Our Stair Rail is in!!

Our iron stair rail went in and I wanted to share some pics with you.  I spent a lot of time pouring over images of railings and figuring out just exactly what I wanted.  We worked with Tom Owens of Herndon Ironworks and his railing is truly beautiful.  It's really special to be able to work with true craftspeople on our home and to be able to do things that are a bit outside of the "box."

 {Tom Owens- bottom left- & his team of craftsmen. They are all so good at what they do!!}

For our railing, I wanted something that felt both modern & old at the same time.  It's simple & clean and spare and has a beautiful patina. 

When I visited Herndon IronWorks (literally a mile away from our old house) Tom & I looked around the shop so we could determine the finish I was after. 

We soon found out that I was drawn to the metals that had aged naturally over time vs. any faux aged finishes.  Everything I liked was outside & had weathered to a rusty black. 

To get the finish I wanted, Tom set the new iron for our railing outside & let it weather for a few weeks. 

{We used 1/2 inch square pickets for our rails, seen at the top left of the above photo}


The end of the top rail is a lamb's tongue that gently swirls into a sort of vine around the post:

 

It's the slightest bit of curve & "pretty" & quirk in an otherwise very spare & clean design.  I love little elements like this & it's sort of a microcosm for how I like rooms to feel. 

You might remember that our stairs were originall very steep, and so to make them a bit more manageable for our boys (and us! ;)  CarrMichael Constrution put new stairs in.  I wanted to be able to see the sides of the stairs & to have the drywall go right into the steps themselves without a stringer, so Mike Carr (owner of CarrMichael) made it happen.  Here's what the stairs looked like before:

{Justin, my very sweet little man}

...And here they are now:

{two other sweet ones- Dave & Ashby} 

 The temporary door at the top of the stairs & the wooden horizontal old railings will both be removed & we've got lots of cleaning up to so (walls, woodwork, etc.) but we're on our way!!  I love how the pickets attach directly into the drywall.  The curve into the drywall and are out farther than the stair treads, so they actually make the stairs even wider than before because there's so much more usable space on them. 

I'm so happy with how everything turned out & I really can't thank everyone who was involved enough.  It takes so many hours & brains to really come up with something good & it's definitely worth it!!  To read more about my stair inspiration, click here.




If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Explanation & Norman Bates' Mom

Yesterday I posted about feeling like I was barely treading water...  Thank  you so much for the kind notes & emails & phone calls and I'm so sorry to have worried anyone!!  I really am doing fine, I'm just a little overwhelmed with having so much on our plates right now.  I'm not sure if I can explain in it any other way other than that I'm (and it's not just me, it's my husband too) stretched really thin right now but that I'm truly excited about everything we've got going on.  I'm so happy with how our house is turning out and my boys are at such a fun age...  I wish I could spend every moment with them...

I just feel like there aren't enough hours in the day & I feel like I'm dropping balls left & right.  I'm trying so hard for the balls not to be work balls but it doesn't leave much time to take care of things at home and with our house. 

This year, Christian entered kindergarten & I am getting my first taste of how much involvement schools want/need from their parents.  We want to be involved & all of the things the school's putting together are amazing, but we're finding it really hard to keep up...   ESPECIALLY without a kitchen. (Bakesale goods on Friday? hahahahahah  I will most likely be employing the I Don't Know How She Does it Method,which consists of a grocery store dessert that's been lovingly "distressed" a bit ;) ;)    (I'm not sure if I'm kidding or not.)  It's hard enough to get a lunch together ("Lunchables" for today & more days than I'd like to admit.. uggg) and a clean kid out the door, let alone anything else. 

{I WISH this was Christian's lunch.}

I am so behind on phonecalls & emails with my friends & family & blog friends, and feel like I'm not really there for anyone, even though I want to be.  I find myself thinking of everyone and that I'll call them or email them "after work" but by the time I finish up at night, (I've been working late a lot) I just need to be with my kids who are dying for some attention.  (I can think of no less than 20 friends/family members who I need to get in touch with.)  In the grand scheme--- I KNOW these are normal problems to have, and I really am fine... It's just sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming.  I don't want to let anyone down.  I am running around like a madwoman & probably shouldn't even be spending this much time complaining to you ;) ;)

SO...  Here's the post I've been trying to post for over a week or so now, with  maybe 5 minutes at a whack.  (When I sat down to try to finally finish it yesterday, something came up at work so I quickly threw the dog treading water pic up to let you know where I was at.).....

Whenever I look at houses, I find the one element that really makes me love a space is good natural lighting.  In our new (old) house, I loved all of the large windows throughout the house & knew that if we added more, it could be just right. 

{before}

{after:  we added two floor to ceiling windows and widened the space between them for a larger fireplace wall}

In the kitchen, we added a second window to balance out the assymetrical location of the first window, which i love!!--

In our master bedroom, we took out the entire wall and replaced it with a massiving sliding glass door for a view into our courtyard.  (My computer isn't letting me attach pics from our network right now so just imagine it, sorry!!)

...AND....

I can now say that I am a window addict.  I want to add them wherever possible.  In our upstairs loft, I orginally wanted to add one window in between the two existing ones so that we'd have a better view.  Here's what it looks like now:

{The loft"----  our current living room, kitchen, dining room, everything.  Our clothes are in the dresser under the microwave.}

I sit in the swivel glider (which will be going in the baby's nursery when the house is finished) and turn it so I can see outside into our back yard...  The boys will sit on my lap and the baby falls to sleep whenever it's his turn.  Every weekend morning, I sit there like Norman Bates when he's dressed up like his mom, looking out the window:

{hopefully I'm slightly less creepy about it}

But it's really helped me find some peace inside & I love it.  This is the view:

We have deer in the area behind our yard & if we wake up early enough, we can see them playing on pretty much most mornings. We found a tick in the baby's ear over the weekend which is a bit worrisome.  :(  Its entire head was embedded in Luke's ear lobe and it took at least ten minutes to pull it out with tweezers while he screamed.  :(  I felt so terrible. (It had broken in half and the head was still stuck inside.)  After we got the tick out, I just held him and rocked him in the glider and he fell asleep clutching me & trying to catch his breath.  (We've taken him to the doctor and will be watching him for the next 3 weeks for signs of lyme disease but so far, he seems just fine.)


So now...  I think I might want to take out the wall and make it an entire wall of windows for a bigger view outside..   Could you imagine this as a wall of windows??:

We have to decide how low we want the windows to go because it's on the second floor but I am really leaning towards adding this on to our already too-many-projects list. 

Anyway, I'm off for the day- and thanks so much for bearing with me.  Big hug.  (And I'm sorry I worried anyone!!)




If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.

Barely Treading Water...

{image credit:  J.Pat Carter from here } 

  say some prayers for me. ;)  

Our Kitchen Plans... from restaurant sketch conception to real life kitchen!!

Life has been so hectic lately but things are great overe here.  I feel like I can barely catch a breath (more the combination of work & under-construction-home-baby-life than the house itself) but I really am loving seeing everything come to life around us.  Our kitchen cabinets arrived & the frames have been installed!!!  It's really starting to take shape!!!  Here's what our kitchen looked like before:

 

We completely removed the wall between the kitchen and the living room to create one big open room.  Here's the wall "before"--

 

 

We, like most families, spend a ton of our time in the kitchen, so I wanted to make it a little larger and I also didn't like the fact that once the wall between the kitchen and the living room was removed, you'd be looking at the side (sliced) view of both the kitchen & the dining room so I decided to move the kitchen wall two feet over (stealing from the dining room) so that the kitchen would span the entire width of the living room.  We also rearranged the general layout of the kitchen.  Here are the plans drawn up by CarrMichael Construction:

 

 

We got rid of the peninsula in the kitchen separating it from the breakfast room because I've always wanted a stand-alone island and because I wanted it feel more like one large space instead of kitchen & breakfast room.  The island visually separates the living room from the kitchen just the right amount & without it, I think it might feel a bit too much like you were cooking in the living room. 

Mike (owner of CarrMichael Construction) has been amazing with helping us plan the kitchen and is really great with scale & space. (His wife, Tara, has been amazing too, in feeding us while our house is under construction!!  She's also become a close friend and is the type of person who thinks nothing of last-minute late-night "emergency" shopping trips - yes I know a shopping trip isn't ever really an emergency but to a post-pregnant lady with a photo shoot the next day, it feels pretty close!- and is always there when you need her.)

Here's what the kitchen is looking like now:

Here's an example of the type of direction Mike gets on the kitchen from me:

{nothing better than plans conceived while eating at a restaurant...  I think the first set of "plans" Mike got from me were scribbled on the kids menu of Uncle Julio's while we were all out with the kids. }

me- "Ok, Mike, got it??"
Followed by his laughter...

...And then this is what he gives back to us:

(I drew a little on the hood in the pic to show you the actual shape of the hood...  The draftsperson used a generic hood from the program that was curved & we're going straight.)

..Just what I meant by the scribbled sketch = yay!!!

And this is what happens:

The island will be all drawers and will be built out of horizontal panels of reclaimed wood.  (Even on the drawer faces)  What you're seeing in the current photos is the drawer boxes which will be hidden by the reclaimed wood panels.  I'm a big fan of drawers in kitchens (especially for kitchens with kids because they're easier for them to keep organized & access) and so everywhere we can do a drawer, I've done one.  The island is full of storage:

We've also been working with Tom Owens of Owens Iron Works in Herndon (who is also doing our stair rails).  The shelves will attach into the ceiling and into the marble countertop like this: (this is a side view)

 

Tom & the team at Owens are true craftsmen & I can't wait to see the shelves!!  We'll have wooden shelves inset into the iron frame for a soft landing for dishes, mixing bowls & drinkware.

 

Here's the view into the kitchen from the breakfast room originally:

{Am still loving the previous owners' vintage barstools and am keeping them, maybe playing with the stain.  Thank you to them!!!}


...And here's the view now:

There won't be any upper cabinets in the entire kitchen and I'm leaving the wall above the sink empty so I can pack it with my collection of vintage oil paintings.  The kitchen is generally very clean & simple so I want to introduce a slight bit of mayhem/clutter/color  in there above the sink.  The paintings also feel more "living room" less "kitchen" to me so I think the painting wall will bridge the kitchen-living-room-gap nicely.

An important thing to me in kitchens (and any room really) is that each view or elevation looks good and is functional.  I really wanted a centered range & hood for the kitchen's focal point and this meant moving the sink to the other wall, however, I didn't like how it would be squeezed in next to the refrigerator and also wanted the sink wall to be pretty (&functional!!)....   So, we moved the fridge over into the original pantry area (seen below where the white doors are.)

 

I thought & thought about how far away the fridge would be from everything else & finally deicded that as long as we found one with an icemaker & water, we'd be okay with it being so far from the sink.  Here's the slot for our new (smaller) fridge:

{We added a second window in the breakfast room for balance and because we wanted a better biew into the yard.  We've added windows wherever possible in the house.  It makes SUCH a difference and everywhere I look when I'm inside, I see outside.}

....Now that it's in, the refrigerator actually doesn't seem far away at all, so I am so happy we made the move.  It also helps to expand the kitchen itself beccause we added cabinets & a countertop next to it for storage & space to set down groceries and prep.  (A lazy susan is in the corner for our canned food.)  The microwave is under the counter beneath the window, which is great because now someone can grab something from the fridge, heat it up in the microwave and not even have to go near the main cooking area.

I'm selecting paint for the perimeter cabinets (drawers really) today so wish me luck!!  I'll keep you posted!!  Also, thank you so much for the kind words about the FW Magazine cover...  It was a really fun experience!!



If you'd like help creating a home you absolutely love, contact me about our design services.