Client Project: Kasey’s Kitchen

Welcome everyone!

I know I’m clearly not the best at keeping our blog up to date. I’m balancing being a wife, mama to my 3 kids, working a healthcare job, running a business, and building our personal house while living in a rental. We are BUSY. But that’s okay; we tend to flourish when busy. Nonetheless, blogging seems to take a back seat even though I do enjoy it.

However, I figured this was the best way to share all the photos of our most recent client project. I’ll separate the blog posts to talk about certain areas of the home. Today’s blog will be about the kitchen and dining areas.

When we were hired for this project, the clients were tired. They had already hired and then fired/lost two other contractors. They were ready to have a team behind them that would do what they said they would do, and do it WELL. Our first portion of the job was to bring everything up to code and fix problems that weren’t necessarily “pretty” to look at, but definitely important. Once all of that was done we were able to move to the more fun part of this project.

Upon our very first consult/discussion with this client, I knew that I would have a blast designing and working for them. They loved pattern, color, and personality. They wanted their house to be original and timeless. And that’s exactly what they got. We broke out of the mold of all the current trends and created a home that’s uniquely them and will last for decades.

Their old kitchen area was pretty small, so we decided to take over the old dining space to make the kitchen huge. We custom designed an island to be big enough to serve as an eating area for their whole family, thus removing the need for the dining room. This kitchen has more storage than she will ever need. And who doesn’t love tons of storage??

I mixed the metals we used in this space, because, well, I love the visual interest that it adds to a room. I think tastefully mixing metals helps a space feel professionally designed and not “builder grade”. Our primary metal was brushed gold, but the shelf brackets are matte black and the cabinet handles are an antique gold (which feels like a gold and black combo).

Another really important element of good interior design is making a space feel cohesive. We achieved this by repeating colors, metals, and patterns throughout the home. You’ll see later on that our bathroom floor tile is black and white, which is a repeat of the white backsplash and black brackets used in the kitchen. The hall bathroom has a emerald green vanity which clearly compliments our kitchen island. Little details like this make the design choices feel intentional.

This island, oh this island…I love it so much! We drew this beauty while standing next to our client and discussing what she wanted. It turned out so perfect I could have cried when I saw it in its place. I can imagine that it will have a long and happy life being the center of all the entertainment in this home.

I love that this fireplace is now one of the superstars of this kitchen area. There’s something about a fireplace being in a non-traditional space that makes it stand out even more and say, “Look at me!”. I also love that the brick is still raw and untouched. It adds so much character to the room!

You see those shelves next to the fireplace? Nathan built those in what would have been unused space above the HVAC return. If you have extra space that doesn’t have a use, find something to do with it! We used this space to make these built-in shelves and they add so much extra detail and character that wasn’t here before.

Do you have any questions about this kitchen? Or about the services we offer? Please send me a message or leave a comment and I’ll be happy to answer for you!

We aren’t always hired to design and construct. Sometimes it’s just one or the other. But it’s so fun to be hired for the whole project! I get to design and Nathan and our team gets to make it come to life! I do think we make a great team. I mean, who wouldn’t want to work hand in hand with their super handsome hubby. 😉

Thanks for reading! I’ll post a blog and pics of the bathrooms soon!

Megan

Our Building Journey: Part 1

I’ve been thinking a lot about starting to blog again. It’s been on my heart to document this journey because I know that one day I’ll wish I did. This is not a glamorous story. Parts of it will represent some of the most difficult times of our marriage and parts will show some of the highest mountaintops too. This story isn’t finished yet, and honestly I don’t know when it will be. We’ve grown more in the past 7 months than we wanted to (just being honest). As the story unfolds over the next several posts you’ll understand why.

The next several blog posts will go into details that I’ve debated on not sharing, but I’ve decided to. Because it’s our story and good or bad, it’s true and I want to look back one day when I’m old and remember every little detail. So I’ll back way up and start at the beginning.

In February of 2018 we started tossing around the idea of selling our home and moving. We didn’t know exactly where we wanted to move to or what we wanted to do but we wanted change.

I’ll never forget the cold, rainy Sunday that I was scrolling through Zillow and stumbled upon a fixer upper on the lake. The house was well within our budget and it inspired me. I couldn’t stop imagining what we could do with it. We decided to drive by and take a look.

We talked about that house for a couple weeks but eventually decided that we didn’t want to live on the water while we had three little kids at home. But that was it… it was at this point that we just couldn’t imagine staying in our home. We had imagined our lives unfolding someplace else and started to become unattached to the home we were currently living in.

We also knew that the housing market was the best it had been in a long time so we wanted to take advantage of that situation and sell while the market was still so hot. So we started getting the place ready to sell.

We still weren’t for sure what we wanted to do or where we wanted to go. We talked about buying a fixer upper and updating it. We talked about downsizing and learning to live “smaller”. Somehow that sounded exciting to me. Haha. But we ultimately decided to build our forever home.

The next decision to be made was to decide where we wanted to build. We talked about building on my parent’s property, but decided that doing that would pretty much prevent us from ever moving if we wanted to (because they wouldn’t want us to move and sell and thus have strangers as neighbors on their property). We drove through so many neighborhoods and looked at “non-neighborhood” locations too.

I grew up on lots of land with no neighbors in sight and Nathan grew up in a neighborhood with homes very close together. We agreed that there were benefits to both. We continued our search with hopes that we could find a location that would be a happy medium.

We eventually found the perfect spot that we still consider the dreamiest place on earth. It’s a 3.5 acre plot of land with some woods, a gorgeous creek and breathtaking views. It has privacy, but it’s still in a neighborhood where everyone else has a good amount of land too. The beautiful homes are spread out on rolling hills with lots of white picket fencing and horses. When we saw it we knew it was home. We quickly offered on the land and purchased it.

The day we closed on our land!

Here’s our cute little camera man, Maverick

We thought that selling our home would be easy, considering we renovate and sell homes for a living, but we were dead wrong. Cleaning, decluttering, and fixing little things that never bothered us (but that had to be done to sell it) was super hard…in an emotional sense. We had brought all three of our babies home to that house. I was way more attached to it than I ever imagined I would be. But, we cleaned and cleaned and sold and donated tons of stuff. So much stuff that it actually started to feel empty by the time pictures were taken.

Our house sold immediately after listing it for a full $15,000 more than we were asking. We clearly felt that God was opening doors for us and leading in this major decision. Even though I was emotional through this entire process, we felt at peace about it all.

These are some photos from our listing.

It was the weirdest thing, though. I clearly remember on the second day of showings that we had to be gone pretty much all day because there were showings back to back throughout the day. We had a late showing that was supposed to end at 9:00pm. We had been visiting my parents and returned home around 9:15pm. When we got to our house the potential buyers were still there looking at our house with their agent. I could see them standing in MY living room with the lights on while we drove by with babies in the car that were tired and ready to go to bed. I remember being mad. Because even though I wanted to move, it was still really hard to turn that home over to another family. It was like part of me wanted to tell them to take a hike and the other part wanted to scream “buy my house”. I know that sounds so crazy.

The day we signed the contract I felt fairly numb. Like I signed it and knew that we were doing what we decided we wanted to do. I knew we would be building our dream home. I knew it was time. I knew all these things, but I still had to keep my heart out of it and just use my head to make this “business transaction” like we’d done so many times before. We’ve bought and sold a lot of houses, but this was home…my home. Our home. That home saw our last days with just me and Nathan before we became parents. It saw me become a mother to the most adorable set of twins and try to figure out how to be just what they needed. It saw us add a third baby to our wild crew. That home was our haven for 5 years and we had made it beautiful. It was hard. The entire month of packing and moving I just had to not think about it and press forward.

I know some of you reading this are thinking “good grief, if you didn’t want to move that bad then you should’ve just stayed.” And that’s true, but we DID want to move and build. But what can I say, I’m just a wife and mama that was emotional during that time. It was weird.

Anyways…

I’ll pick up right here in the next blog post and talk about our search to find a temporary living situation and the actual move from our home into our rental. It’s a doozy. Stay tuned for more!

Thanks for reading!

XOXO,

Megan

“Can’t Stay for Long”

I know I haven’t blogged much, or actually any at all, for the past 6 months or so. I don’t know why. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to talk about. We’ve flipped a couple more houses, sold our personal home and moved into a rental, and are in the middle of building our “forever home”. Our contracting and design business has grown leaps and bounds this calendar year. We’ve traveled and made plenty of fun memories and I’ve documented it all in my diary…seriously. I’ve had a diary since 2001 and it holds hundreds to maybe over a thousand entries documenting all of my life including all of the important stuff and lots of the small stuff too.

I guess I just haven’t felt “inspired” to blog on a more public platform. But today as we were sitting on the beach with our kiddos something nearly knocked the breath right out of me and I knew I needed to write about it.

We take a fall beach trip every year. It’s actually our favorite time to go. It’s not hot and not crowded. You get the beach basically all to yourself. It’s warm enough to play and enjoy the beach without sweat pouring down your face or having to worry too much about sunscreen and umbrellas.

We arrived last night and got out to the actual beach this afternoon. We brought our chairs out to the sand and were letting the boys run and play. They were hunting for treasures with their metal detectors. I was sitting talking to my parents and brother while Nathan was hunting for treasures with our boys.

Every time they found a cool treasure or shell they would bring it to me while beaming with pride and say, “Look what I found just for you Mama”. Of course my mama heart loves hearing those words from them. I save all the treasures, always. (I’ve been known to save old leaves and weeds until they’ve literally disintegrated.)

And then it happened. Maverick ran up to me with a new found treasure and handed it to me. Before he ran off I asked for a kiss and he happily leaned in and gave me a little kiss on the lips. As he started to head back to treasure hunting he said, “Can’t stay for long!” and then he ran off to meet back up with his Daddy.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I just sat there and thought that he’d never said a truer statement. He doesn’t get to stay for long…none of my babies do. Nathan and I were just talking about this the other day. We get 18 years, at best, with them before they head into the world on their own. I used to think that was a long time. It felt like forever. But now I realize that it’s far too short. My oldest babies start kindergarten next year and I can hardly stand the thought of it. It seriously seems like we were sitting in the NICU with them yesterday. Time is a thief and has a way of making the difficult moments dissolve into years and then suddenly you’re left with nothing but memories.

I try to enjoy all the moments. The good ones but also the really trying ones too because I know that they only get to be with me for a short while. I know that one day they will leave and they will each have a wife and a family of their own. That’s hard to think about right now. They still tell me that they want to marry me when they grow up, and I’m always happy to tell them that I’d love to! I’m thrilled to be the most important woman in their life right now, but it won’t be that way forever.

So for now, I’ll keep making memories and savoring every moment that I’m privileged to be with them because I know that they “can’t stay for long” and it makes everything else seem less important.

Kitchen Renovation Reveal

Hi friends,

Today I’m going to share the transformation of the kitchen and dining room of flip #5. Ya know, now that I’m thinking about it, I need to get a better way to name these houses. By habit we always call them by the name of the road they’re on, but I never share that on social media to protect the privacy of the buyers…so I need to get a better naming system going. Lol. Anyways…I’m disappointed to say that I do not have actual before pictures of this space. We were waiting on our electrician to update the breaker panel in the house and therefore we didn’t have power for the first couple weeks that we owned it. I was waiting on power so I could turn on lights for decent before pictures…but then our painter got started and before I realized it, he had already painted primer on the kitchen cabinets before I got to take my pictures. So…just imagine the dark brown cabinets with me…

The pictures that I’ll share below are after a few weeks of renovation. We had already had demo day, taken down a large wall dividing the dining room and living room, and gotten primer on all the walls and cabinetry.

Our execution of this space included painting the walls (Sherwin Williams Repose Gray), ceiling, and kitchen cabinets (uppers in Sherwin Williams Alabaster and lowers in Sherwin Williams Peppercorn). We installed new granite countertops (granite name is Luna Pearl) and a tile backsplash with large, white subway tiles.

For flooring I chose a large, rectangle gray tile and had our crew lay it all in a diagonal pattern to make the space feel even more custom. In my opinion, attention to little details like this matter big time. Would most “flippers” have done this? Absolutely not! The tile took twice as long to lay (hence twice as much labor costs) and used much more tile because of all the extra waste created by laying it this way. But do I think it was it worth it? Absolutely! We want to be different, and if that means spending more money to produce a product that is different…and maybe even better, then sign us up! 🙌🏼

We replaced all the old light fixtures with new ones (including moving the location of several existing lights, and adding the pendant lights above the breakfast bar and sink). We installed all new, custom ordered windows and built a new mantle for above the fireplace. After much debate in my mind, I decided to keep the original brick fireplace and not paint or whitewash it because of all the charming original character. I loved the raw, natural feeling it added to the room!

I feel like this space turned out so perfect. In my little design oriented mind, I felt like this space nailed the “slightly industrial, downtown open loft feel” to a tee.

And now for the after pictures!

And there it is, friends! What do you think of this one??

Also, stay tuned for another update soon…because…we’ve already gotten another house! Here’s a sneak peek of it.

Isn’t she cute?? I’m super excited about all the potential in this one! It’s a 3 bedroom 1.5 bathroom house on a 1 acre lot! I’ve been planning and designing all week. The theme in my mind for this one is “quaint cottage”. The renovation will start next week and we are hoping to have it done by the first week in May. I already can’t wait!! This stuff gives me life! I LOVE it!

As always, thanks for reading!

XOXO,

Megan

Master Bathroom

Today’s post is going to talk about the master bathroom in flip house #5! Let me first start by sharing a really neat story that goes along with this house.

About 6 weeks ago Emily and Tyler contacted us and asked if we had any properties we were working on that happened to be in a very specific school district. And it just so happened that we did. They came and looked at it (in its very unfinished, construction-zone state) and fell in love with our vision for the place! They quickly got their home under contract and asked to buy ours well before it was even finished. It was super fun for us to be able to finish this home with specific homeowners in mind and they were able to personalize the home a bit to fit their needs even better! We were SO thrilled to be able to be a part of such a super exciting day yesterday…they purchased their new home and we sold our 5th project! We hope they love their new home for many many years! Cheers to them! 🥂❤️😊

Back to the master bathroom…

This bathroom was teeny tiny. It previously only housed a toilet and a sink, but no shower or bathtub. Although the vanity had recently been replaced, the rest of the space was still very outdated. The master also had a small bi-fold closet, with very little storage. We took over part of another bedroom to give us space to expand the bathroom and closet and this change allowed us to give this bedroom a much nicer master ensuite.

Here are the before pictures of the master bedroom and bathroom:

For this space, we first tore it all out and reframed for our new, expanded bathroom and closet. We more than doubled the size, probably tripled the size actually. Then we had room for a walk in closet and shower. I chose to use a wood grain tile floor in a white color with gray grout. The color on the walls we used is called Sherwin Williams Waterscape. We hung open shelves above the toilet, tiled above the shower, and added a fun mirror and light fixture to finish sprucing up this adorable bathroom! Oh, and let me not forget to add that we did a sliding “barn” door into the bathroom.

Having a sense of cohesiveness throughout a home reflects good design. Spaces need to feel unique, but the same, if that makes sense. I’ll break that down for you and explain how I did that in the two bathrooms in this house. We used the same paint color on the walls. The open shelving was stained in the same color, but we used different brackets to hang them. The tile floor is the same style, but in a different color with a different grout color too. The finish of the mirror in the master matches the finish of the vanity in the hall bath. I mixed metals in this bathroom and loved the way it turned out. In the hall bath I only used oil rubbed bronze fixtures, but in the master I tastefully mixed oil rubbed bronze with brushed stainless steel to give it a little different feel. All of the similarities mixed with the differences achieved the goal of cohesiveness and uniqueness.

Enough talking…😬

Now for the after pictures!!

I’m seriously in love with the final product! What do you think about it?? Thanks for reading!

XOXO,

Megan

Hall Bathroom Reveal

Well here we are, wrapping up the 5th Hartman Homes home. This one turned out to be extra special. (More on that later…) We’ve gotten faster with each project, and even though this was another major renovation, it’s only taken us 3 months from start to finish. We’ve executed some design ideas in this house that we haven’t done before…remember my blog post in January about always having fresh ideas…and this bathroom contains one of those design ideas. The more we renovate and the more I design, the more I love it. I view these homes as a blank canvas that allow me to spread my wings, try ideas, and breathe new life back into neglected houses.

Before I continue with before and after pictures of the hall bathroom, I’ll give some more details into some things I alluded to in my last post. This January (2 months ago) Nathan quit his former job of 13 years as a BMW technician to work full time on growing Hartman Homes. This change came with much, much prayer and 3 years of growing our business on the side. When we started, that was the goal all along. We had always said that when the business had a certain amount of money we would transition to doing it full-time, but it was hard to quit working at a stable job to pursue a dream…so we didn’t for awhile. We kept trying to do it all, and it was just really hard to balance owning a very active, time demanding business and also having Nathan at another job 5 days a week. But after much more prayer and begging God to close doors if it wasn’t His will, we stepped out in faith and here we are 2 months into self employment. And it has been the BEST THING ever. God is SO good and has continued to bless us, and we are so undeserving.

Before quitting his job in January, Nathan had already been studying for several months to take his general contractor’s licensing exam. He was accepted to sit for his exam in February and scheduled it for the same month. He passed the exam with flying colors and I couldn’t have been more proud!

Self employment is a good fit for him/us. We’ve joked…well kinda because it’s partially true… that we’ve been busier since becoming self employed than we were before, but hey, that’s a good thing so I can’t complain. We are both very driven and self motivated people so we have to schedule time for play and not work…🤣.

So what’s on the horizon for us now? We’re not really for sure. We’re searching for another property to renovate and flip, tossing around the idea of renovating a property to make a vacation rental (that’s been one of my dreams for a long time), and we’re seriously considering building some new houses on some land that we bought several months ago. Which of those things comes first, I have no idea…that’s up to God and where He leads us.

So back to the hall bathroom before and after reveal. As always, I’ll start with before pictures…

These pictures are dark because we didn’t have any electricity on at the house when I took them, so sorry about that. But as you can see, the bathroom was functional, yet very tired and outdated. Nothing about it said, “I’m a relaxing, little retreat” and that’s what I want my bathrooms to say. Since the layout was straight forward and functional, we were able to keep that the same and just update all of the contents.

I chose a brown wood grain tile with a white grout for the floors and it looks awesome! We turned an old, refurbished dresser (that was the design idea we had never done before) into a gorgeous vanity with vessel sink and unique faucet. I decided to do bead board on the bottom portion of the walls just to add a little character, and above the bead board we used the paint color Sherwin Williams Waterscape. We added some recessed lighting to the ceiling, and I used adorable sconces to flank the sides of the mirror. And finally, the open shelves we installed above the new toilet added the final touch to this adorable hall bathroom!

The final product makes me smile so big!

And there you have it, the complete transformation of this cute, little bathroom! I just love it all…the color on the walls, the vanity, the sconces, the bead board, the sink…ughhh it’s just too cute!

As always, thanks for reading!!

XOXO,

Megan

Fresh

I’ve been thinking about this upcoming new year and I get butterflies in my stomach. Literally. There are big things that are about to happen in our lives and business and it gives me all the feels. I decided to come up with a theme word for 2018 and I think I’ve decided on “fresh”.

I love to decorate with live plants in our own home. I think something about the fact that they’re living just brings a breath of fresh air. They must be cared for and tended to. If that doesn’t happen, they won’t flourish. But if they’re taken care of they will thrive and make the space feel fresh and alive. I want us to embrace that same feeling of freshness in our life and business this year.

This next year will be full of that.

For starters, this year might bring a fresh new endeavor. The very first new home construction that Hartman Homes has ever done is on the horizon for 2018. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that we purchased some land a couple months ago. We’ve been toying several different ideas around in our minds and right now the idea of subdividing that land and building homes on it is winning. I guess that would end up being a mini “Hartman Homes” neighborhood.

My second thought with “fresh” is with design. I’ve found that when you design multiple kitchens, bathrooms, exteriors, etc for a living it’s easy to find a comfortable spot in design and stick to it. But I also get tired and bored of “trends” really quickly. For instance, I’ve been getting tired of the farmhouse craze that has taken over the world. This year, I’m challenging myself to continuously think outside the box and have fresh ideas when designing new spaces. Our drive is to do quality work that is “different” enough to set us apart from others.

And lastly, fresh beginnings are on the way. I don’t want to say too much too soon, but a big change is about to happen in our business and we couldn’t be more excited and nervous all at the same time. When we started working this business three years ago we had a specific goal in mind. That goal was to have freedom. We wanted freedom with our time so we could enjoy this life together and with our children. We didn’t want to miss a minute. We wanted financial freedom so we would be able to bless others and exercise our spiritual gifts of giving. We also wanted freedom to dream and be able to pursue those dreams. I’ve been thinking about sharing a bit more of our beginning story on here and maybe someday I will.

During the really difficult, exhausting, overworked times we’ve maintained the mindset to “live like no one else, so that one day you can live like no one else”. Does that make sense? Basically, don’t get comfortable. Pray harder and dream bigger. Pursue those dreams that God placed in your heart tirelessly. Be the driving force to accomplish those dreams.

So going into 2018, “fresh” is going to be the word that we claim as we embark on this new year full of fresh things. Thanks for reading and I pray you all have a blessed new year!

XOXO,

Megan

A Master Bathroom Masterpiece

I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for ummm…about 2 months now. It’s certainly a good thing I don’t blog for a living, because I’d be starving. Haha. As much as I enjoy writing and blogging, it takes a lot of time and that’s not something I have much of these days.

Since my last blog post we listed this house for sale, sold it, purchased 5.5 acres of land (that we’re still not for sure what we’re going to do with, but it seemed like too good of an investment to pass up) and also purchased another house. We’ll probably start on this next house a little bit this month, but plan to take most of the month off to enjoy Christmas and then dive head first into the renovation in January. I’m going to try and do better with blogging through the renovation of this next house, if for no other reason than the fact that I enjoy going back and reading my old posts. I’m lame, I know! 😂

Alright, back to the creation of this master bathroom. Let me show the before pictures first.

So, what you’re seeing is correct; this room was not previously a bathroom. It was a generously sized den. We relocated the door to open into the bedroom next to it and closed off the door to the hallway. This small change made this an exclusive master ensuite. Or at least it would be once we added all the “bathroom” components.

Since we had an entirely blank slate to work with we were able to make the layout however we wanted. We had ample space to add a large 72″ double vanity, toilet, tile shower, and linen closet. We were able to keep and paint the original book shelves and repurpose them for bathroom storage.

The design theme for the entire house, and thus this bathroom, was “vintage and eclectic”. The color scheme was white and gray with hints of blue and green and those colors were tactfully incorporated into the design of this bathroom. As always, I had a lot of fun designing this space and I think it turned out perfect.

That’s all for now! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think! I’m in the process of designing two more bathrooms so tell me some ideas you’d like to see and I might try and incorporate them. Thanks for reading and keeping up with my sporadic blog posts!! Haha.

XOXO,

Megan

Hartman Homes: Flip #4

Well, it’s that time again! The most exciting blog posts for me to write are the ones with before and after pictures of our flip projects. I call them “projects” because they’re just that. These houses are a hobby for us. We LOVE breathing new life into an old house and making it new and fresh again. Of course it’s a very expensive and labor intensive hobby, but it’s also quite lucrative when it’s all said and done. So with that in mind these projects are more of a financial investment than anything. It’s just fun for us; we enjoy it and we make money. Win/win situation!

Don’t let my scarce blog posts fool you. These flips aren’t finished overnight.  These are long, hard renovations. Right now we’re averaging about a 4 month timeline from demo day to staging day. There are moments in this process where we feel like the end is not in sight. But, then the day comes and we look around and there’s nothing else to add to our list of “to do’s”. And then as soon as that day approaches, I’m already starting to plan the design for the next one. 

The blog today is going to encompass the entire main living spaces that includes: living room, kitchen, dining room, foyer, and sunroom. For this house my initial inspiration was this: a clean, neutral slate with bold pops of color and pattern. This is tricky, you see. If that wasn’t executed perfectly the house could end up looking one of two extremes. It could end up feeling tacky and sporadic or it could be too far the other direction and feel boring and tasteless. At one point during the process I was nervous and was worried the kitchen was too simple with whites and blacks, but once it all came together and the bold pops of color joined in at the end, I was so relieved. In my opinion, it turned out perfect, but I’ll let you (and the buyers) be the judge. I’ll add paint colors and such at the end of the post in case anyone is interested. 

Now, the before pictures:

Kitchen and Dining

Foyer

Living Room

Sunroom

Now, on to the after pictures!!! Aka…the exciting part! 😬😬😬

Kitchen and Dining After

If you look closely in the picture below you can see the texture on the leathered granite countertops. Such a neat, unexpected detail…

Foyer After

This space, friends, turned out so fabulous. Now, of course, if you’re a person who only likes whites and no color then I’m sure it’s not tickling your fancy. But, for me, since I love a little personality…I think it’s great! 

This is what you see on your left as soon as you walk in the front door.

And below is your view looking straight forward as you walk in the front door.

Living Room After

This tile around the fireplace….let me tell you….it’s even better in person, if that’s even possible! It’s so vintage and fun and …just perfect! 

Sunroom After

Well, how do you feel about my green ceiling in the sunroom?? I literally LOVE it!!  I feel like the ceiling is a place that often gets forgotten when design takes place, but it’s such a huge place to make an impact. 

Well, that’s all for now. This beauty goes on the market next Tuesday, so wish us luck! And, if you’re interested let us know and we can put you in touch with our realtor. The house is 2300 sq feet with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Asking price is $187,500.

As always, thanks for reading!!

XOXO,

Megan

Details:

Wall color: Sherwin Williams Drift of Mist

Trim color: Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray

Kitchen cabinets and fireplace mantel: Sherwin Williams Alabaster

Sunroom ceiling:  Sherwin Williams Julep

Built-ins in foyer: Sherwin Williams Vegan

Floor tile in kitchen and sunroom: name is Blue Nile

Hardwood floor stain: Provincial 

Our Birth Story: Atticus Michael

My baby is now six weeks old, but better late than never when it comes to recording his birth story. As any mom would understand, my lack of blogging lately is a result of having no free time these days. For those that may not know me personally, not only do I have a newborn at home, but I also have twin 3 year old boys, so my “free time” is literally non existent. The needs from these three precious boys are seriously constant. Even as I type this, I’m doing so while breast feeding. Multitasking at its finest! 

Back to our birth story:

I’m going to start by talking about my hopes, desires, and fears going into this birth. The birth of my twins was pretty much every new mom’s worst nightmare. Very long story made very short: I was in very active active labor for 46 hours (in the hospital) after laboring at home the entire day before. I experienced several complications during my labor and after eventually pushing for 2 hours I had to have a cesarean section. So not only did I labor in vain, but then I had to recover from surgery while visiting 2 babies in 2 different NICU’s. I didn’t get to attempt breastfeeding with either of them for a long time (several days after birth with Maxton and 1 month after birth with Maverick). Not only did I not get to hold either of them after they were born, but I also have no memory of seeing them either. Granted they needed immediate care and I knew that beforehand, but every mom wants to see and hold the babies that she’s been carrying for 9 months. So, with this birth I was SO hopeful to have the special moment of the baby being born, put on my chest, and getting to nurse him immediately.

Thank the Lord the twins are doing great now and they are healthy and strong little toddlers, but their story made me very scared for this birth. I was worried I would have a similar experience this time. Of course my doctor was more than willing to schedule a c-section for me, but I was adamant that I wanted to have this baby naturally if at all possible.  

At my 37 week check up I was dilated to a 2 and had been having lots of Braxton hicks contractions for the past week. My doctor told me that her guess was that I would go into labor sometime in the next week to 10 days. As a week came and went, there were no signs that I was any closer to going into labor. At my 38 week checkup I was still only dilated to a 2. I was a little bummed, but knew that he would come when he was ready. 

At 38 weeks and 3 days we (me, my husband and our twins) spent all evening working at our flip house. I was purposefully not “taking it easy” because I was hoping the activity may help me have a baby! That night as we were doing our bedtime routine with the twins my back was hurting me so bad that I was literally crying as I was walking down the stairs and back to our bedroom. But, it never crossed my mind that I may be going into labor. That same night Maxton had a fever so Nathan gave him some medicine and set his alarm to get up and check on him one hour later. We went to bed and woke up when his alarm went off. I got up right after Nathan did and  headed to use the restroom, and my water broke. It was almost exactly 12:00 midnight. 

I yelled to Nathan, but only said his name because I didn’t want him to freak out. He got a little annoyed and was worried that I was going to wake the twins up when I said his name. When he came back downstairs I said “My water just broke.” And he said, “You’re kidding.” I laughed and replied, “I’m serious. That’s not something I would joke about.” Then he believed me and wanted to know what to do! Lol. I told him to just go ahead and call my Mama so she could go ahead and come over to stay with the twins while we went to the hospital. Very soon after that my contractions started and were only about 3-5 minutes apart.

 We were in the car only 30 mins after my water broke. My contractions were starting to come faster and were intense enough that I could not talk through them. Nathan was driving about 80 miles an hour going up the road. I was trying to breathe through the contractions that were now coming about every 1-2 minutes. It was certainly like a Hollywood “drive to hospital with a woman in labor” movie scene. He had the hazard lights on and was trying to stay calm, but he was a little panicked. I wasn’t able to calmly focus and breathe through the contractions as much anymore. We made the 45 minute drive to the hospital in only 30 minutes. 

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to walk into the hospital because of how intense my contractions were and you know what…there was a wheel chair sitting right in the door way. The Lord provides!! Nathan wheeled me up and I was hardly able to stand to be weighed and could barely answer the nurse’s questions for check in. 

I was legitimately worried that I would be too far progressed to have an epidural and that was very scary to me. In my situation I actually needed to have an epidural since I was trying for a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean). When attempting for a VBAC there is always a very scary possibility of uterine rupture. That would occur at the location of the c-section scar during labor and could be fatal for the mom and/or baby. If that happened the need for an emergency c-section would be imminent. So basically, if that occurred and I did not have an epidural I would have to be intubated and put to sleep for the surgery. I certainly did not want that.

So anyways, when my cervix was checked in triage I was only dilated to a 3. I couldn’t believe it. I could tell that after that everybody started moving slower and didn’t seem to be taking me as seriously.  When I finally got to a real room (about an hour later) my contractions were literally almost back to back and I was coming off the bed in pain with each one. I asked about an epidural and my nurse assured me that she had someone on the way, but that she had to start my IV first. She kept sticking me, but with each contraction my vein would blow. She finally said that she had just been trying to stick me for labs and would just go ahead and try to start an IV. I wasn’t very happy to discover that she hadn’t even attempted that yet, but I was contracting so hard that I couldn’t even speak to her to say anything. I finally said out loud, “I feel the need to push!” And both nurses in the room stopped and looked at me. It wasn’t but a moment after that when the resident showed up to do the epidural. My birth plan I had typed up said that I only wanted a fellow or attending to do the epidural, but at that point I think I would have let a med student try. Haha! 

I was really worried though, for two reasons. Reason one was because I had a “1 in 100 chance” occurance that happened with my epidural with the twins where the epidural went IV and made my ears ring and go semi deaf, but it didn’t numb me. My second concern was that I was hardly having any break in between contractions and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hold still while she attempted the epidural, which is very important. But once again, the Lord provides!! I had an entire minute break in contractions and was able to hold still and she successfully got the epidural in on the first try. 

My nurse immediately checked me and she said “Oh my! I don’t even feel your cervix. Like, you’re way past a ten. His head is right here.” I said, “I believe you! I’ve felt the need to push for the past hour.”  I pushed about three times right then and she said she was going to call and get the doctor in the room so we could have our baby…only 3 hours after my water broke. She got off the phone with my doctor and said, “I totally forgot. We have to get antibiotics in you since your group B Strep was positive.” They let an hour of antibiotics run through my IV (I’ve been told the normal time to let that run is 4 hours). As soon as that hour was done, I pushed twice with the nurse, and then she got the doctors in the room.  I literally pushed once after the doctor got there and Atticus Michael was born at 4:24 am. 

It was such a beautiful moment. Nathan and I both had tears in our eyes as they laid Atticus on my chest. He started nursing immediately and Nathan got to cut his umbilical cord.  Our biggest wishes came true! It was perfect. We were thrilled. Every single wish that I had came true…a very short labor, a vaginal birth, success with the epidural, and getting to hold and see Atticus once he was born! And to top it off…he never was taken from me. He literally was right on my chest nearly our entire stay at the hospital. It was beautiful!

There are no words for his birth other than…The Lord is SO good! 

Thanks for reading!

XOXO,

Megan