March madness {or some would call it progress}

During March we got serious about trying to move in.  

We spent Spring Break working our tails off to get things cleared out and done. 

 I thought it was the best Spring Break to date.

Our kids may or may or may not have agreed with that thought.

We finally got garage doors!

That deserves a giant amount of hoopla because boy howdy, that was a huge ordeal.

We are trying to match the wood we're putting above the front door and we can't seem to figure that part out.

 They started building the courtyard wall.

And we finally painted the roof:

Looks so much better in my opinion!

I spent the dumbest, longest hours trying to figure out cabinet hardware.

They are "Hopewell Bar Pulls" from Top Knobs.  Still waiting on the knobs for those top drawers (I wanted something different there).

My phone was filled up with all kinds of options for bathrooms too:

We had a few lighting malfunctions that needed to be tweaked.

Our living room couch got delivered from Thrive Furnishings.

 I LOVE that place.

They are having a Memorial Day sale right now BTW...go check it our HERE.

We got a portion of our sectional for the game room too:

 It's from Z Gallerie.

They re-did our shower floor for the third time:

 We struggled trying to figure out how to take care of the construction dust on our new floor.

 ...which is STILL a problem.  Hoping Provenza Flooring will help take care of that.

I ran into the outdoor lights I had been debating on after I decided on other ones.  I do love these ones though:

 (They are from Hinkley Lighting)

We mulled over pavers for the front and back patios for forever and a day.

We really want these ones:

They are from "Stepstone."  Aren't they cool?  I love them, but they are too darn expensive.

So my phone camera is filled up with pictures like these to try to figure out a more cost effective option.

 In the process we tried to cut down the existing pavement on the back porch to make the four-inch deep pavers work:

Alas, that didn't work.

We figured something else out though, which will be installed next week.

Crossing our fingers it turns out how we're envisioning.

fabric hunt

I decided, with the help of my friend Christina, to get a new bed made rather than buying it.  It was much more cost effective and she has this guy who is awesome at upholstery.  

I knew I was opening a can of worms with choosing fabric, but I figured I could probably knock it out quick. 

This is what the camera roll in my phone looked like in February. 

Except a whole slew more pictures.

Fabric, fabric and more fabric.  

That one up there was the winner.

I'll post the bed as soon as I get it finished.  I love how it turned out.

stone & roof

This is the house we took a lot of ideas from as to how we wanted the front of our house to look:

We loved the transitional look, the browns, grays, blacks and limestone look.

There's just something about the combination of those rich colors that speaks to me.

With our architect's help, we came up with this design:

And I think it's amazing how much this house of ours is starting to look just like that artist's rendering.

Because of that original "idea picture" from Houzz, when we looked for stone we were drawn to flat, limestone-looking stone even though the other rough edge ones spoke to me in some ways as well.

We wanted our home to have the grays and the cooler white to balance out the warm wood (putting that under our awning by front door and on the garages kind of similar to the picture below).

So after much hemming and hawing, we decided on one.  Kind of a cream-ish, tan-ish limestone look, but figured with the desert sun it would get faded in no time.

Here's Dave and our friend trying to figure out how to lay the stuff.

All traced out, lined up, and ready to go:

(See that space up there above the front door?  That's where we will put the wood...and the garages will be painted that same warm brown.)

And here are the guys putting it up:

It took a long, long time for them to do because those things weren't made overly straight, but it's done.

Now we still need to figure out the rest.

We did paint the roof which I was so excited about.  Here's the before:

And here it is after with garage doors (finally!):

Those garage doors will be painted a rich brown to match what we put above the front door.

On to picking out some good exterior wood that will last through some desert heat!