Back in Tennessee for Now

What is up with this winter?

One light dusting is our typical winter and right now I'm looking out at our yard covered in snow for the 4th time. It's so funny because the rest of the Nashville is hating it and Joshua is all excited and giddy. I think spending 2 months of winter in south Texas where you can wear short sleeves once a week makes enduring the 23 degrees more bearable.

So here's the short form update. Joshua has been in Nashville since the beginning of February. All the horses are sold. When he left Texas the house was under contract. Today the contract fell apart and so we still own a ranch in south Texas that has a garage full of restaurant equipment. There's a short list of people who want to see it and one who says they want to make us an offer so hopefully this time next week we'll be back under contract.

Acclimating back to "real life" has been a little strange. Our life basically stopped on December 2nd and so returning to a world that has continued turning for 2 whole months is a bit startling. We are slowly getting our sea legs back but I'm trying to be okay being just a little shaky for a while. I would like us to be able to just jump back in but if we were going full speed then running into the brick walls we still hit (like contracts falling through) would hurt a lot more.

This sale will make all the other sales jealous

So my first listing did the impossible. We had an almost full price contract within 3 days from a cash buyer and this cash buyer waived the biggest hinderance in getting deals closed right now: the appraisal.

I know this is not how all deals will go and the inspection still offered a few scary moments but overall it was a smooth process. Tomorrow it will close and that's only 20 days after it was listed. Just ridiculous.

Before you start thinking I'm all proud of myself I want to say this had more to do with the sellers than me. I can only do so much but these sellers listened on where to price the house and worked hard to make it show well. More than anything that is the part of this deal that I'm trying not to get used to.

Tomorrow I take that sign and plant it in front of a house in East Nashville. We'll see if the impossible can be done twice.

You Know You Want It

This my friends could be yours for the small price of $149,900.

This is my first listing at 446 Westcrest Dr. It is the perfect home for someone who just wants to move in their stuff and then sit down and watch TV.

Isn't it the cutest? I'm having an open house on Sunday so maybe I'll have it sold before you hear back from me.

Stamp of Approval

Our home has officially been toured and no one fell down our stairs. There were over 200 people through our house on Saturday and the variety of things that people commented on was amazing.

"Oh come look at this thread display. I love that!"
"I can't believe you lucked out with white tile in the bathroom." "No ma'am that's been resurfaced"
"These colors are fabulous"
"Mom, this front door is great."
"Where did you get that fridge?" (keep in mind this is just a regular GE fridge)
"I can't believe how much I like the fireplace painted like this"

Honestly, it was more tiring than we expected and it took a lot of work to get everything ready. However, turns out that three hours of compliments really makes everything worth it.

By the Fire

Last night we burned all the wood we had gathered. We also found another monster piece in our basement that was dry enough to burn. (FYI Monster=3ft long and 8inches around). I had no idea that was down there and about 9pm Joshua throws it on our fire. Currently the log is still crackling in our fireplace, so you know it was still going strong when we were ready to go to bed.

The dilemna: Our living room is so toasty and our hall and bedroom are luke warm at best. What's the Fykes family to do?

We got out our air mattress and slept on the living room floor by the fire. Not as comfortable as our bed, but absolutely worth it. I didn't want to waste the last of our fire and there's really nothing like sleeping by open flames. Some might call it a fire hazard, I'd call it awesome.

It reminded us of our first 2 months in this house. The upstairs wasn't finished on time so we lived in the basement. We had our bed, our dining room table and a folding table to work on and because it was December we had a fire every night (for warmth, not looks). It got a little claustrophobic but we did get the smell of smoke out of our comforter so nothing is really worse for the wear.

28 Days

Last year at this point we were frantically planning our Europe trip. We thought about just leaving everything behind and traipsing abroad again this year. Then we realized we're a part of a tour of homes and we have to get ready for that. We don't have time to do both so we'll have to choose.

Joshua is outside scrubbing down our deck, NOT out buying quick drying underwear.

Here is our checklist of things that we have completed:

Super cool wall hanging in the hall - CHECK!

Exterior doors painted black - CHECK!

Out of our list of twenty or so things to do that's all we've got so far. Should be a busy few weeks before the tour!

Computer vs. Reality

In anticipation of our "tour of home" we decided we needed to execute whatever we were going to do in our hallway. The original idea was to use the different pictures of doors from our Europe trip, however, we quickly learned that you can't frame in camera a picture to be 4 x 6 and then blow it up to 8 x 10.

You might think 2 college educated people with a high level of understanding of math would have realized that. Or maybe a 4th grader!

With that idea put to bed (after an indeterminate amount of yelling), our hallway brainstorm led us to embroidery hoops that held fabric. I had seen that as an element in a wall arrangement and I thought it would work to just make that the whole installation. We spent the last month collecting hoops and fabric. Then, while in NYC I saw a store that had a wall covered in the exact idea. I love NYC when it validates my ideas!

Joshua totally geeked out on this project and made us a 3D model of our hallway and arranged the different sized hoops so that we could really see what it was going to look like. He even went one step further and found online samples of the fabric or scanned in the fabric so that we could make good fabric choices as well.

Here is his model:

Here is reality:

That is home design 2.0

Nesting

We bought this print for the living room from matteart through etsy. It was originally intended for the living room but we decided to do something different leaving the poor bird homeless. Six months later it has found its home in our bathroom. I think it is perfect in there and from now on I will tell people I bought it intentionally to go right there - don't tell.

The other funny thing about that bathroom is the glass lantern hanging from the ceiling was never supposed to stay there. When we unpacked it we literally hung it on the only hook in the the entire house to just get it out of the way thinking we would move it when we figured everything out. Lucky for us, we figured out it was perfect there.

Canvas Curtain

When I bought this canvas the people selling it asked what I was making. Apparently they had never sold 3 yards of this stuff to one person. When I said I was making a shower curtain they couldn't believe it. Normal people apparently only use canvas to make bags so the people at the store thought I was crazy. They all raised their eyebrows and said, "Oh!"

Three needles later here it is.

The trickiest part of sewing it was the fact that the red parts are rubber and they DID NOT want to go through the machine. Other than that, once I got the right size needle it was a breeze.

Overall, the pattern is a little busy considering that the toilet is all of 2 feet from the curtain but I think it really adds something to the all white room. Too busy or not I would label it a success if for no other reason than I can say - "take that fabric store ladies!"

Finished Projects

We are slowly finishing the projects we have set out to do since our return from Europe. So this week I will feature one a day...for 3 days. Yeah, we have only have three of them finished but I'm not going to let your rolling eyes bother me in the slightest.

If you remember back in July we set out a plan for our bedroom and last week the finishing touches went up (or at least the finishing touches around the bed). I sewed some silk dupioni into a panel that we rigged to hang from the ceiling to cover all the ugly wires. It makes the room feel a little fancier.

I'm really enjoying sewing panels. Let me know if you need any curtains because I am so mastering all kinds of methods to make panels. Tomorrow you will see that I can even sew canvas now...I'm telling you its getting crazy over here.

Rest in Peace

My all time favorite magazine is calling it quits. I am sad that come April my sense of style will no longer be validated once a month from my mailbox.

Shake, Shake, Shake

This is the tree we see out of our kitchen window, and the 12 leaves still clinging to its branches. The other 54,231 are...........

here............

here.............

and here.

It was very reminiscent of the scene where the whomping willow at Hogwarts shakes all its leaves off.

We love our trees, wading our way to the door though.......not so much.

We're Being Attacked

This is our first fall in the Salem house. Last year at this time we had torn back the interior to the studs and were slowly building back so we didn't have the pleasure of sitting in our fancy new kitchen watching the wildlife around us. Although I wouldn't call last November peaceful I think Joshua might trade for it.

This year the few squirrels we have seen have apparently sent word to their squirrel buddies about all the great dirt at our house. Now we have hundreds of holes in our landscaping where they have dug holes to bury the pecans they are stealing. Yesterday they actually unearthed one of Joshua's plant babies and you know you don't mess with Joshua's plant babies.

Nowhe just walks around the yard grunting, pointing and becoming a little obsessive. The squirrels don't know any better but Joshua worked so hard on all the landscaping over the last month that I can't blame him for his new hatred of these creatures. I don't think they will displace "THE MOLE" as his archenemy but they will be a close second if they don't cut it out.

Winter a Little Early

Last night Joshua and I built our first fire of the season. It is a little earlier than most would expect but we have a "No Heater until November" rule and that means it's colder in our house right now than it will be in the dead of winter. We have been telling people who come over to dress warmly but last night we had a couchsurfer coming over, and we wanted to put our best foot forward. Our friends know we are weird and do really strange things but the strangers we have spend the night have no idea what they are getting themselves into.

So anyway, I finally convinced Joshua that no matter what the temperature was outside the 64 degrees inside the house constituted a fire. I knew I had a fighting chance because he got out his thick fluffy house socks.

We started it at 9:45pm and it warmed us up very well... right up until we had to open all the windows because the house filled with smoke. Darn our oversized firebox. Now our house smells like it went camping but we both agree it was worth it.

Spring Event

FYI - The Crieve Hall Tour of Homes will be happening this spring in April, date still to be set. You might recognize the house pictured on the blog.

A Little Belated

We have owned our new house for one year and to celebrate we decided it was time to get the neighbors together. The "party" went great. Our 95 year old neighbor came and I'm going to have to say that she was my favorite. We had a total of 8 neighbors attend and now we all know each other.

The mosquitoes were held at bay (mostly) for the evening and we had people here until almost nine which I think was pretty good since we were the youngest by at least 15 to 20 years.

At dusk, they started asking if they were going to get to see the house. I knew this was going to happen but Joshua didn't really believe it. Luckily, I'm a more forceful persuasive arguer and so we had cleaned the house the night before.

I don't think it was anyone's personal style but they were impressed with how different it looked. They kept saying "Ossie wouldn't recognize her house." I don't think they really meant it as a compliment but we took it that way.

Invitations

So Joshua and I have been meaning to throw a neighbor party and the 70 degree weather has us thinking this is the perfect time. We walked around to all the houses that touch our lot (plus the guy that redid our hardwood floors a little further down the street) and invited them over on Friday evening for a cookout.

This party is to foster a little neighborly spirit between everyone. It is also our way of dealing with the offhand comments we get all the time when we see someone getting mail.

"Now I can't imagine there was anything wrong with that house when you bought it. What are you people doing over there?"

"Well thank you so very much for asking, come over on Friday, eat our chicken and we'll give you a tour."

A Hole

Joshua is presently outside in our front yard digging a huge hole. I am not overstating it with huge. It is going to be 3ft wide and 3ft deep. The last time I checked on him he was at 2ft and counting.

As the weather is getting cooler we are moving into phase 2 of the Salem house renovation. It is really appropriate that we start now because it was about one year ago today that we tore into the inside of our house.

Quick sidenote: I can't believe one year ago we had two houses. One year ago my life looked completely different and it is crazy to think of the things that I have lost and gained in just a years time. It has been a year of mourning and celebration and because I would have to trade the good with the bad I wouldn't change a thing.

Anyway, the hole he is digging will be used for drainage off the house. We are going to be building flower beds and planting plants. Then we'll move into painting shutters and doors and replacing storm doors. It is quite a task (we really hate yardwork) but we are excited about the front of our house not looking neglected and barren any longer.

It's Here

Okay what do you all think? I think the colors are awesome but is it too small?

How I Know I'm Doing It Right

This is our most recent addition to our decorating scheme. Between it and the curtains we are starting to look a bit "put together" in the living room. We would have the borrowed art work over the fireplace by now but we are always driving the scooter when we think about it.

We bought the print you see on etsy intending to have it and the mask be a part of a grouping on the other side of the fabric piece. However, the background is too close to the wall color so it will end up in our hallway. We are still on the lookout for the things that will join the mask hanging on the wall so let me know if you see anything I would like.

Anyway, let me show you the thing that seems to trip everyone up:

The general concensus is positive, but literally everyone asks when we are going to hang it on the wall. Let me take this moment to say, it is in its final resting spot. We built a thick frame and intend it to stay where it is - leaning against the wall.

I take no offense when people ask that question. I do feel bad though, because some people get embarrassed when I say "actually that's the way its supposed to be."

Honestly, I like it that everyone tilts their head and "hmms" at it. If people got it that would be normal, and I want none of that.