create live design: Catching up...

hello blogging world! i have taken quite the hiatus from blogging and there is really no way to catch up with everything that has gone on {the thought honestly induces stress..!} so i will just pick up here and now with some updates -

first things first, last spring we thought we might buy a lot and build a house. we went as far as me drawing up a full set of plans for the house-to-be, meeting with our architect friend, and getting preliminary pricing from the builder. however after much prayer, time, and hair pulling, we realized building was not the route for us in this particular location. in the middle of this decision making, stephen happened to mention to a friend of his that we might be interested in selling our house soon. his friend and family came to look one sunday and on the following tuesday they accepted our asking price. we were shocked, excited, and ready.

some time after this we realized building was not the route for us but still decided the sell of our house was a smart and timely thing to do. we moved out in septemeber to a rental house, having no idea where/what our next step was. the day before the trucks arrived to move us out of our old house, we went to look at a house that was not on the market, but the owners were actually one of my first consultations years ago when i went out on my own. it was the first time in four years stephen and i have been on the same page when it came to a house - no trying to convince each other its the right thing to do or forcing things to make it work.

the location is wonderful, the neighbors are friends, the yard is large {stephen and i both need our green space!}, there is room for all of us, most importantly the price was right {!}, and i even have a teeny tiny little office space upstairs. it is a very traditional styled house, which was never what we thought we were after, but the feel of the house when you drive up just whispers "home" to us.

we made an offer, discussed things with the owners, made another offer, and ultimately our two numbers were too far apart to compromise.

so we started to unpack and get settled in the rental house...a little disappointed but totally believing God's plan was far greater than ours and maybe He just wanted us to go through a season of waiting.

fast forward two weeks and we received a call one night that the owners decided to accept our last offer. we were ecstatic! they wanted one last christmas in their house and we obliged. we finally closed in mid january and started demo work the very next day. i hope to keep regularly updating as we go through this renovation process mainly for our own records but also because i just love the process and its fun to do my own space for a change! you can read about the last renovation we did at our old house here.

the good thing about the new house is it has great bones and really didn't need any total "gutting," unlike most houses we have seen in our area. however the changes we are making {flooring, paint, and some kitchen updates to name a few} still add up so we are constantly figuring the smartest route to take on this project. there have already been surprises that set us back a little but that is to be expected on a renovation, and will be covered in a later post :).

here are the before pictures, and i will update the spaces as time moves on! {note: some pictures are from before the owners moved out, others are after, as you can probably tell!}