The French Door Saga

Holy mother it's hot outside...

 

Despite the fact that Hell has risen, I hope your Saturday is going well and is all that you hoped it would amount to when you were daydreaming about its arrival on Monday.

 

That reminds me....it was game day here in Nebraska... don't hate me, but I'm not a football fan....

 I'm sorry... I really tried to get into it....

 

....that was a rough day...

 

It's not all completely lost on me... I do appreciate a bowl of cheese dip the size of my face and the wide array of  crockpot meats that typically make their debut on game days... So I have that going for me...

 

Anyways, I may not be a pigskin fan, but to all you football fanatics out there, may your coolers stay chilled, your grills cook evenly, and on this scorcher of a day, may you all avoid severe dehydration caused by heat, too much alcohol, and loss of general hydration from the meat sweats.

 

Drink your water.
Wear your sunscreen.

 

ok, I've done my part in aiding in the survival of football fans.

Now, onto the French Door Saga...

 

Two days ago, our big, beautiful, front doors were installed on the Farmhouse...

 

 

Aren't they sexy?? I know, I thought so too...

...It's kind of like having a couple 8 foot tall, 400 lb bouncers on my front porch...I feel like I should give them names and paychecks...

...I'm thinking Zeus and Thor...

 

Anyways, as you know, I've been struggling with the desire to paint them a lovely shade of blue...or red.... I don't know, just something colorful and warm and inviting.  It's mental anguish, and at times I swear I can actually hear the two sides of my brain arguing back and forth over this...

...I think one of them has a Scottish accent...

The problem I'm encountering is that whenever I mention painting them, I get very mixed reactions from people.  Sometimes I get a "yeah! go for it!"... other times it's more like "do it and your out of the Will".... 

 

There is NO middle ground on these reactions, which in turn has led me to realize that there are two kinds of people in this world...people who WILL paint wood, and people who absolutely WILL NOT.

 

Seriously, if you have ever met one of the latter, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.....You merely mention the idea of painting wood, and you will receive a look so disgusted, shocked, and horrified, that you would think you'd just told them you sold your kid for beer money. 

It's kind of like this....

 

 

It's serious stuff folks.

 

Now, if you're one of us hippie-liberal-sushi eatin' types, then you, on occasion, like to veer off from the world of brown, and get a little creative with some color.  Picking a paint color is one my favorite things to do. The idea of taking a couple hours of my day to escape from my offspring and head over to Sherwin Williams or Benjamin Moore's house to find a paint color is exciting for me.  If I'm feeling particularly swanky and confident, I'll swing through good ole Starbucks, grab a cup of the hard stuff and then make my way over.  I walk into the store and pause, breathing in the anticipation of finding that PERFECT paint color, in a smooth, stress-free way. I make my way to the paint swatches...

 

 

 ...5 minutes later...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Needless to say, I'm not good at making decisions.

 

It makes me stress in a bad, bad way...

(see above photo reference)

 

Anyways, I eventually narrow it down to about 47 colors and I bring the color swatches home.  I lay them out on the dining room table and I stare at them for hours.  After about two weeks of lost sleep eye twitching, and rambling to myself like Rainman, I finally decide on the very first color I ever picked.  I am then forced to listen to my husband give me some kind of a speech explaining why women think too much about little, insignificent decisions, and how men are pros at making snap decisions and that's why they don't waste their time stressing out about the unimportant decisions, like paint colors.  I then remind him that he was one my carefully thought out decisions, and if he expects dinner that night, or any of the nights to follow, then he better change his tune and be grateful for my lengthy decision making process.

 

...oh, and that for the next few nights, he better sleep with one eye open...  :)

 

So, now I need to decide on a door color and I'd rather not go down my usual road of stress eating and stomach ulcers, therefore I'm going to start out my decision making process with only three options, not 47.  Here they are...

 

1.  Leave the entry Gods in their natural, dark wood tone...

 

 

Very strong and domineering if you ask me.... makes me feel like I would be forced to kneel and kiss their feet before entering...

 

But seriously,  I can always jazz up the entry with a colorful potted plant on either side of the doors and then the wreath on each door like I have mentioned several times before.   Or...

 

 

2.  Wythe Blue by Benny Moore...

 

 

It's so cool and inviting and classy...

 

...I swear I can smell fresh laundry, pipe tobacco, and the promise of a better life coming through that doorway...

 

Here's another Wythe Blue...this one looks a little more "aqua-y" and bright, but it's still lovely... I guess it just depends on your daylight at the time. This one does reflect our common color scheme for the rest of the house as well... pale gray siding and bright white trim. We will also have dark shutters.  Do with this information what you will...

 

and finally...

 

3.  A deep, cranberry colored door.  The kind of color that makes you feel all warm and cozy....

 

...It just occurred to me that I say warm and cozy a lot... I'm going to start referring to this common description as "WAC". 

 

So, yeah.  Here's the wac door.

 

 

So??  Any opinions?  I had posted a while back on FB about door colors and I got an overwhelming and unanimous "BLUE".

 

Now that you've seen the doors, do you still think Blue?  Or would that be too much?? 

 

Should I do red instead?? still painted, but not as "in your face"?!?!

 

OR SHOULD I JUST LEAVE THEM ALONE?!?!?!?

 

 

Yeah, this was bound to happen again...

 

Where's my brown paper bag...

 

Anyways, if you wouldn't mind leaving your thoughts, I'd really appreciate the help :)

 

Have a wonderful Saturday night!

 

Oh, and for those of you that read this whole post and will now inevitably have nightmares, here's a few lighthearted pictures to counteract the terror...

 

 

:) Ashley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Farmhouse....the journey thus far.

I'm back!

...I'll wait while you blot away your tears of happiness...

It's been a few days since I've logged in to the blogosphere, so, sorry about that.  I'm not placing blame, but apparently my laptop decided to go on vacation, leaving me without any means of sharing my oh-so-enlightening stories, recipes, and random babbling with you.  But it seems to be cooperating now, so, wish me luck...

 

So in the past 4 days I've accumulated some yummy recipes to share...

This is one...

...and another...

 

 ...as well as further mental anguish related to my front door painting dilemma, and a tree update (no I didn't kill them....errr...yet), but I decided to hold off on those and share with you the "birth story" of our dream farmhouse baby, while it's still fresh in my head, because as all you parents know, once you have children, you lose your mind...

 

...the fact that I can remember anything these days is a miracle in itself, so if the order of events I'm about to share seem a little outta whack, or if I get a little off track rambling, well then, use your imagination and piece it together however you'd like...like one of those "choose your own adventure" novels...

 

So, let's go back about 4 years. Nolan and I were recently married and were now expecting a baby....

 

 

 We decided to call it "Lucy". 

Kinda love this one a lot.... She keeps my days interesting and full of excitement, my brain intellectually stimulated by talking constantly, and she dresses herself (see above reference photo)...

 I swear she is an old soul in a tiny little 3 year old body....
I mean, she watches John Wayne movies, and the radio...

 

..and look at her taste in hats...

 

 

Definitely an old soul :)

 

 

Moving on.

 

Expecting Lucy really got us thinking about our future home since we knew the current home we occupied wouldn't be ideal for raising babies... mice, spiders, and maybe a little mold, sure, but not babies.

 

So every waking minute now and then, we would log-in to some real estate site or another and glance through the listings for older homes out in the country that needed a little TLC but not a complete gut or a possible visit from the HAZMAT people... 

...But alas, we never stumbled upon that perfect place, so we stayed put in "Casa de la Arachnid" while the search continued.

 

We took a short break from looking when Lucy made her debut in April 2010, and then once the shock of new parenthood slightly wore off a few months later, we started our search back up. 

 

One night I was searching online and I decided to veer off from looking for established houses, and took a chance at finding a little piece of land instead.  Most of the listings were for lots in neighborhoods or were so expensive that I didn't even stop scrolling to glance at it...until this little picture of this old run down house (made very clear by the land description that it WAS NOT SUITABLE FOR LIVING) popped up on the screen.

...NOT SUITABLE FOR LIVING!? Well that had my name written all over it!
I had to investigate further...

 I knew it must have land with it since it was in fact under the "Acreage" listings, so I clicked it and took a peek.  In addition to the run down house, there was an old shed that looked, in a word, "janky", an old mobile-home trailer that looked like Godzilla stomped it, and a long tree line riddled with random trash and junk...and deer remains....lots and lots of deer remains.  This little plot of land was 10 acres, and aside from all the work it was going to take to make it our own little piece of heaven, we knew it was meant to be.  We loaded up Lucy at 8:00pm that night, and we drove out to the acreage to take a look, even if it would be by the light of headlights. 

We loved it. 

Deer cemetery and all...

 

We called the listing agent the next morning only to find out that it was a foreclosure and that there were several other offers already on it.  We made an offer regardless, and we heard back a few days later that the bank was letting everyone have one last chance to make there best offer before they made their decision.  We decided that we just couldn't take the risk of losing it.  It was the perfect size acreage, in the perfect location, the perfect distance from town, and it was in our price range, so we weren't letting go without a fight.  So we offered the asking price, which was still was still a very low price considering. We heard back the next day, and we didn't get it.

 

THE END
 

 

Just kidding, we got it :) I starting dancing around like Elaine from Seinfeld Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music and I called Nolan at work to tell him the good news, and the rest is history. 

 

Now, I could go into the details of the next three years in which we have spent countless hours cleaning up pile after pile of trash, bulldozing the old house remains, picking up hundreds of pounds of sharp, rusty pieces of scrap metal, getting the old shed sold (yay, craigslist) and dismantled, and of course the numerous times I was surprised by yet another deer carcass.... one of which was discovered inside an old deep freeze that had been unplugged for some time...

....you can imagine my reaction....

Rusty scrap metal and carnage aside, as if this wasn't all a big enough undertaking, I also found time to create my own business...

 

 

...and this...

 

 

This one we decided to call Olive.  She may just be the sweetest, dumplin' of a child there ever was...

 

I know, I know, we all say that about our children, but seriously, look at those cheeks....and she says "appy juice" instead of apple juice...

 

..oh..

 

Did I mention she's too cool for school?..

 

 

...I mean come on...

 

 

So, basically, in the past 4 years, we have done a lot.  We had the land for nearly three years and began to think that we may NEVER get to build on it (starting new businesses isn't always what banks like to hear when you're applying for a construction loan)...

 

...seriously, there were times when I would just stand out there, looking around, thinking...

 

"Well, I'm never gonna get to build my dream house, so maybe we should turn this place into a drive-in theater, or a pumpkin patch, or the site of a future Woodstock...or maybe I could raise llamas..."

 

But alas, patience paid off, we got approved by the bank, and we are now in full swing construction mode.  I'll spare you the photos of the beginning stages of the house, because they just aren't very exciting, but I will share with you where we're at now...

 

 

...and from out in the pasture...

 

 

 

Yay! 

 

And no, it won't stay chrome colored, as much as my husband would like it to.

 

Picking colors has been a whole 'nuther process on its own...

 

... a long, madness ensuing, insomnia inducing, brain-bleed causing process...

But I did finally decide on colors and they shall be FABULOUS! More on that at a later date...

 

So, that's the process from day 1 when it was just a glimmer of a thought in our newlywed brains, to now, a full blown project in front of our sleep-deprived and sanity depleted eyes.

 

Now I must log off and swiftly clean the glob of cherry pie filling that just fell straight from my mouth to my keyboard, otherwise "H" and "N" may be permanently out of order...

 

So glad no one saw that...not my shining moment...

 

Later ;)

 

ashley