Keeping Christmas.

One of my mother's favorite books of all time is A Christmas Carol, and it's become one of mine as well. I can't even watch the Muppets version without getting teary as Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning with a new song on his lips proclaiming that he will honor Chirstmas in his heart and keep it all the year. His joyous transformation and newfound boundless energy are contagious.

But as we pack up our ornaments, stockings, wreaths, and bows, how does one keep Christmas all the year? Christmas just isn't on your mind in April. Certainly I believe Dickens would tell us that Christmas is not in the material possessions or decorations, nor is it in the calendar, but it is, as Scrooge said, in one's heart.

I don't know about you, but I need a reminder to keep in my heart all year long.

So, this year, 2011, we are going to keep our Christmas cards up all year long. How much fun is it to look at your family and friends anyway? A collage of holiday greetings certainly warms the soul, and let's face it, I don't really know what I am going to do with my entry anyways. I'll let you guys know how this goes, but I'm pretty excited about seeing my family and friends each day with big smiles on their faces.

God bless us, every one.

Baby it's cold inside, Part 2.

Out with the old...

...and in with the new.



On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…

A brand new H-V-A-C (has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?)

I am all for spending money where I can see it, but it is truly a bummer to spend money and not be able to have anything much to show for it. And that’s how it is with HVAC units.

As I’ve mentioned before, Tara is not a spring chicken. Part of buying her for a song meant that plenty was wrong, and one of the things that desperately needed replacing was the HVAC unit. Fortunately, Rhett knows people.

When we had the ducts cleaned in July, the man cleaning them didn’t even want to start because the unit was so old. “Don’t you want to replace it first, mam?” he asked. No, we decided to delay the inevitable and wait until arguably the coldest part of the year. But hey, it’s better than shutting the AC off in the hottest part of the year.

Luckily, the heat was only off for a few hours, and our home is much more energy efficient than it was to begin with. Hallelujah. We also get a tax credit for doing this before the end of the year, and that is something to make merry about.

Baby It's Cold Inside

Some people know with a definite conviction whether they are hot or cold natured.  I have been called- by more than one person- “seasonally challenged” in that I am solidly the opposite of simply hot or cold natured. Rather, I have been guilty of donning corduroys and sweaters in August and running shorts in January. This behavior would be normal if I lived below the equator, but alas, I live in the southeast United States, making this dress code bizarre. I figure I’m warm one day and cool the next so what does it matter what the calendar says? Maybe I just like to keep people on their toes.

That being said, I have been solidly freezing for the past two months. I dread showering because it means I will have to eventually get out of the scalding hot oasis and into a house that makes me shiver. I’ve been sleeping in sweats and even as I’m writing this, I’m wearing a down jacket and slippers…and of course my nose is running its own marathon.

I hear a lot these days about energy efficiency, and I bet you do, too. As much as we’ve made Tara pretty, it’s time to make her efficient (and save us some money!).

First on the list, insulation. It seems bizarre to insulate AFTER we’ve already renovated so much on the inside but it can be done, so don’t fret if you aren’t in the mood to rip out all your drywall. Rhett, being the Almighty king of handymen everywhere, decided to take a Saturday to blow insulation into our attic. Remember, heat rises, so insulating the area between your attic and main floor (if you have a ranch like Tara) is a good place to start.

Our attic is unfinished so you can actually see a lot of the insulation without even removing any of the attic flooring…because it’s not there. That's Rhett on the left and my father-in-law on the right. We paid him for his time with homemade molasses cookies.

According to Rhett, new homes have about 12 inches of insualtion in them. Don't worry, though, because somewhere around 8 inches isn't a bad place to be. The things was, Tara had a measly 4 in some places, and less in others.

What you’re seeing in the top picture is some of our less-than-satisfactory insulation, and what you’re seeing in the bottom picture is the back part of the attic, with insulation Rhett blew, and the difference between that section and the section closest to the floor, which hadn’t been blown yet.

But how do you blow insulation? Apparently it’s not that hard (I say that like I had a lot to do with this little venture…I was inside bundled up!). Home Depot will rent you an insulation blower for about a hundred dollars that looks like this:

You’re then in charge of feeding the bags of insulation (we used loose insulation, which is basically newspaper, though you have several options) into the machine, which them blows them up through a hose. It’s fairly fool-proof, though it is time consuming. And don’t forget to get a mask for the one who’s in charge of feeding the bags into the machine and the one in charge of manning the hose.

This is just step 1 in our making Tara more efficient, so stay tuned. For now, I'm just hoping my toes will begin to thaw, or I may be cold natured from now on.



Trimming the Tree

Rhett and I have been married for about a year and a half, but when you count the Christmas we spent together when we were dating this will our third shared Christmas. Along with picking the perfect evergreen, setting out all our holiday décor, and hanging the stockings, bickering on the day we decide to trim the tree has become a holiday tradition.

I can’t remember what we were fighting about in 2008- it was probably something he did- but I remember 2009 clearly. It was our first Christmas under the same roof, and we were ready to spruce up our little bungalow. Tensions were high - I was expecting and we hadn’t told anyone but my best friends, Rhett and I were both avidly looking for new jobs- but once there is hot cocoa in mugs and Amy Grant in the stereo (I am a big fan of cheesing it up for the season and forcing family fun) who could be anything but giddy?

We could.

Rhett saves everything (seriously, it should be another blog entry) and I am a no-nonsense purger. So there we were, looking though his holiday décor that includes ribbon from the 1980s and gilded plastic, when I say something like “Maybe we should use some of my things here instead of these relics” which gets met with “I don’t want Pottery Barn Kids stockings in my house” to which we both take offense that the other doesn’t like our taste, which explodes into allegations of not loving the other person, Christmas, or Jesus. (It didn’t go that far, but these things do escalate quickly.) I think I remember taking our oldest daughter to Target and letting Rhett trim the tree alone.

Fast forward and yesterday, 5 December 2010, was the big day of tree trimming. I took the oldest to the store for icing for a gingerbread house, and Rhett said he’d put lights on the tree while we were gone so that we could hang ornaments when we get home. Perfect. There was even a light layer of snow on the ground. Perry Como was practically seeping out of my pores.

When we drive up the driveway the tree is magically lit in our big front window and when I walk through the door the youngest is smiling sweetly and the oldest is about to jump out of her skin because she’s so excited to decorate.

“Let’s start!” I say to Rhett, who is on the computer.

“Just a sec- I’m working on some budgeting stuff. How much did you spend at Amazon?”

Are you kidding me? Nope. Because we were lacking the customary tension, Rhett decided a thorough analysis of our household finances would be appropriate on the day we decide to trim the tree. And he’s decided that the perfect timing for a discussion of holiday expenditures is RIGHT before John Denver and the Muppets Christmas CD is piped through the house.

Rhett was swiftly pulled away from mint.com, given a rum and coke, and told to sit down and be Christmas-y for crying out loud.

Crisis averted, we got the tree decorated and it was, despite Rhett's attempt to rain on my parade, a pretty good afternoon of holiday cheer. Advice? Save the discussion of seasonal spending until December 26, at least. Happy tree trimming!

Fine Dining

There have been numerous requests for more photos...so, here you go!

In honor of the upcoming holiday of feasting, I give you (drumroll!) my dining room.

This is one of my favorite transformations because it wasn't flashy. It didn't require hacking anything apart or doing a major overhaul. We really capitalized on what was already in the room, and by simply using paint colors wisely and paying attention to the furniture we already had, we really got a lot of bang for our buck here.

Here's what we started with:

The chandelier was not something I would have originally gravitated towards, but keeping it proved to be a smart decision. You'l notice that there's a lot of natural light the floods the living room and illuminates the dining room. The corner china cabinets represent a sense of whimsy but also evoke something about the 1950s-1960s that I can't quite put my finger on- needless to say, we loved them and kept them, too.

Halfway through...

In this picture, the floors were sanded but not yet refinished. We used a color on the walls called Reisling by Ralph Lauren. I loved it because it changes with the daylight. Sometimes it looks almost taupe, and other times it has a beautiful soft lemony tone. We used bright white on the ceilings and a softer white on the trim and cabinets. The color contrast and the fresh paint really made the cabinets pop!

All finished!

I like to give you the view of the room as you see it when you walk in the door, but of course since this is about the dining room more than the living room, I included a picture of just the dining room for good measure. Quite a contrast from the first photo, right?

The room, as large as it is, needed a bit of color and a bit of texture, and hopefully that's what it now has. Don't worry, I'll talk more about adding those aspects to the dining room and living room in the next few posts. :) Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!



The Landscaping isn't so lush...

This is the "landscaping" between our house and our neighbors' home. 

Didn't Robert Frost once say that a bunch of brush and some electrical wires make good neighbors?

To date, we’ve had 7 trees removed from our yard. The sad news is that there are more that need to go.

Tara sits on just over an acre and with no gorgeous trees, and it was a blow to remove seven from the start. In my dreams I see mature magnolias and delicate dogwoods lining the drive, but instead we’ve got a ragtag group of hackberries (what IS a hackberry, by the way?) among a myriad of sad, dilapidated, poor excuses for trees. Nevermind that the first four trees you see when you come up the driveway each have a huge red X on the trunk (thanks, local electrical company…when were you planning on talking those down or did you just spray the red Xs for fun?). Combine that with the grass that refuses to grow on the steep slopes in our yard, and you have landscaping that is nothing to call home about, to say the least.

I think Rhett has a hidden desire to be a farmer, because he’s coming home today with a HUGE lawnmower that he wrangled from some guy in the ‘burbs who owns a lawnmower shop. Back where I come from we hire people to mow our yards, but for Rhett, the idea of sitting atop (or in his case, standing behind) a huge contraption for a few hours every Saturday sounds like Heaven. Whatever. He’s done the math and he figures that in two years the investment of the lawn mower will be paid off compared to how much it would cost someone to mow our yard. I guess this is his answer to my going to step class on Saturday mornings- he just gets his “time” on the back of a gigantic lawnmower slowly chugging all over the steep hills of our yard.

You have to remember that in buying this house, we knew we were purchasing the neighborhood eyesore. However, by doing so we got a great deal. If capital gains didn’t exist, we could sell our house now, 6 months later, and make a nice profit. Not only is the inside now simply spectacular (read: finally livable!) but they say the three things that matter in real estate are location, location, and location, and baby, that’s one thing we do have. I am so spoiled by my simple commute to practically anywhere that moving one day will be painful because I can’t get a better commute anywhere else. Anyways, when the appearance of our front yard makes me want to disinvite friends and neighbors over (or have them come after dark?) being reminded of my location does nothing to ease my mind about the yard.

The first order of business for fixing the landscaping was to remove seven trees, and our trusty contractor, Frank, offered to supervise this for us. We’ll call him Jonas to keep with the Gone with the Wind theme. His two sidekicks, Freddie and Ceasar, we’ll refer to as Big Sam and Pork.

Or maybe I’ll just call them Freddie and Ceasar.

Regardless, these guys were tree-removal experts in their native Mexico and they worked tirelessly taking down huge, dead trees from our yard this summer.

One day, my oldest and I were playing in the den when we heard a knock on the back door. Jonas’ oldest son had come to ask if we had any ice. Much to my dismay, Rhett had yet to hook up the ice maker (yes, honey, that is a dig), so I told him the best I could do was a bag of frozen peas. But why did he need them? He replied that Jonas had simply turned his ankle in one of the small potholes in our yard. Whoops.

Turns out our contractor actually broke his ankle and foot, and his injury required 2 pins and a cast for two months! We worried there was some sort of worker’s comp he could file against us, but ol’ Jonas toughed it out and spent the rest of the summer directing Freddie and Ceasar from the inside of his white pickup.

The scene of the crime (and yes, those are minature trees of some sort that thwart my plans for pretty grass...)

With the trees gone, the landscape looks even more bare and lonely. For my part, I planted a good deal of pansies in the front and around the back deck, but it doesn’t help the overall appearance of the yard.

So here’s my question for you- do you think we should spend more money improving the landscape and repaving the driveway? Is the first appearance that important, or should we invest in the house again before we invest in the yard? (See posting below).

We got a quote from a local landscaping company we trust…but do we want to put that money elsewhere and deal with the yard another day/year?

Let me know at renovatingtara@gmail.com.

You've got mail. To send me.

Dolly Parton once said (don’t you LOVE blogs that begin like this?!), in her most fabulous role as Truvy in my favorite (read: the greatest) movie of all time, “Sammy’s so confused, he don’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt.” (If you’re keeping track of how many times I will mention Steel Magnolias in this blog, this is only the second time.) Confusion and indecisiveness are tricky little buggers and folks, the hard truth is that Rhett and I are right there, feet firmly planted in the land of indecisiveness.

First, let’s address the big pink elephant in the room, shall we? Apologies all around to those who’ve been missing updates and stories of calamity at Tara (bah- it’s been exactly a month!) We’ve been busy bees, busy with everything but the house, mainly as a result of the aforementioned indecisiveness. But any excuse is a pitiful one, I understand, and to make it up to you I am back, writing away, ignoring the needs of my children and desires of my spouse (kidding!).

As the holidays approach, you’d probably not be shocked to find that home renovations typically slow down. After all, no one shouts in frustration “There’s nowhere to hang the garland, Delores!” and is met with a response of something like, “Well then let’s just level the whole front room!” Just because it ‘tis NOT the season for renovating doesn’t mean that people aren’t thinking about it. So while we’re not doing anything to the house at the moment, we sure are thinking about it. And the holidays bring up a lot of issues. Having guests over for parties makes you notice the cracked front steps. When relatives come stay, you wish you had a bigger guest bedroom. You get the picture.

Such is our predicament with Tara. The inside is completed (cue Hallelujah chorus) but what about the outside? Landscaping? Exterior paint and a bit of a facelift for the front? What about that back deck? Want to replace it and screen it in? How about a fireplace on the screened in porch…that would be nice.

Or wait…do you want to bust out a wall of our bedroom and add a master bath? Remember our house is only a 2 bath, so that would surely add to the resale value. And what about doing that playroom upstairs (er…we’d need to BUILD an upstairs first) for the girls? Or do we want to just insulate part of the flooring in the attic and make an office using the existing stairs that are in the garage?

Oh, and by the way the driveway is a mess. And we probably need a new AC unit.

See what I mean about confusion?

This is where you come in. I’ve cleverly commandeered renovatingtara@gmail.com so you can email me your suggestions. If you had a 4 bedroom, 2 bath ranch, what would YOU do?

In the meantime, I won’t leave you hanging. There’s a lot that we’ve done that you’ve yet to hear about! So sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and help us with our house, reading a little about what we’ve already done along the way.

No smoking, please.

The USPS has been pretty good about realizing that we now live at Tara, as most of our mail arrives where it should and we no longer get mail intended for the previous residents. Every now and then, however, we get a piece of mail addressed to one Uri Snellbaker. Seriously. I cannot make this stuff up.

That someone actually named their child Uri Snellbaker is news enough, but the mail sent to Mr. Snellbaker is nothing to sneeze at. We don’t get Uri’s credit card bills or juicy love letters, nor do we get catalogues, high school reunion updates, or temple newsletters. Camel, Virginia Slims, and Marlboro seem to be the only ones who think Uri resides at Tara.

We don’t need Angela Lansbury to clue us in on the fact that Mr. Snellbaker liked a smoke.

But, with apologizes to Ayn Rand,

Who is Uri Snellbaker?

Loving some good gossip, I like to imagine that ol’ Uri was Mrs. Hershey’s lover. (The plot thickens!) Perhaps he was a tobacco tycoon who stole Mrs. Hershey’s heart sometime in the 80s and continued to be her on-again/off-again smoky sweetheart through the next two decades. Maybe he was her brother (boring!) who came to live with her as he endured treatment for emphysema. Maybe he lived next door, but didn’t want his wife to know he smoked, so he had his smoking literature sent to Mrs. Hershey’s? That last one’s too far-fetched, and the second option is boring, so we’re going to go with the juiciest story.

Uri Snellbaker was Mrs. Hershey’s smokin’ suitor, her cigarette courter, her burning beau, her puffing paramour, and her smoldering steady (love thesaurus.com!).

Unfortunately, I didn’t arrive at this conclusion solely as a result of the USPS. No, rather when we bought Tara, it smelled like an ashtray. Being pregnant and hormonal, I told Rhett that if there was one thing I was allowed to pitch a fit about, it was the smell. When the house was made livable, I told him, I was not moving in unless the smell was gone.

I know that fifty years ago no one knew how terrible cigarettes were, and I’ve seen enough Mad Men to realize that times have changed. But seriously. In 2010, a house shouldn’t smell like a bar.

Before we moved in, the smell of cigarettes poured out of every crevice, and as my mother-in-law washed walls her water became quickly tinted with yellow as the decades of smoke began to be freed from the house. Washing the walls and shelves, refinishing the floors, painting the walls, ceilings, and trims didn’t entirely get rid of the stench, and to date our painters have used over 35 gallons of Kilz on the ceilings alone. If this is what smoking does to the inside of a house, I don’t even want to think about what it does to the inside of a body.

As with any home, the smoking stench has mainly subsided and the house has started to smell like us rather than the local bar.

However, every now and then in certain sections of the house I can smell the faint lingering odor of cigarettes. Perhaps because it is Halloween or perhaps because I am a bit of a romantic, I imagine that it is nothing more than Uri coming for his mail.

Of course you need another hole in your chimney!

Remember when I told you I got a fab new pair of boots this fall? Well I did. And they’re every bit as fabulous as you might imagine them to be. Love. Love. Love.

Rhett, being heterosexual, chose not to indulge himself this fall with fashion but rather with a brand new TV for the den. I think he expected me to balk at the idea of buying *another* TV for the house, given the fact that we had- wait, I’m counting- SIX at the bungalow, but the only TV in this house is in our bedroom. Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue, but I’m not a TV watcher (okay, except for Mad Men, American Pickers, and the occasional Real Housewives cat fight) and I go to bed at 9pm…so Rhett was basically without his daily dose of Hometime and Holmes on Homes. Knowing I wanted to keep my marriage happy, I said “Sure, go get a nice TV for the den.”

And he came home with a 52” behemoth. We can now see the pores on Mike Rowe’s face.

Anyways, his big idea was to mount the TV above the fireplace. Our den, now that we knocked out a wall, is basically half of a huge room that is kitchen, breakfast area, and den combined. With a TV the size of Kansas, we don’t have to miss a minute of Jersey Housewives (no she didn’t!) when one of us wants to go into the kitchen for ice cream. Theoretically, a giant TV is a great idea.

Mounting it is…another thing.

In order to mount the TV, Rhett first spent the better part of a Sunday afternoon removing a brick from the fireplace. As a mother of two, there’s a certain part of me that cringes as I sit outside on the deck and peer through the glass at my husband as he hacks apart our chimney. I don’t like to see my house being demolished as I hear, “Calm down, I’m not doing this to the foundation!” Rhett told me that he “thought” there was a cavity behind the first row of bricks through which he could run cable and electricity. Fortunately, he was right.

From the attic, Rhett was able to run both cable and electricity and create the outlets you see in the above picture. Next he installed a TV mount and, with the help of his trusty assistant (cough, cough), the TV was lifted onto the mount.

We have yet to determine whether lighting a fire in the fireplace will have any effect on the TV, but I assume Rhett’s position on this matter is to cross that bridge when we get there. Don’t be surprised if we invest in a DVD of a crackling fire and entertain with the ambiance of a cozy fire up on the big screen. Kidding. Rhett, I’m sure, will rig a way to make the fireplace and TV live together in harmony, and that will have to be another blog entry.

To his credit, the TV is a great size for the wall. With chocolate brown brick, the TV even blends in a bit and isn’t near as obtrusive as I thought it would be. I wouldn’t say we watch more TV, but when we do want to watch a show it’s a bit like going to the movies (pass the popcorn). Rhett loves his new toy, and I love that it is no longer sitting in the middle of the den. My only worry is that I am now spoiled and can barely discern the characters on the teeny TV in our bedroom (“Is that Will or Grace?”).

I’m thankful Rhett chose an indulgence that’s beneficial to the whole family. Unfortunately, I’m the only one who benefits from a pair of size 7.5 boots, but I do believe that they make me a better wife and mother.

Seeing Stars.

When we gutted the main bathroom, we left one thing- the light on the ceiling. Isn’t she a beauty? This is one of Tara’s unexpected treasures. Most of the lighting in the house was downright horrendous (and cheap!) but this piece adds just the right touch of whimsy. I love the delicate gold leaves and the playful stars. It’s retro without trying too hard.

There’s just one problem, of course. Apparently fifty years ago they didn’t take hot showers, because there’s no exhaust fan in the main bathroom. Bummer. As the resident expert on all things practical, Rhett says we’ve got to replace it with an exhaust fan/light combination thingy (I’m sure I’ll write about installing that when the time comes).

For now it still lives in the bathroom until it is moved (and cleaned) ever-so-carefully into the laundry room (no need for an exhaust fan in there!). Either way, I’m sure I’ll still love looking up and seeing stars.

What's my line? I'm happy cleaning windows (thanks, Van Morrison).

All you know at this point of the woman who lived here before us was that she once made 4 loaves of banana bread for our neighbors because her oven was falling apart. Not only do I respect that she MADE four different loaves for them to be sure one was edible, but that she TOLD them she did this and presented them with ALL FOUR. I would have tasted each one and then cleverly arranged slices from the good loaf on a plate, never telling them of my baking trials and tribulations. Or I wouldn’t have baked them anything to begin with (flowers, a bottle of wine…there are other neighborly gifts). But what can I say, old Mrs. Hershey was apparently not ashamed of her baking.

Perhaps, rest her soul, she wasn’t ashamed of much as she aged. We can infer this from a number of things- from the smell that lingered in the house of her habitual chain smoking, the stains on the hardwoods in all the rooms from either plants or pets, and from the windows she had let get so dirty I was afraid to come within a foot of them.

Dead bugs, years and years of pollen, dirt and who knows what else had clouded the windows to such a point that I don’t think I noticed a difference after the painters removed the paper from the windows after they painted the trim. I couldn’t see out of them with the paper on or with it off.

I remember vividly sitting in my friend Margie’s living room one night after we bought Tara and staring at her windows, realizing that THIS is how windows should look. Yes, this was during a Bible study and no, I have no idea what was being talked about around me (Jesus?). All I remember is getting in the car with Rhett and saying, “We’ve GOT to do something about the windows at Tara!”

I got an estimate the next day from a small local window cleaner who said he’d do the whole house for a bargain. When he and another man came to clean the next day and left 9 hours later, I had a guilty feeling I should have tacked on another few hundred dollars to their fee. “Mam,” he said. “I’ve been in the business over 20 years and these are the dirtiest I’ve ever seen.”

Yep.

If Mrs. Hershey stopped by the house tomorrow, I have no doubt that she would be impressed with the new clarity of windows. I hope I’d have some banana bread to offer her as well.

Damn Yankees.

Did I tell you we were considering keeping the original cabinets in the kitchen and just painting them? They are heavy, solid, nice cabinets…but they are also old, dirty, and dingy. Trying to reuse them would have been a great way to save some cash, but since we were redoing everything else in the kitchen (i.e. gutting every inch) we decided to start fresh with brand new cabinets, too.

Choosing cabinetry is tough, and of all the decisions we’ve made in the past few months this was the most frustrating. You need to know that in order for me to relive the horror of this summer’s cabinet catastrophe I have had to write this entry with a bowl of peanut butter M&Ms by my side.

It was THAT awful.

For the master bath in our old house, we used a local cabinet maker and they did an outstanding job. Naturally, we sought them out again for our kitchen. Advice- find a good local cabinet maker. Don’t know of one? Ask your contractor. The one we like- Maxwell Cabinets- has been family owned and operated for the past 60 years and they’re fantastic to deal with. We have always really enjoyed working with them. Butttt…they can be a little slow. And with a baby on the way and a house that wasn’t livable, this summer was no time to be slow. The other issue? Price. We were really trying to save a little green on this project so we were forcing ourselves to look exclusively at their least expensive line- a line which didn’t give us the color we wanted (chocolate brown) or anything nearly close. *sigh* So we chose the big guys at Home Depot instead.

Big mistake, but we didn’t know it yet. This is when the whole thing went to ‘pot. Get it? Depot? ‘Pot? Pot? (I’m can be clever even when I am reliving moments from Hell.)

When we went to the ‘pot, we found the style we wanted, the color we wanted, and the price we wanted- and they promised we could have it all in 14 days!

You know when your mother tells you that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is?

Cue your mother.

See, when you get your cabinets from a place like Home Depot, you’re not really getting them from Home Depot, but from a third party vendor. When the third party vendor decides to mess up your order, oh, say, FIVE times and to not give Home Depot or you a straight answer on anything (Will our cabinets arrive today? Who knows! Consult the Magic 8 ball!) you can only shake your fist at the person on the other end of the phone above the Mason Dixon line.

Damn Yankees.

Our order didn’t arrive in full until about 6 weeks later, and the things wrong with the small shipments they sent us along the way ranged from insignificant scratches to the truly ridiculous (Who packs these shipments? Monkeys?). Seriously- there were huge gashes (holes the size of my fist) in the sides of the cabinet boxes, doors that didn’t match (did the packer even LOOK at the cabinet before he put his quality control sticker on it?), doors that we didn’t order (um, thanks for the extra doors, guys!), and an extra base thrown in just for kicks (maybe they figured if they just threw cabinets at us some were bound to work?).

I need more M&Ms.

I have to say, though- the people at Home Depot in customer service were outstanding. Not only did they ultimately refund some of our money, they were a pleasure to work with the whole way through, completely professional, and deeply apologetic. And to my knowledge they don’t work with that cabinet vendor anymore.
And the good news is that in the end we got what we initially requested (perhaps they had someone with a third-grade education read over our order?) and the cabinets looks great. You’ll hear more about them, but our two favorite workers, Freddie and Ceasar, did a fabulous job installing the cabinets and we’re very pleased with our new kitchen.

Maybe it wasn’t a full-blown assault on Tara by Yankees in uniform, but one thing is sure:

As God is my witness, I will never work with a third party vendor again.

Last year's Christmas card...

Just because we don't love traditional posed pictures doesn't mean we don't love each other.

Pictures, please.

While rearranging furniture (again) this past weekend, Rhett noted, ever so subtly, that there are rooms in this house really could belong to anyone. In fact, there is nothing uniquely “us” about the front room, the living room. The furniture is subtle and classic. The placement is formal, but not too formal. The colors are beautiful, but not overwhelming. Yep, this room could belong in nearly anyone’s house.

What to do? Grabbing a sharpie and writing “Scarlett and Rhett’s house!” in bold all over the walls would be a quick fix. So would slapping a coat of fire engine red on one wall (Ha! I’ll show you what’s unique!) But…Rhett’s not big on quick change or deviating from the traditional, so those ideas were axed.

Instead, I chose to hang some family photographs this weekend. I’ve got my eye on doing a picture gallery down the main hall, so I needed something different (and large!) for the living room space. Luckily, we brought with us some super cool early 1900s windows from our previous bungalow (we did leave windows for the current owners, I promise) and we both loved the idea of using the heavy windows as architectural art in our new house. But how was I going to get pictures in there? And what pictures should I use?

Confession: Rhett and I don’t have a wedding album. Not that we didn’t love our wedding (we did!) and not that we didn’t have a photographer (he was there- promise!), but we both loathe posed pictures, generally. Rhett’s a little better about them than I am, but unless we’re making a game face with my 85 year-old grandmother, I would choose a candid over a posed shot any day. (Does anyone actually like posing for group photos?) In fact, our Christmas card from last year was intentionally done to look like it was out of a photo booth- see above. We just goofed off and our friend Micah snapped away. So fun!

Anyways, we had a lot of great pictures from the big day, but I just never got inspired to put them in some book that would sit on our coffee table and gather dust. And who needs a fuzzy, angelic shot of me staring into the great unknown? Bleh. Here’s the thing though, the photographer did do a good job, and we have a bunch of great pics- both candid and posed. And we got married in an old milking barn in East Tennessee (I was barefoot!) so what better to display our wedding pictures but in some vintage windows with peeling paint!

I scurried to the fabric store and snagged 3 yards of industrial burlap for 2$ a yard. I am loving burlap right now and have really no idea why. But when you find what you’re loving at 2$ a yard do you ask questions? Heck no! We then ordered the pictures in varying sizes- 8x10, 5x7, and 4x6- and all in black and white and got them from Costco for under 20 bucks. I picked up some thick poster board for 4.59 a sheet at Walgreens and a few hours later our once-generic living room had some personal details. Okay, Rhett hasn’t hung the windows yet, but they are sitting in the living room.

If you’re considering this for your own house (I’m so happy I inspired someone!) we’ve got plenty of extra windows (really- we did leave the current owners of our old house some windows…they’re just plastic. Kidding!)But seriously- we have about 12 more sitting in our attic. Anyway, here’s what you need to know before getting started on this project. Getting the pictures aligned correctly on the burlap was pretty tricky, but with some glue and a few prayers, it worked well. If industrial burlap is too rustic for your taste, ask the fabric store employees for more options (the guys at my store had about 4 variations), but do know that the nicer variations are a bit more expensive. As for the pictures, find a bunch that you like and don’t be afraid to order way more than you need- you’ll want to play around with them so have plenty. Also, you’re going to need a putty knife and some Glazier points (dudes at Home Depot can help you out) to secure the poster board to the windows. As far as order, I’d measure the poster board first, then fit the burlap around it and seal it on (glue gun? Stapler? I used masking tape!) and then finally fix the pictures to the burlap. We could only find thick BLACK poster board, but with the shadow behind the frame, black worked better than white. So if you have a choice, choose black.

Now that it’s all done, I can’t stop walking through the living room. Turns out we needed some (wedding) pictures up on the walls after all, even if some of them are posed.

Kidding around, take 1

Here’s a shot of our oldest daughter’s room before the renovation. Kids rooms are easy and a lot of fun, basically because anything goes. The phrase “anything goes” would describe her personality, too.

This room was one of the first to get completed- the tiniest clients can have the biggest opinions, and to avoid having her cry nightly for our old house we had to give her the coolest room possible. So we did.

The room has a lot of natural light (which this photo doesn’t show…my bad.) We painted the walls, ceiling, trim, and closet, tore up the carpet in favor of refinishing the hardwood floors underneath, gutted the electrical (including the disgusting ceiling fan) and at the end of the day…

Kidding around, take 2

…we got THIS!

Fresh coats of paint can work wonders, and combined with super cool vintage furniture, mismatched fabrics (blackout polka dot curtains with airplane finials!), retro art (a surfboard bulletin board and a “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster) and toys that are usually all over the place, this room has it all. Note the super cool swing/hammock/leaf chair made by my friend Maggie- our daughter would sleep in it if we let her.

She was out of town when it was finished, so she came home to her dream room. “I’m never leaving!” she proclaimed. So much for sending her to her room if she misbehaves…that’s exactly where she wants to be!

The one when I broke the travertine.

You know how every Friends episode is titled “The one when…” or “The one where…” so when you’re trying to decide which Friends episode you want to watch on the DVD you have a vague idea of what each episode is about due to the absence of clever titles? Well here I am, dear reader, giving you a break from my wit and choosing simply to tell you about what happened. This entry is aptly titled “The one when I broke the travertine” because this is the entry about the time I ate carrot cake for breakfast. No, not really. This entry is about the time I broke the travertine, and it is titled as such because I am sleep deprived (remember I have an infant- give me a pass, will you?)

In making the “canvas,” one of the big decisions was choosing the countertops for the main bathroom and the kitchen, which we had completely gutted. We’d already found the cabinet for the main bathroom (see ‘You’re so vain.’) and settled on a color for the kitchen cabinets, so we needed to select a granite. Easy-peasy, right?

It turns out that there aren’t too many variations of granite out there if you’re trying to stay on a budget, so finding the style of granite for the kitchen (Santa Cecelia) and bathroom vanity (Ornamental Giallo) wasn’t a big deal. It was picking the exact slabs that was a little more tricky.

The most fun part of choosing granite is being in the warehouse of a granite fabricator and having the opportunity to lay your hands on the exact piece(s) of granite that will be in your home. These pieces are heavy, and while I am a former aerobics instructor, when I say heavy I mean HEAVY. They basically have to get a guy with a special forklift to move the pieces- not joking. While deciding on the right pieces of Santa Cecelia and Ornamental Giallo, I saw a piece of travertine that I fell in love with.

Now you have to understand that travertine is a lot more porous than granite, which makes it a poor choice for children’s bathrooms (like our main bath). Seriously, our kids have purple soap and green mouthwash. On granite, those things spill and you wipe them up with a towel. On travertine, however, these liquids would soak in, and we’d be left with a stained countertop for the rest of time. What to do- do we just threaten our youngsters within an inch of their lives?

But the travertine was so pretty! I seriously considered just disowning the children if they messed up the travertine. But they’re so cute. Maybe we could bribe them? Ultimately it dawned on me that if anyone was going to screw up the travertine, it would probably be ME.

As I stood there looking at the gorgeous sand-tone of the travertine I admired, I put my hand on it and, like we used to do with CDs in record stores, flipped it from one side to another. It’s important for you to understand I do not have some kind of secret superhero strength, but since travertine is more porous than granite, it is also lighter- but not much. When I flipped it from one side to the other it landed with a CRASH and broke- right down the middle.

Oops.

Rhett hung his head. The slack-jawed salesgirl stuttered something along the lines of “Um, oh gosh, it’s okay…um…let’s see…glad you got your hand out in time.” Rhett was so embarrassed he probably had wished my hand had been caught between the two slabs of rock.

Needless to say, the travertine slab I liked was no longer an option. And that, my friends, was how we ended up with a granite countertop in the main bath.

You're so vain.

We really loved the idea of using a vintage chest for the main bathroom vanity, a la HGTV’s Sarah’s House. As I’ve mentioned before, Sarah and Tommy make everything look easy. Here’s a promise I am going to make you early on- I will not lie and tell you things are easy. I will also not claim to do all of this for cheap. As far as I’m concerned, Design on a Dime is a crock. Sure, you can pinch pennies and stay on a budget, but it’s not always going to be an easy process or look fabulous in the end. Let’s face it- Sarah and Tommy have budgets exceeding 25K for ONE ROOM. If you have that kind of cash lying around, find yourself a charity. This is the real world.

So far, my live-in labor (Rhett) has made doing a bulk of this renovation pretty inexpensive (he does expect me to do his laundry and make meals, though). As far as making the chest into a cabinet, he figured once we found the right piece he could cut the holes in the back, saw the top off, and have the granite people lay the sink in when they came to install the granite. All those things happened, but finding the right chest was the hard part. Chests and dressers are designed to be just that- not vanities.

We set out to keep the cost, including the granite, the sink, the plumbing, and the chest, all under $1,000. We scoured antique stores and shops, and I eventually feel in love with the green chest pictured above. Here’s why it isn’t a vanity and instead lives in our oldest child’s bedroom:

• The space was too big, and the chest was too small. We had 72” to play with, an impressive amount of space for a bathroom vanity in such an old house. This green chest was simply not wide enough, and it would have ultimately looked awkward in the space.
• The drawers would have been a nightmare for Rhett to cut through for plumbing, and at some level the storage they were designed to give would have been unusable as we put plumbing into the back.
• The top of the dresser was on- tight. This piece is a refinished vintage Russian chest from the early 1900s. All that to say, it wasn’t born yesterday. The construction isn’t cheap, the wood is heavy, and it was NOT made to easily be broken.

Something important to notice here- we bought the dresser anyways and just used it in another room. I got it for ridiculous deal (I told the shop owner how much I loved it and she knocked off an additional 25%- it pays to be friendly!) and, more importantly, I was- and still am- in love with it. If you are absolutely in love with a piece, which doesn't happen all the time, BUY it. Fill your home with things you can't get enough of. This was a steal, but my advice is this- screw the price tag and surround yourself with things that make you happy if you REALLY love them. My mother often tells me to fill my house only with things that I believe to be beautiful or that I have to have by neccessity (toothbrushes aren't beautiful, but you've got to have them). If it doesn't make you happy and it's not functional, toss it.

Just because we decided not to use the green chest as a vanity don’t get daunted, my friend! Rhett and I found a divine little store about 30 minutes from our house that specializes in reconstructions. In other words, the furniture they carry is designed to look old, but it’s really less than a year old at best. Rhett and I love weathered and worn pieces that have a story, but since we were intending to hack this one to pieces, all we really needed was a vintage LOOK, not vintage construction. And we didn’t want to pay for the age of an antique.

The piece that you see alongside the green dresser is what we ended up with. The width was right. Instead of drawers it had doors with a single shelf that was easily cut into for plumbing. What’s on the doors, you ask? Chicken wire! (This is the South.) Better yet, the top of the dresser popped right off, and Rhett uses it in the garage for a workbench.

Our vanity is homemade and we’re all crazy about its unique look and functionality. The best part? Yes, Sarah, we did it all for under $1,000.

Demolition Begins

A few posts below is a picture of our kitchen as it existed when we bought Tara. Did we mention we gutted it? Here it is during construction. We removed the dividing wall between the kitchen and the den, which opened up the space exponentially. The house has huge floor to ceiling windows along the back (right side of the picture), and the impact of all the light on the new space is tremendous.

We played around with the idea of keeping the cabinets, but Rhett decided to move them out to the garage for storage. Plus, it’s a pain to keep old cabinets and clean them if you’re redoing everything else in the kitchen. However, if you’ll notice we did keep the cabinets on the far left. In the next few years, we’ll rip them out and put a staircase here when we add a second story. You didn’t think the main floor renovation was it, did you? Tsk, tsk.

Along with removing the dividing wall, we also removed the bulkhead/soffit above the cabinets to give us more storage. Believe me, in the mid-century when a microwave was a big deal, they didn’t have near the amount of kitchen contraptions we can’t bear to live without. Just wait until you see our new kitchen!

You light up my life.

There’s a line from Steel Magnolias when-

Wait, let me get something clear first. If you don’t remember the last time you saw Steel Magnolias, or if- I shudder to think- haven’t even SEEN Steel Magnolias, stop reading this blog. Repent of your sins at the nearest Blockbuster or Netflix site and you may join up with us again when you’ve memorized at least five of the lines and yet still cried every time (Spolier alert!) Shelby dies.

Now, where were we? Oh yes. Truvy (LOVE her!) has a great line at the beginning of the movie:

“Well, the last romantic thing my husband did for me was back in 1972. He enclosed this carport so I could support him.”

As the movie progresses, we all come to see that Spud (great name) clearly loves Truvy (he makes her beauty shop a chain at the end of the movie, remember? *sniffle* It gets me every time!), but he’s not a roses and chocolates kind of guy. Spud will enclose a carport, fix the truck, and make her dream of two beauty shops a reality- all because he loves her. But buy her flowers or dazzle her with diamonds? ‘Fraid not.

We all have our different love languages- ways that we show people who mean a lot to us just how much we love them. I’m verbal (shocker), but Rhett, my Rhett is all about acts of service. He’ll help every friend move, rake leaves, clean out your basement- you name it. He once packed up my entire apartment (furniture and everything) in 2 elevator rides- the man loves manual labor!

When it comes to Tara, Rhett has done most everything and one of his major accomplishments was the electrical work. Old ranches like ours have terrible lighting and hardly any outlets. So naturally, Rhett climbed into the attic and cut holes for can lights in the ceilings of the hallway, den and kitchen (18 in all.) He changed out every single outlet and put in new ones throughout the house. I don’t think he shocked himself but once or twice, and it was probably good for his heart.

Some girls ask their husbands for purses or jewelry and get all giddy when it arrives at the house. Me? I asked just yesterday for another outlet by the front door for some new buffet lamps. Proof I’m learning his love language? Rhett said, “Sure, I’ll do it in a few weekends” and my heart skipped a beat.

My Lucille Ball DIY Weekend

Scarlett here isn’t known for being financially shrewd. I do, however, love a good deal (shoes at 25% off? Yes, please!).

Maybe it’s the thrill of the hunt that makes me relish a deal (Girlfriend better not have just picked up that last sequin tee- it’s mine!), or perhaps it’s the fact that I can buffer the sure-thing confrontation with Rhett about some purchases by saying, “Look how much we save on a nanny and a cleaning lady because I do both jobs for free!” Bottom line, I excuse my ridiculous love of shopping by adoring to save a little green wherever I can.

One of the coolest ways to save during the decorating phase of a renovation is to repurpose furniture from your old house (or a fab Flea Market) and re-imagine it in new ways. Sarah and Tommy on HGTV’s Sarah’s House do it all the time. They make it look so easy that I hate them. And by saying I hate them I mean I love them. Oh, can you both come visit me at Tara? I will bake you cookies!

Anyways, Rhett and I decided to do a little repurposing this weekend with an old table and chairs of mine from my life pre-Rhett. Maybe we’ll call it the pre-Civil War era? In any case, it’s an antique white breakfast table with four standard chairs. Not overly impressive, but definitely used and dirty. I had used it as a dining table in my small apartment for many years and then it moonlighted as a craft table in our oldest’s play room. Now it will finally have its time in the sun as a true breakfast table.

All it needed was a little coat of paint.

Turns out that involves a good amount of sanding first. As a runner I use my shoulders only as much as I lift children and shopping bags, so now after sanding all weekend I can barely feel my right shoulder. Ah, battle wounds!

After a tenuous afternoon at Home Depot we finally decided on a paint color called Mississippi Mud in High Gloss. Choosing high gloss paint for furniture, especially furniture you will need to clean often, is paramount. Flat paint simply does not clean easily and it wouldn’t have the smooth finish we were looking for. The saleswoman in the paint department told me she loved the color I picked out- I blushed. Rhett rolled his eyes.

Because Rhett is Rhett, he used a compressor and a spray gun (yes, we own both- you should see our garage) to spray the table and chairs. Scarlett would have used a paintbrush (and it would have taken 8 times as long and look terrible), but Rhett is fancy when it comes to these projects. He laid out plastic sheeting in our driveway, held down the corners with wood, and it was time to get started.

I came bouncing out of the garage in my sorority shorts to help and Rhett gave me the kiddie job of pouring some paint through a funnel filter into the can that attaches to the spray gun. And I screwed it up. The paint came out of the can much faster than I thought, and we at once had paint all over the stone wall behind our driveway. Whoops! Rhett walked quietly into the kitchen to get paper towels while I ran to get the hose, which shot water all over Kingdom come. Sheesh. At this point we hadn’t even gotten to the chairs, but a good portion of the driveway was a lovely shade of brownish-tan.

At least I loved the color.

The table and chairs look great, mainly because Rhett finished the job while I threw tennis balls with the dog. And in the end we have a beautiful breakfast table and chairs all for the price of a can of paint.

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

With the theme of this blog you should have seen that title coming.

When I was eight months pregnant, taking care of a five year-old, and living with my in-laws in heat and humidity that rivaled the temperature of Hell itself, I answered a lot of renovation questions with, “Honey, I don’t care. You have great taste- pick something.” Rhett does have great taste (usually), but I responded to some construction decisions that way not simply because I trust him, but because I wanted the house to just be DONE already. I figured I was more into decorating anyways. Frankly, I didn’t give a damn about the finish of the door handles, whether we opted for a rectangular sink over a square sink, or whether the sink was a drop in or had a lip of 1 inch. A bathroom sink is for washing hands and brushing teeth.

But wait, isn’t part of the decorating process choosing titles and granite, doorknobs and sinks? Ugh, yes. This was when I realized that decorating isn’t only about rugs and curtains and picture frames anymore than painting is solely about the colors you choose. You have to choose the right canvas and the correct brushes before you begin to paint, not just choose colors. Likewise, I had to MAKE the right canvas (as best I could since we weren’t building from scratch) so I could decorate the way I want to.

Here’s the first piece of advice I’m going to give in this blog (okay, second…the first was to make sure you are living with a good cook while the renovation is taking place- remember that!). Don’t be ambivalent about renovation decisions you are going to have to live with. You’ll see them every day, so make sure you like them. Case in point- I told Rhett this morning that I didn’t love the door handles. I’m just not into a nickel finish right now, I explained. Rhett gently reminded me that in my hormone-fueled pregnancy I told him to “just pick something” and that these perfectly fine door handles aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Damn.

So, my dear, here’s the morsel to take away. No matter how much you trust your spouse, contractor, rabbi, or Magic 8 ball, YOU are going to be the one living with your renovation decisions, so make sure you like what’s going into the house.

Why? Frankly my dear, you DO give a damn.

Hey good lookin', whatcha got cookin'?

We couldn't even figure out how to turn it on.

When we met the neighbors, they told us that the previous owner, bless her heart, had once baked them 4 loaves of banana bread because she couldn't tell what her oven was doing and was "sure one of the loaves would taste good."

Suffice it to say, the oven was definitely original to the house.

We've learned that this is what you get from the standard 1950s-1960s ranch. Some things are updated if you're lucky, but if you're like Tara, everything is original.

Did we want to salvage it? Absolutely. Can you imagine the envy in the eyes of our friends as we pulled delicious dishes from the fabulous french doors? Put an apron on me and call me June Cleaver. Rhett even noticed there was a rotisserie! *Sigh* Unfortunately we discovered that it really didn't work in a predictable, dependable manner (so much for the previous owner's banana bread) and that there was no way to find parts for it should we want to preserve its vintage majesty. We ultimately found it a nice home at a farm upstate where it had lots of other appliances to play with.

Okay, okay. We took it to the scrap yard and got 150 bucks.

It's hard to part with the few things that give a fifty year-old ranch like ours some character, but when it comes to character or a working oven, I'll take the latter.

Hey kids, don't try this at home.

We officially sold our old house and bought Tara right after Memorial Day weekend. The baby was due (and came!) 2 months later. About the timeline, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Here’s what the kitchen of house looked like when we bought it. As I chronicle the renovation, I’ll go room by room and delve into more detail (get excited to see the ancient Thermador and the cool vintage lighting!), so first we're going to go back to visit Tara in her former glory. This is the view of the kitchen from the den.

All I can say is this: she’s not a looker, but she has a great personality.

My affection for country vegetables…and my in-laws.

When you decide to embark on a full-scale renovation that renders your house a construction zone, you have to find somewhere to live while the work is being done. Pitching a tent was tossed around as an option (we have a super cool shark tent), but when Rhett reminded me that tents lack indoor plumbing (egad!) we knew we needed to be somewhere else STAT. Rhett pops out of bed in the morning looking like a million bucks, but Scarlett is a bit more high maintenance.

Fortunately, Rhett’s parents live about 2 miles from Tara, so we hightailed it to their house to stay while the work was being done, with their blessing of course. The thing is, we didn’t just have their blessing and support, we had their food. My mother-in-law grew up on a Georgia farm, so listen here Honey: if you want Southern cooked vegetables, her breakfast table is the place to get ‘em.

People kept asking if I had pregnancy cravings, and I didn’t even know I could have cravings as intense as I did until I moved in with Rhett’s parents. Creamed corn, fried okra, fresh beans, ripe tomatoes…did I mention creamed corn? Oh, and cornbread. Yes, a happy pregnant woman country vegetables make.

My advice? When seeking a place to live short-term, consider what your needs are. Clearly, God knew I needed fried okra. When it comes to cooking, I am a baker, not a chef. My mother-in-law? A chef extraordinaire. YUM.

Here’s hoping our kids don’t move back in at age 34 with a wife and kids…or if they do, here’s hoping everyone’s craving carrot cake and coconut cream pie.