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Thirsty Plants and More
Everyday when I wake up the list of things to do is long. There's preparation for my upcoming retreat. Anniversary parties (where the girls danced up a storm). Dining in the men's locker room of Glen Oaks Golf Course (a work party for Jeff---and what a locker room it was!). Watching Canada geese walk down the sidewalk of a busy street in Des Moines as if they knew it was safe to walk single file there, rather than on the street. Swimming and tubing in the pond. And, lots of watering. I talked earlier about the landscaping project at our house. It's been wonderful and I LOVE it all. But, it's also a lot of work. And, why do weeds grow so fast? A little rain and they look better than my new plants. Gotta get that Round-up out. And, after two years of no front step, we have a front step. Yeah!! Now, just to get the builder back to finish the kitchen stove hood and things will be great! But to give you an idea of why I've been busy I thought I would show you a picture of our front sidewalk.
Hope all of your summer's are going great, too.
Hope all of your summer's are going great, too.
Love your front entryway.
Did you design the house yourself? Love the barn door look~! I have a fascination with weathervanes
what animal is it?
oh how I hate weeding too!
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When it came to designing the house we chose to work with an friend that was an architect. His wife is a quilter and I just knew he would understand me. So, one day he met me at the site where the house was built and we talked about what we wanted to see. Where we wanted the house to be built. Then we headed back to our old house and sat down at the kitchen table.
For years I've been dreaming of the perfect house and had been tearing out magazines pages for ideas. With an entire notebook of ideas in hand, we sat down. Steve started asking me questions. He told me to just keep talking. Wow, for me, that was fun! I would pull out pictures and say "I see this." or "I want it to feel like this." We really were focusing on the inside of the house and the flow of the rooms. Everyone ends up in the kitchen and I said I wanted the kitchen to be the focal point. Do you remember watching The Waltons? I described the sound of that squeaky screen door opening and the warmth of the entire family being at that long table. I talked about the flow of our daily schedule. What we did, how we lived. For three hours, Steve would ask questions and I shared every idea I had. The entire time he was sketching. Pencil in hand. Eraser close-by. A ruler. The one question that was difficult to answer was "When you walk in the front door what do you see?" I could not see anything. I kept telling him that everything I saw was inside the house and from the kitchen. I could tell him what I didn't want when I walked in the front door!
At the end of the meeting, I still can remember him turning the drawing around to show me. At this point he had both a rough sketch of the first floor, and an idea for the exterior. It was amazing to me. It was everything I wanted. He got it! He even knew how to handle the front entry.
We lived with this drawing for a while, talking about it, discussing it. We ended up adding a second floor to a portion of the house for our master bedroom. Again, Steve knew just how to handle it. He cleaned up his drawings, refined his ideas. I picked up the interior floor drawings and the front and rear exteriors in November 2004.
A week later, Steve underwent surgery and suffered a brain injury. He no longer practices his architecture and unfortunately he only has ever seen pictures of our house being built. That makes me so sad for so many reasons. Steve helped my dream come true. We've been in our house over 2 years now and I love it. He got it! My aunt visited for the first time this past week and she said it felt like the house had been their for a long time. It was established. Our builder Rocky did an awesome job moving forward from the foundation that Steve created. Rocky and Steve never met, but Rocky, too, saw the vision and added creative touches of his own.
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The house looks AMAZING! Sounds like you're busy busy busy!
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What a wonderful story about your house! I love the front design and can tell without even knowing you, that it "fits" you and your family. The barn look is great! I think there must be a shiny tractor sitting somewhere nearby that would make the scene complete.
We began working with our builder just a little over two years ago and while we used a pre-designed plan, we "tweeked" it to get it just right. The flow of the rooms is just what we wanted. I, too, feel like we have been here a long time. I absolutely love it. My only sadness comes when I think of my dad. Earlier today I was sitting on the floor unpacking a box (yep, there are still lots of unpacked boxes)and as I unwrapped some of my "treasures" I thought how much I wish he could have been here just once. He got to see it when my husband would bring the lap top to him at the care center but, oh, how he would have enjoyed the visit. He was a builder and always had questions about how our builder was doing things. I've been going back and reading some of your old posts. I just love to read your blog.
I have drawn a little "Sleep tight" picture that I am going to share with my grandson and then post on my blog. I was inspired by your closing post last Sunday and will make general reference to it later tonight on my blog.
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