The Pool - Part II

Gunite complete!

Close up with gunite

Tile and coping install

Tile, coping and raised beam complete.  Water sheers installed.  Tabletop set.

Another angle of raised beam.

Concrete formed.

Pouring concrete.

Concrete complete!

Pergola is up!

Plaster day 1.  We went with Crystal Stones Mini Pebble finish in Caribbean blue.  Only had one picture of a completed pool to base my decision on but we have traveled to the Caribbean many times so I figured we couldn't go wrong!

Another angle after plaster day 1.

Plaster complete!  Time to fill 'er up!

Still filling and will continue to fill over night.  Can't wait to wake up and see what it looks like!  The boys and several neighbors have been so anxious to get in there.  They were trying to fill it up with buckets after school today.

 

All in all things have gone very smoothly.  I am definitely ready to be finished though!  Hopefully tomorrow it will be full and the pool guy can start the pumps and begin adding the chemicals.  Friday the dirt will be graded around the pool.  We are working on our landscape plan and will be shopping for plants this weekend.  Next week we will have the fence put up and start landscaping.  We will also have rock put around the pergola posts and a rock fire pit built.  The concrete deck will be stained in 2 weeks.  Hopefully by mid-May our project will be complete! Maybe this weekend I can  get some of my pots planted with fresh flowers and start playing with a furniture arrangement and shopping for furniture and umbrellas.

Sangria anyone?

A project to share - The Pool!!!

We started on our pool about 2 1/2 weeks ago!  Even after much agonizing, sketching, perusing of pictures on the web and looking at neighbor's pools, it was difficult trying to decide the exact design.  The pool builder called one Friday and said the digger could come out on Tuesday of the following week so I pulled out my grid paper and some printouts of pools I liked and sketched out a design.  We sprayed it out on the ground and I stared at it for a few days.  I find that I do a lot of staring.  I look at blank space and imagine what the finished product will look like.   I did this all throughout the building process and am still doing it with the pool.  Do you do this? My kids know exactly what I'm doing so they think I am normal but I'm sure the neighbors think I'm nuts!

Here is the before of the yard.  As you can see, there is some asymmetry happening with the windows on the porch and the wall longer on one side than the other.  Those windows are a whole other post but they have caused me much angst over the last 2 years!  I love my vantage point from the inside of the house with corner fireplace and centered tv but it didn't translate very well on the exterior elevation and I didn't really notice it until we had been in the house a few months. (Even after all of that staring...) The wall was an afterthought that we put in at the end of the building process to keep from having a large slope to the yard.  We centered it with the back porch which only magnifies the off-centeredness of the windows.  All of this is to say that I really struggled with where to place the pool exactly based on all of these factors...

The diggers laid the pool out again, moving it back about 3 feet and adding a foot around it.  I was really struggling with whether or not to center it up with the steps or the house.  Telling them to start digging was probably the hardest thing I have had to do yet!  I have never been so nervous about something! 

I took the boys out of school early so they could witness the giant excavator in their yard.  There's R watching the digger work.

And here is T checking out the finished product.  Dig complete and framed up!  I was much more relaxed after all was said and done.  I like how the curve lines up with the steps when you are standing on the back porch. 

About 10 days later the crew came out and put in the steel, plumbing and set the equipment.

Then the gunite was sprayed in!  This was another nervewracking moment for me.  I was relaxed about everything when it was just sitting there in dirt but to have it set in stone was another terrifying experience.

More to come...

I Dream of Spring

Well, I received some bad news today.  I have a herniated disk - L5S1 - in my back and that is what has been causing all of this pain.  I will be referred to a specialist to determine the course of treatment and I am pretty down.  Chronic pain is not fun.  I am soooo over it!  The only thing keeping me going at this point are the signs of spring all around!

Did you receive the new Southern Living this week?  I got mine today and it cheered me right up.  I'm dreaming of hosting a tea party like the one featured on page 112 (if my memory serves me correctly).  I could eat all of those foods everyday and never grow tired of them.  I'm tempted to invite some of my neighbors over for a girlie gathering this spring.  That is if I can get this back pain under control...  Last year at this time I had a few soirees going, a February baby shower with a bird theme for my sister-in-law out of town, March bunco with my Bunco Babes and an owl-themed baby shower for my sister in April. It's no wonder I am getting a little stir crazy and wanting to entertain! Here are a few pictures for your viewing pleasure...

First a few taken around the house as things began to bloom...

(and before the great drought of 2011 hit and zapped everything)

 A fabulous pool coming soon at the bottom of those steps!  

That bouganvilla eventually got repotted and grew to be e.nor.mous.

 One of my girls walking up from the pond.

 Geraniums on the front porch.

 These are some sort of petunia that I just fell in love with at the growers.

I bought this furniture last March after much shopping and I love it. I am in the process of re-imagining my back porch though.  It needs some wind protection, privacy and just needs to be dressed up a little architecturally.

And now the shower...

 Henry the owl's cake.

 I made that cute diaper cake!  I also made one for the shower that we hosted for my sister-in-law last February along with some flower arrangements made from wash cloths and bibs.  I can be crafty when I want to be but it doesn't happen often!

 My other sister-in-law made these.  Adorbs!

 Fresh flowers and a bookish owl. 

Sweet Henry is now 8 months old and the most precious thing.  That was a fun day!

2.12.2012

Happy New Year, I'm still here!  I was off to a great start this year.  Organizing, rearranging accessories, purging, zhushing and fluffing and then bam! - no sooner had I gotten my boys back in school and started to tackle the mountain of paperwork in my office, my back went OUT.  Like totally down and out. On January 18, after my morning workout, I bent over to pick something up off the counter, not even the floor, and something twinged and by the end of the day I couldn't sit.  I am a bookkeeper, I need to sit!!!  I have been battling to get "back" to normal ever since with daily visits to the chiropractor and just taking it easy.  Today is the first day I have felt little to no pain.  Yay!  So now I can actually sit at the computer and compose a post!

On a good note, while I have been laid up in bed, I discovered Downton Abbey.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this show!  I was able to stream it through Amazon on my Kindle Fire.  (Love my KF as well!) I can't get enough of it.  So good!

I've also discovered Houzz.com!  OMG, where has it been all my life?!?!  Apparently right there under my nose but I have just discovered it so it has become a serious addiction.  I had always seen pictures sourced from there but never really ventured over to check it out and now I have Ideabooks out the wazoo and want to build another, more contemporary house.  Oh dear...  And I've also recently joined Pinterest but since I am more of a house junkie I don't play on it as much.

This week I am getting started on our pool plans!  If we want that sucker in by summer we better get cracking!  Be on the lookout for a pool post from me.  Until then, here are a few pictures that are inspiring me at the moment.

On this dreary February day (we even had a little snow shower earlier!) these warm, sunny pictures look especially inviting!

Tis the Season

Christmas is just 4 days away!  Most of my shopping is done and I am just left with wrapping.  I have several last minute packages set to arrive in the next few days.  Thank goodness for the internet!  I am always amazed at how excited I am to decorate for Christmas and can't imagine ever wanting to take it all down and put it away.  But, it seems I have already hit the point this year where I am ready for the clutter to be out of my home and I'm really looking forward to freshening it up for spring.  I have a running list in my head of new year's resolutions for my home and I can't wait to get going on it!  My boys get out of school at noon today for 2 1/2 weeks.  I don't have any child care lined up for them other than their Meemaw a few days so I will be juggling them and work. Hopefully they will have enough electronics to keep them busy so I can do what I need to do.  But I am also hopeful that maybe I can get some organizing projects knocked out over the coming weeks since I will be spending quite a bit of time at home with them.  Fingerscrossed.  The older they get, the more they get in to, believe it or not.  Sometimes it's a challenge to work on any type of project with them around because they want to be right there "helping" me.  


Anyway, I'll leave you with this cookie recipe since it is our family's favorite and we just made a big batch on Sunday to give to the neighbors.  Enjoy and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

 Kitchen Sink Cookies
 Martha Stewart Living, September 1999

Even though the ingredient list may seem about as long as a grocery shopping list, they're simple to make. In fact, these cookies are so basic you can mix everything by hand; this helps to avoid overbeating, which may toughen the dough.

Yield Makes about 4 dozen

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup sweetened flake coconut
• 1 cup raisins ( I omit)
• 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts ( I use pecans)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with Silpat baking mats or parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl with a wooden spoon, beat butter, sugar and brown sugar together until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well blended. Stir in vanilla.
3. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Gradually stir into butter mixture until well blended. Add oats, chips, coconut, raisins, and walnuts, and stir until well blended.
4. Drop batter by heaping tablespoons or with a 1 ounce ice-cream scoop onto silpat about 2 inches apart. Press tops down with the bottom of a glass to flatten cookies evenly. Bake until golden, about 16 to 18 minutes. Cool on pan for 2 minutes. Remove from pan, and finish cooling completely on wire rack.

The Living House at Christmas

 Christmas 2011

The most notable thing about the pictures you are about to see is that I had the house to myself for 3. whole. hours. on a Saturday morning (this never, ever, ever happens!) and was able to actually take them without kids underfoot and Sponge Bob blaring on the TV!

Welcome!

I have not a stitch of red in the entire downstairs of my house and you just can't have Christmas without red!!  My mom bought this plate for me last year and it has served as the inspiration for my Christmas decor.

I filled my hutch with Christmas dishes this year.  Every single one of those plates/dishes was given to me.  This is another one of those times where I started pulling dishes out and realized I had quite a collection!

I'm so much happier with how my tree turned out this year.  Last year, the first ribbon I put on it looked like an ode to Papa Smurf, it was horrible! 

J*O*Y

The lay of the land.  Looking back toward the kitchen and breakfast area.  That's a tired couch and it's missing the red pillow I keep in the middle.  Those aren't my "good" pillows either!  Those are the boys-kick-and-toss-around-the-house-cheap-pillows.  I forgot to put out my "company's coming" down pillows, LOL.  I have grand visions of refurnishing my living room but for now, I have young children and (large) old dogs so the furniture really does serve it's purpose.

Looking from the kitchen to the living area.  Ignore the junk next to the sink!  I didn't take a picture of my nativity set but you can see it behind the poinsettia.   It's the Willow Tree set and I purchased it for myself.  It took me 5 years to collect all of the pieces and I love that I didn't just run out and buy it all at once. 

The buffet in the dining room.  My mother-in-law gave me all of these Mikasa candy dishes and votive holders.  I didn't realize I had so many until I pulled them out last year.  Didn't take a picture of my table. It was still Christmas decor central at that moment.

A blurry picture of the mantle at night - fire aglow.

Greenery and gold ribbon in the entry with an angel to greet you at the door. Since this picture was taken I swapped out the ribbon and beefed up the bows.  Last year I put up a tree in the entry where that chest is with all of my Lenox ornaments that my mom has given me each year since I got married.  This year I used that tree upstairs in the playroom with all of the boys' ornaments on it.  I would love to start doing a fresh tree in the entry.  Maybe next year.

The front entry at night.  (A little blurry, sorry)

My mom and I decorated these wreaths last year.  We had put gold bows on them but this year I retied them and added red and green striped ribbon over the gold.  I love how it turned out and it looks great with the red and green striped cushions on my wicker furniture.

 All is merry and bright...

Merry Christmas from our home to yours!