And then there was drywall….

2013-03-06T22:10:00.000-05:00

Drywall brings dust. Have mercy, so much dust.

It finds every corner and surface, and causes my eyeballs to pop out with anxiety.

But, drywall means WALLS… and we now have actual WALLS!!!

Admittedly, the room that I was most excited to see take shape with walls and paint was the ‘heart of our home.’ This area of our home is a combined space: kitchen, dining area, and family room. We wanted this casual space to be light and airy, filled with sunshine.

Looking from our front door into the entry and living area.

The future kitchen, my domain. Ovens/fridge on left, hood in the center, sink on the right. Not to be forgotten, the island in the middle. The island that my amazing hubby painstakingly measured, laid out, re-measured, and lost countless hours of sleep over… leg space and chair width are apparently important to a man.

The view looking towards the other end. Originally we had windows placed on either side of the fireplace. However, it was discovered that the ~~ridiculous~~ television would compete with the windows for space. The walls were reconfigured, windows removed, and only a few tears shed. Pick your battles people.

With such a long room, we wanted to break up the monotony of the ceiling. And this girl has dreamed of a beam & v-groove ceiling for pretty much her entire life (with the exception of ages 5-10, my hot pink/hot mess phase).

The ceiling goes up!

The ceiling is painted a semi-gloss custom Dover white. To contrast with the white ceiling and trim, we stained the patio/screen porch doors (same stain as the darker hardwood floors, yet to be put down). The walls for this entire space will be Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter (color matched in Sherwin Williams).

When we were designing our home, we knew that most of our time was/is spent in the kitchen. We eat, gather, talk, dance, and share in that one space. It didn’t make sense to have it separate from the rest of the house; instead, we threw out the formal dining/living rooms and created a warm great room.

A place for family.

Just a few ideas for this space…

Life takes many turns, as does a blog … please excuse us, while we overshare our home building process. This blog serves as our memory. Its allows us to share with friends/family, and reminds us in the days ahead of where we’ve been.

Thanks for understanding and checking in on our nonsense!

Building our Home :: About a Window

2013-02-11T21:00:00.000-05:00

Have you ever dreamt of one single element you MUST have in your home? Curved staircase, arched doorways, dormers?

We are building our house around a window.

When we were in the early design stages, going through pictures and potential plans, I kept coming back to a classic East Coast home (see inspiration here). One with oval windows. They’re unlikely in today’s popular architecture, nearly forgotten, but add such character. I lost sleep over those windows. Couldn’t get them out of my head, searched the entire interwebs until I viewed every oval window to be found. So while we didn’t entirely base our future home around it, when we did work up the ideal layout for our family… we knew there must be a place for my oval window.

Inspiration

Traditional Landscape design by Portland Maine Landscape Architect Woodburn & Company Landscape Architecture, LLC

Our Home

(currently)

It just so happens that our front oval window has the best view… and it just so happens that it is in my daughters bedroom. The travesty. After months of pining, I handed it over to my firstborn. I nearly made her flip a coin for it.

(Why you might be asking… because we designed our home for children upstairs, adults down).

Not to be left out… on-a-spur-of-the-moment-design-on-the-fly type meeting with our builders, we decided to add an oval to our son’s bedroom as well. His window sits higher and is hidden from the road by the eaves/roofline; however, its such a fun element and fits with the higher ceiling.

We’ve discovered that oval windows are not without their own set of ‘issues’. In determining window treatments, and just how exactly we were going to get our son to sleep with bright light shining in, we realized covering his presented problems. Our daughter’s oval sits lower, we’ll be able to frame it out with curtain panels (more on that another time). However, our son’s window was high and smaller. Curtains would take away from the overall ‘effect.’

The perfect solution!

A wooden shutter is both functional and a really great feature for a boy’s room.

I can hardly wait ~~for him to slam it a million times~~ to see the finished product!

Our house makes me happy for so many reasons… but designing it around a feature that I had dreamt about, makes it that much more enjoyable and personal! It’s the little things my friends!

Thanks for understanding and checking in on our nonsense!

Starr Family Blog

And then there was drywall….

Building our Home :: About a Window