area in the apartment complex, actually walking the dogs each time they need to go out, and hearing the kids in the apartment above us running around.

Plus, living without *our* stuff.

Like our king size bed.

Trust me. Once you’ve slept in a king bed and are accustomed to having so much space that it’s like you sleep in your own zip code, sleeping in a queen bed feels like you’re forced to wear a get along shirt.

See more on Know Your Meme

The Story of our 4th House, Part I

2013-04-27T13:27:29Z

It’s (again) been a month since I published on BBCD. But this time I think I have a very, very good reason as to why!

WE’VE MOVED AND ARE BUILDING A NEW HOUSE!

Those who saw the SOLD sign photo on Facebook a couple days ago learned about our house sale then, but this is the first post I’ve written to explain what’s been secretly going on the past few months for us.

Why did we move? We moved because of what is going on with the public schools in the county in which we lived (up to a few days ago). It is something that has caused us (and thousands of other parents) an extreme amount of heart ache, worry and stress, and I’m not going to say anything else other than we made the choice to move out of the county for the sake of the girls.

So, where did we go? We decided (after weeks of research and hours spent driving around the Mid-South) to move north of where we had been living, just over the county line. We scouted a couple new home developments, met with builders and walked floor plans.

When will you move into the new house? We’re not 100% sure yet due to the fact the completion time has been moved up from the original date in our contract. But we’re thinking we’ll move in about 3 weeks from now.

So, how did this all play out? We listed our house the week leading up to my birthday on March 9th. For my birthday weekend, we traveled to Chicago for the #BestBirthdayEva, which included dancing the night away in my fabulous green heels at my college bestie’s wedding. We had our first showing that day, and got a call for our second showing for Sunday the 10th. On Monday the 11th, we received an offer from the family who came through on the first showing. On Tuesday the 12th, we called the builders we had spoken with about a floor plan that we loved. They were currently building it as a spec house and allowed us to take over the rest of the build. On Wednesday the 13th, we spent the day up in our new town, making changes to the house as it stood and making most of the design decisions so the builder could get rolling. On Friday the 15th, we met with the tile guy to make those selections. On Saturday the 16th, we chose all our lighting (and re-chose many of the same fixtures that we had *just* put in our home in December!).

Did you expect to sell fast? We have a pretty amazing track record of quick sales. But going into this, we never anticipated lightning would strike yet again. I do need to say that Craig and I knew this was a “done deal” when Kate and I both got hit with a stomach virus. Because that, too, is a trend with each offer & sale that we’ve gotten.

Yes, both Kate and I (and no one else) have gotten hit with a stomach virus when under contract on all 3 homes we’ve sold.

Does this mean you’ll breathe new life into BBCD? Yessiree! You all know my addiction to HGTV and interior design plans, and our penchant for moving! This is the second house we’ve built, and I can tell you that it has been drastically different than our first experience! I’m so excited about the decisions we’ve made for the house already, and the plans I have for once we move in. Also, the girls decided to share a room in the new house, which means an entirely new bedroom design for them.

It feels wonderful to finally be able to share in our house sale-house build whirlwind! I hope you follow along!

Things I Don’t Understand: March 2013

2013-03-27T12:48:31Z

There are a lot of things that don’t make sense to me in this crazy world of ours. Some are silly, some are serious. Many will always remain a confusing mystery to me. But all are things I simply can’t make sense of in my very logical, practical brain.

On this 27th day of March in the year 2013, here are 8 things that I simply do not understand:

Why my kids always seem to have THE most urgent of needs at THE most inopportune times. Kind of like Kate desperately needing me to paint her nails while I’m in the shower.
Why cable companies don’t get smart and let you pay for only the channels you want. We’re one TV station away from ditching cable altogether, and moving to only basic cable channels and using our Apple devices to download or stream the rest.
My kids’ obsession with scotch tape. And hanging every single piece of paper they’ve ever drawn on to the walls of my house using scotch tape.
The entitlement so many in our society seem to have. What happened to working hard and working your way up? Just because you want a Mercedes doesn’t mean you should get one. You need to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run. If this really did start back with the “every child’s a winner” movement, then I curse all those parents and the soccer participation trophies that came with.
How the girls seem to comfortably walk while wearing tights they haven’t pulled up all the way. If my inseam was only as high as mid-thigh, it would drive me crazy.
Passive-aggression. Seriously. It’s not productive, it’s not direct, it drags out issues that otherwise would be resolved, and it’s exhausting. Why pretend to like people we actually can’t stand, or attempt to manipulate a situation to “back door” the end result we desire? Think of all that you could otherwise get accomplished with that wasted time and energy! If it were me, I’d take that extra time to watch HGTV and mentally build my dream home with the most perfect floor plan.
Spammers. What do you think you’re actually going to accomplish with your bogus comments and links back to your spammy websites? Because I’ve long scratched my head over your antics and still can’t figure out what you hope to gain from your efforts.
How the kids manage to be at each others’ throats within minutes of seeing each other in the morning. How do you two wake up wanting to fight with each other?

What is one thing you are totally befuddled by?

Final Adjustments

2013-03-03T13:50:49Z

As we headed into the holiday season (yes, back at the end of 2012), Craig and I finally pushed ahead with some final changes we wanted to make around the house. These were changes that had bothered us for some time and were the final items on the Things We Need to To Do to This House that We Think are Worth the Money list.

Mainly these changes were all about lights. The previous owners chose a rather *interesting* finish for all their light fixtures back when they built the house 9 years ago. We previously changed out all the bathroom light fixtures and swapped pure white glass globes over the ceiling fan lights for the dark brown swirl glass that had been there. Now it was time to change the fixtures in the entryway, formal dining, eat-in kitchen, kitchen counter area, and all the flush-mounted hallway fixtures.

Below is a photo of the awesome chandelier we chose for the formal dining room. That metal piece on the wall is also new (and purchased at the light store). After hanging the new fixture here, we opted to paint over the green walls with the same color we have in the family room, and were extremely fortunate to find the same dupioni silk drapes for the dining room window that we have for the windows in the family room, eat-in kitchen and hearth rooms.

The new look in our formal dining room.

Here’s a close-up of the candelabra chandelier. You can see the entryway light in this photo, too.

I was unsure about this style initially, but am very happy we went this route.

Those who remember our mini-kitchen remodel know that before we installed granite countertops in the kitchen, we lowered the 2-leveled counter to make it all one level, and a much larger and more functional counter area. To hang above it, we scored some awesome pendant lights at Lowe’s (shades, too!) that are designed to work with existing can lights.

That’s right – no electrician required! These pendants come with a kit that allows you to convert the can to a drop-down pendant! Their height is adjustable, too.

Easily convert your can lights to pendants.

A look from the kitchen into the eat-in dining area.

With the one-level counter, our kitchen feels so much more open to the rooms around it.

A look at the new fixture above our eat-in dining area. Plus, the super-awesome giant fork and spoon we ordered for our wall!

I’ve been eyeing that fork and spoon for a long time, and we finally went for it.

It’s amazing how much different the new lights plus paint color in the dining room make the downstairs of the house feel. These really were the final pieces to the house remodel puzzle we have been working so diligently on.

It’s Been a Month

2013-03-27T12:47:48Z

Wow! My last post here was January 23rd. I have n.e.v.e.r gone this long in between posts in the 4.5 years I’ve been writing here.

Needless to say, times have changed.

As I sit in front of my screen, I can’t help but reminisce about my early blogging days and how I pushed to post 6 or 7 days a week.

Life was different then. And while I’m so very happy with life now, I’ll never discount those days.

There’s been a lot going on with Eli | Rose. In a totally super awesome sort of way.

I’ve become a bit of a social media speaker, too, which is still so crazy to me. Being invited to Atlanta to speak at a national expo, for example, is something I never dreamed of happening.

The girls are doing well. Kate’s about to lose her top front tooth, and is mouthier than ever. Maddie’s as sweet as pie, though telling me that school is boring and she needs to figure out how to never have to go. Today she told her old preschool teacher just that, to which Miss Kim responded, “Marry young and well.”

You know how whenever you settle in with the way your world works, there is an upheaval? We’ve hit one of those points. And it’s a gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching one at that.

A pretty significant change is coming our way, and one that we have absolutely no control over. Decisions are not finalized yet, but the rest of this year will be an interesting one, for sure.

The good news for you guys is that one of our 2 options would pay off well. It’ll give me LOTS of blog content to post about, and on one of my most favorite topics.

In the mean time, start planning what you’ll get me for my birthday. It’s less than 3 weeks away and the big 3-5.

35 is going to be fabulous, right?

RIGHT?!?!

Why “Cute” is a Four Letter Word

2013-01-24T13:51:37Z

She’s my “small but mighty”.

She’s also my sensitive one.

She has personality quirks that drive me BONKERS right now, but that I am certain will serve her well throughout life.

She’s passionate, determined, and always comfortable telling you exactly what she’s thinking.

Basically, she’s me.

But one big way that we are very different is her smaller-than-normal stature.

It’s been over 2 years since Kate fell off the growth chart entirely. As in, she’s below the 0 percentile for height compared to girls her age.

Unfortunately, this is wearing on her.

She came home from school the other day and told me she does NOT like being called “cute”. It’s OK (as of right now) if adults call her “cute”, but “cute” means “little”, and she does NOT like when other kids call her that.

I feel for her, I really do. There’s nothing she nor any of us can do about this. All on her own, she has decided to tell other kids talking about her height that God made her this way, and I frequently overhear her telling Maddie the list of reasons why it’s good to be short. (Like I said, she’s nothing if not passionate, determined and comfortable telling you exactly what’s on her mind.)

My hope is that once she’s older and dating, and realizes that every guy is taller than she is, she’ll change her mind about being so short, and truly see the upsides in it.

And then relish in the fact she can always wear heels.

Much unlike her mama.

My #FirstWorldProblems

2013-01-14T11:03:30Z

As I laughed at myself while posting to Facebook and Twitter last week about the inconvenience I faced due to the battery in my car key pad being out, I started to think about all the #FirstWorldProblems we “endure” day in and day out here in the US. You know, things that aggravate us when they don’t work or force us to live the uncivilized life – like actually inserting the car key into the lock on the door in order to lock and unlock the car?

I know the list is truly endless, but here are the most frequent #FirstWorldProblems I suffer through:

Needing to periodically clean out my stinky high-efficiency washing machine.
When the Internet goes down.
When my website goes down.
When Craig doesn’t set the coffee to brew ahead of time, and I need to wait for it to brew after getting out of bed.
Enjoying the ease of a push-button start in Craig’s car, then driving my car that requires me to actually insert a car key and turn my wrist to start the engine.
Watching live TV.
When my iPhone starts to slow down because I have too many photo and video files on it, and I’m forced to transfer those files to my cloud storage system AND delete them off my smart phone.
No restaurants that deliver breakfast to my front door.
Searching for the remote control.
Uncomfortable hotel pillows.
Forgetting my smart phone at home.
Flight delays.
Buying a new toothbrush and finding it’s too fat to fit into my toothbrush holder.
Remembering all the passwords to my online accounts.
Having to wait for a teller because the ATM is down.
Having too much house to keep clean.
Finagling the front door open after the dry cleaners’ delivery guy has hung the freshly-cleaned and pressed clothes from our front door knob.

So there’s my top list of #FirstWorldProblems. I’m sure you have your own. In what ways do you suffer day in and day out?

*Photo credit RenaissanceChambara

When you’ve hit your limbo limit

2012-12-29T17:48:00Z

If your life is one that includes a “corporate relocation” factor, your mindset and views on the future are vastly different than those of individuals, couples and families without it. I’m not saying that it’s good, bad or otherwise – just that so many conversations and decisions of people who live the relocation life start with, end with or hinge on the phrase, “if we’re even still here“.

We’ve been back in TN for 4.5 yrs, the longest we’ve been at one address. We don’t feel that it’s our final stop, but we also have learned that anything is possible. (It’s not like either of us ever imagined moving out of Illinois, let alone living in Memphis, then New Hampshire, then moving back to Memphis.)

Craig and I built our first home. Then we remodeled our second home, inside and out.

When we moved back to Tennessee, we definitely didn’t have the luxury of time. We received an above-asking price offer on our NH home the same day it went on the market. I was extremely pregnant. So pregnant, in fact, that I was too pregnant to fly and gave Craig the go ahead to purchase our current home without me ever seeing anything more than the MLS photos.

With the closing date on the sale of our NH home the same day as Maddie’s due date, we were grateful for the home we did find as it theoretically ticked all the boxes on our list. Having done all the work we had in NH, we knew that we would be able to change the things we did not like in this house as we saw fit.

We’ve gradually done just that over the years. For us, we’ve found that our remodeling tends to come in spurts and always involves us asking ourselves the question, “Is this something that needs to get done before we resell the house?”

The first thing we did when we moved in was repaint all the interior walls. Since then we’ve completed a couple large scale landscaping projects, replaced all the carpet, painted the exterior of our home, changed all the bathroom fixtures to oil-rubbed bronze, purchased a couple kitchen appliances, completed a mini kitchen remodel, and most recently, replaced all the lighting fixtures throughout the house.

(Sorry, but I don’t think gold crackle finish was ever an acceptable lighting choice. Especially not in 2004 when this home was built.)

Craig’s been on a roll these past 4 days getting house projects done faster than I can add them to the Honey Do list. Although there’s always a lot of hemming and hawing about which projects we should undertake, we both also realize that there’s a limit to living in limbo: This is our home, and we need to enjoy it as such. Even though our tenure at this address is uncertain.

We’ve made the decision to knock out the final few things on our “We want this AND it will be good for resale” list, and then sit back and enjoy our hard work.

So, while he’s busy painting all the interior doors, I’m going to get started admiring my new dining room. The new paint, blinds, drapes, wall hanging and light fixture all make me very, very happy.

A Letter to my 7 Year Old

2012-12-14T11:01:22Z

Dear Kate Elizabeth,

As of 2:10 pm today, you will be 7 years old. If you read mama’s blog, you’ll know I take that to mean you’re really turning 17.

Still so tiny in height, you have the intelligence, wit and poise of a child much, much older. You love to read, are skilled at math (even multiplication!) and still can’t get enough of art. In fact, Fridays are your favorite school days because Fridays are when your class goes to art.

Travelling and big cities are near and dear to your heart. You would prefer we took a vacation instead of had a birthday party for you. You ask to lie in bed with me after dinner and watch “Living Abroad” and “House Hunters International” on the TV.

Right now, you are crazy-excited about having a piano in the house. And about getting a horse.

Though we aren’t getting you a horse; you just want one very, very badly. You even told me you’d pay for the horse and “do whatever it takes” to get one.

Along those lines, you put forth a strong effort in your persuasive techniques. Your most recent angle has been, “I just don’t know why, but I feel like I really want ______.”

As in, “I just don’t know why, but I feel like I really want to go someplace special tonight for dinner instead of the same places we ALWAYS go.”

You are still very emotional and opinionated, and I know exactly where you get that. And while Daddy and I are pretty used to your grown-up speak, we could do without the sass. Seriously, child, arguing with you is like arguing with an adult! As tough as it can be to endure right now, we know these qualities will serve you well when you get older.

Mama and Daddy love you very much. As do your sister, and your dogs.

Happy 7th birthday, my big girl!