Home Sweet Home
A little over a year ago we started the process of building our new handicap accessible home. The stress of home building is no joke. I had heard it before, but wow! If you are contemplating building custom, be prepared for more decisions than you have ever had to make in your life. If you are like me and fret over simple decisions, like what to have for dinner every night, this is no easy process. I would not chose to build again in the future, but we now have the perfect layout for our family, and that is worth more than I can express.
I will slowly add updates as we continue to unpack, furnish and decorate. I learned that building from scratch made me want to start our furniture and home decor from scratch too. My decorating tastes change pretty rapidly so it was no surprise to my husband when I started to spend obscene amounts of money at Home Goods and Ikea. But to be fair, the design of this house is different than our previous homes, so that gives me a free pass right?
When I designed this house, I wanted it to be light and cheery. Minnesota has a very long winter with a lot of cloud covered days. We definitely need all the help we can get on brightening up the home during those long winter months. We added a lot of extra windows, white trim and cabinets, and airy paint colors. I chose white for the exterior of the home as well. We wanted to stick with classic, non-trendy elements, which is why we chose subway tile for the kitchen backsplash and the master shower. The small price tag on subway tile helped too.
It was really important to us that we add some character pieces to our home. I love the look of classic old farmhouses or comfortable little cottages tucked back away the woods. Of course, the charms that used to come standard with the construction of old homes, now come with a huge price tag. So we had to choose items that were most important to us. We decided that upgrading the window and door trim was the most cost effective and substantial way to add character to the house. It adds to every space in the home.
I could not be happier with how it turned out. We also added wainscoting to the entryway and wrapped our staircase post in a craftsman style trim. Funnily enough, I had no idea that post was going to be on our staircase. I emphasized that I wanted and open staircase but sadly, it slipped past everyone on the final plans that the architect had added a support beam at the bottom of the staircase. I was sick about it and absolutely hated it when I saw it after framing. I compromised by asking the builder to dress it up. I even made the reference of putting lipstick on a pig. But now, I actually love it. It is gives the room even more character and is a huge focal point.
I wanted our living room to feel warm and cozy, so I chose to do a white brick fireplace with a rustic mantle flanked by built-ins and accent windows. We had painted the fireplaces in our old home white and I loved the look so much that we brought it to this house. Finley likes to play on the floor so the we kept carpet in the living room. We opted out of doing a hearth for safety purposes.
I wanted to find a way to add some grandeur to the master bedroom without breaking the bank, so we added a decorative box vault lined with shiplap, double white beams and crown molding. The walls are painted a soft grey.
The master bathroom has a giant 6 foot bathtub as a focal point. I love having his and hers vanities. No more fretting over how messy my husband’s sink gets. The master shower is white subway tile with gray hexagonal floor tile. Thank you porcelain tile for being so easy to keep clean! We remodeled the master bathroom in our previous house and learned some very valuable lessons. Just say no to natural stone! We loved the look of the slate shower in our old house for about a week. That was until the stone started drinking up the hard water and leeching rust. We also could not keep the frameless glass door from looking like a disgusting mess. My favorite thing about this bathroom, is that my shower does not have a door. For those of you that can keep shower doors clean of hard water, rust and water spots, kudos to you! We have since frosted the windows for privacy. I sincerely apologize to any neighbors who may have been traumatized by an unintentional peep show.
We are slowly working on the other rooms in the house. The office is still torn apart. I blame my lack of writing on that. I still cannot decide if I am going to attempt an Ikea hack for my desk or just get some larger storage furniture. We do not have anything on the walls aside from a few things in the girl’s bedrooms. I am in desperate need of shelving for my half bath and laundry room. I am also strongly considering changing my chair and couch slipcovers to white. Yes, white. I love Ikea slipcovered furniture because I do not need to be too afraid of the furniture getting dirty and I can go from beige to white back to beige very easily. I have not found any throw pillows I like for the furniture yet. My husband is totally fine with that because he hates throw pillows. Must be a male thing because throw pillows are incredible. The progress is slow, but hopefully by the end of the summer we will have much more accomplished.
I will have an entire post dedicated to the accessibility features we added to make this home work perfectly for our family. Unfortunately we do not have Finley’s bedroom set up yet. She is still sleeping in her travel tent currently and that does not look too pretty. I cannot wait to show her princess suite off when it is put together. Having her bedroom on the main level has been so amazing! Our backs are benefiting greatly. We still do not have sod or landscaping so exterior photos will have to wait as well. We did get our driveway last week which was incredibly exciting! Here is to hoping that the next few weeks are dry and our exterior can be completed!
Stay tuned for more updates.
