Inspiration Boards

All of our friends keep asking how we plan to decorate once the reno is complete, and what we would call our style. I keep thinking of a name to call our style but can't come up with anything other than "eclectic". It's traditional, modern, french country, industrial...and a whole lot more all balled up together.

We actually got rid of most everything we owned before moving except our 2 breakfast nook tables and couch. Everything else was too modern for us. We moved out of our apartment in June and moved everything into a storage unit. I started buying things for the new house a few months before we moved out of the apartment and I just can't seem to stop! I make trips all the way out to our storage unit every now and again to drop things off. I have bought so much I can't even tell you what we have anymore. We had an opportunity to donate a lot of our things so I went to storage and was going through boxes. A few times I came across boxes with shopping bags in them and I thought to myself "What is this stuff?" I opened it and realized I had bought outdoor summer pillows at Pier 1 one day when they were on sale...so it will be exciting to finally unpack everything and get it all situated. I'm obsessed with throw pillows and just keep buying and buying...I can't remember what color schemes they are or design or how many we have...so I guess I should stop buying those until we move in and un pack.

The other day when Chance and I were talking about a color scheme for the master, I told him I had bought us a new comforter, pillow shams, throw pillows, etc...from Target and he asked what they look like.....and I couldn't remember :( That's how long it's been since I've seen this stuff. All I know is that it is some sort of gray, white and yellow combo. At this very moment there are actually two of our 4 breakfast nook chairs in the back of my car. I don't want to make the 2 hour round trip drive to our storage just to drop those off. So how long will they stay in the back of my car? Who knows! ;)

Pinterest has been the best creation ever! I've picked some of my favorite pictures and created "inspirational boards" for when it's time to decorate.

If you can come up with a word to describe our style...please share :)

We would love a cheerful and welcoming entrance...

We would love double doors and a console table in the foyer...

We are hoping we find a house with a study, and if not we can just use an extra bedroom...

A must for us is a separate dining room. We can't wait to host dinner parties and I can't wait to put up some board and batten. I want a really cool barn style table and Chance said he might attempt to build one ;)

In the living room we want natural and gray colors. 

We currently have a sectional, but want to get a new linen sectional. 

We love the rock fireplace below!

I am obsessed with the industrial look and can't wait to build a shelving unit somewhere in the house.

I would like for the kitchen to be open and airy. 

I never thought gray cabinets would make a kitchen look airy...but my mind has been changed. I'm now convinced we need gray cabinets and white stone countertops. I'm in love with carrera marble but everyone says they stain so easily and to be careful putting them in your kitchen. 

I love granite but I can't find any pieces that have the veining to match marble. What I'm finding is similar but darker....so a decision hasn't been made just yet on the countertops. I have made a decision on the sink though! I want an apron front country style sink, like the picture below. I also want a wine area so a small wine fridge would be fun. 

I'm incredibly organized and it would be a dream to have a pantry look like this. We don't have children right now so I'm hopeful we can have a pantry like this for the next few years ;)

In the breakfast nook we already have a square shaped table like the top right picture below, and chairs similar to the bottom right picture but are Parson dining chairs.

I also love the coffee set up in the picture to the left.

In the extra bedroom I want to use some bright fun colors and experiment painting large furniture some brighter colors than I normally would. I also love the faux taxidermy animal heads...I want to use that somewhere in the house. 

In our master, I want to go with a gray and white color scheme and Chance loves navy blue and so do I, so I'll bring that in to make the room more "masculine".

I especially love these photos over the bed. I would love to find some really neat prints and knobs to hang these frames.

In the two restrooms, I would like for them to feel like a spa. Lots of spa like products, cozy fluffy towels and plenty of candles. 

We can't wait until we get our new front loaders. I most definitely want a countertop over the washer/dryer because I would love to decorate that area and I won't have to worry about reaching and breaking my back to find random socks.

The houses we have been looking at have large back yards so we are really looking forward to decorating that area as well. 

I love the string lights in the top right picture below. I also think the picnic table turned drink holder is pretty cool. 

I'm really looking forward to starting a garden, including a wall succulent garden. 

These are a few industrial style lights we are loving and can't wait to purchase!

These are just a few randoms we love...

Somewhere in our house, we will have sliding barn doors...just not sure where :)

Day #1 of house hunting

Today was our first day in search for "The One"....we had 7 homes to check out and we really liked 2 of them. One we didn't even go inside, and one was a foreclosure and the homeowners pretty much destroyed it so it was a 100% gut. Here are a few pics from the two homes we have still on our list...oh and like I said, it's still pretty early in the game so both of these homes will probably be sold soon. We would've wanted to make changes but they are atill considered "move-in" ready.

So here is our #1 option:

We would want to completely re-do the exterior.

We would want to remove a lot of interior walls to open the space up.

We would want to completely renovate the kitchen.

We would want to expand the master en suite into the closet and build another closet with access from the bathroom.

And that about sums it up...we really love this additional living room in the back, we could totally see the family over for bbq's and the holidays.

And here is option #2:

Now this home is pretty turn key, but it needs a few changes. The master en suite has access from the bedroom and the main hallway. This might be weird but I don't want our guest using the master, I want them using the hall bath so I would want to close that door off and we could use that area for either a hall closet or closet in the bathroom for towels. 

The dining room is a little closed off so we would want to remove one wall. 

The fridge is located in the breakfast nook which is very odd, so we haven't come up with any kind of solution for that.

The 1/2 bath is near the utility room so to get to it you would see the utility room...which would mean it would have to stay clean at all times! 

Both homes had huge yards so we know Rylee will be excited about that!

TaTa for now!

How to buy a home....

I've been receiving a lot of emails of people asking how we are going about buying a home, so this post is about our process and an update of where we are now.

We got really lucky since we have a family friend in the mortgage business so he is doing all of our important financial "stuff", as I like to call it. We got a few other quotes just so we could compare the best deals, and sure enough our family friend has the best deal for us. We aren't ready to buy so we didn't request to be pre-approved, we just want to know what price range we will be in so we got pre-qualified. Which most realtors require you to do before they start spending time showing you homes you might not be able to afford. 

You might be surprised with what you pre-qualify for, or at least we were. We knew what we wanted to spend in our mortgage so we worked backwards and figured out what price range that puts us in. Well we were qualified for A LOT more, so be careful to not use every penny they qualify you for. Or do and pay a large mortgage every month. We decided to go with a cheaper fixer upper for many different reasons: our mortgage is cheaper, we can renovate over time, and we can put our own touch on it and make it ours. And with a cheaper mortgage we don't have to worry about other finances (bills, groceries, gas, 2 car payments, school loans, toll bills, etc) and we can put more money in savings for a wedding, travels, etc...

We also are buying a used home and don't have 20% to put down, so we qualified for a FHA loan and only have to put down 3.5%. There are also a lot of renovation loans out there, but we have decided not to go with the FHA 203k loan because most mortgage companies don't have that because it's so risky. Our mortgage lender we are going with doesn't offer that and we don't want to go with anyone else. And we don't want to pay a ton of interest on a $10,000 loan when we can save money over time and pay $10,000 cash to do renovations.

Now on to the realtor process. We got really lucky here as well since my sisters childhood friend, Carrie Ingram with Keller Williams, is a local realtor and we know she will take care of us. We start our house hunting process tomorrow and we are so excited! It's still a little early in the game but our realtor wants to get an idea of our likes and dislikes. 

We had an idea of what area we wanted to live in but right now there is only one home (in our price range) in that area, so we had to expand our search. We are now convinced that our plan b area is now where we want to live! We love the area, and we can get a lot more land than where we first started looking. I didn't know much about this area and it's a lot further drive for me to work, but we would rather have land and be in a safe area. The drive is actually shorter than my drive now and I like my quiet time in the car. So my drive is about 35 minutes and Chance's is about 15 minutes.

Stay tuned and follow us on our house hunt tomorrow!

Chance's new truck!

It's that time in Chance's life for a big purchase!

He has been with the Rangers for a few months and has been doing great.

He saved a good size down payment for a truck and bought one today! I'm so proud of him for doing this without any help.

Here are a few pics of him and his new silver bullet (no...Chance is not aware I have named his truck)

We're buying a house!

It's official! Chance and I are going to be buying our first house together later this summer. We've met with our mortgage lender and realtor and we are really excited about working with both of them to find our first home :) We would prefer a fixer upper so we can put our own style on the home and because we both enjoy renovating. I'm so lucky Pinterest and Houzz are around because it's definitely helped...although Chance may disagree because his "honey-do-list" is just getting longer and longer by the day ;) so keep checking back in and follow us on our journey to home ownership! I will blog our entire search and things we've learned/realized along the way, as well as our renovations when we move in!

Valentine's Date!

For Valentine's dinner this year Chance thought it would be fun to take me out for steaks and two steppin'. He had never been to Southern Junction before but my dad told him all about it. We decided to do a group date and my parents, Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Mike joined us.

For dinner we picked our own filets out and the guys did all the cooking. I was little weary about having to cook my own dinner when we are trying to celebrate Valentine's, but this was seriously the coolest thing we have done. While the steaks were going, we made our baked potatoes and Texas toast.

After dinner we danced the night away and had such a good time!

My cousin showed up to celebrate his birthday so it was really good seeing him. Happy Birthday JD!

At midnight there was a balloon drop for the ladies. In the balloons were pieces of paper that had things written on them - swag, money, etc. 

I got $2 and a free bull ride...both of which I gave to my cousin for his birthday.

My mom got a beanie, keychain, some free drink vouchers and a few free rides on the bull. I really thought she was going to ride the bull for fun, but she didn't and she gave all of the drink coupons and free bull rides to my cousin for his birthday.

Overall, this night was the best Valentine's dinner/date I have ever had. Chance and I just have such a great time together. I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be able to call him mine :) Love you babe!

Jocelyns Birthday!

Happy Birthday Jocelyn!

Chance and I met her and her boyfriend out for dinner tonight. Sushi = YUM!

Hope you enjoy your earrings :)