landscaping adventures

One of the downsides of our community is that landscaping the front and back of our house is 100% our responsibility, unlike some other new communities around Denver where you're only responsible for the backyard. However, once complete, we do receive a small escrow refund, which will barely cover our sprinkles.

The upside is that we're 100% in control of what our landscaping looks like, which is really exciting because in our world, landscaping for the past 9 years has consisted of a small concrete patio, a couple pots and a stinky fence. So, we've wholeheartedly (and quite excitedly) embraced designing our dream landscape.

One of the contingencies of actually receiving our landscaping escrow is to submit a detailed design plan to our community's design review board, which they in turn need to approve. Because we're new to this, we reached out to a couple landscaping companies to help take our thoughts, improve on them and put them down on paper.

What we were unprepared for is the cost of landscaping. It's easily double what we bugeted for, and while we've found some cost savings doing things ourselves, it really isn't that much cheaper to say lay your own sod or plant your own trees. We also weren't prepared for all of the very long-term, expensive decisions that we'd be making. How the hell are we supposed to know where our best views will be when the lots next to us haven't even sold? Our solution is to scale down the number of shrubs where we think there might be a view and add to it down the road once all the houses in our neighborhood are built. So, we're bulking up on landscaping for our front yard, and doing something a little more bare with the back, adding additional patio space and doing what we can to create some privacy.

The company we chose, B&D Landscaping, has been phenomenal to work with. They came up with an amazing plan for our limited (albeit enormous-to-us) budget. But, keeping with the theme of this whole house journey, debated for weeks over which plants we should use, where they should be and if we really wanted to stretch our budget to do things now vs. later.

This is a sneak peak of how our yard looks on paper:

I love it, but have to be honest. I'm a little nervous how it will all look in person. And, I'm still a little nervous about if we really did chose the best/right plants, trees and shrubs. I'm also insanely excited to see it installed. Once we're moved in, I'll take pictures of the progress. For now, I'm content to draw stick figures on the patio and envision it's Evan and I sipping wine while watching the sunset.

celebrations and anxiety

We can officially commence our move-in countdown! Seven weeks from today we’ll be closing on our new house and officially moving in. It seems somewhat surreal that in mere weeks we’ll be packing, unpacking and beginning to figure out how to turn our new house into a home.

I’m ecstatic about moving in … and also a little overwhelmed. I feel like we’ve made a lot of decisions and have made a lot of purchases, but I’m still worried everything will look disconnected and unpolished. I just really want our house to look amazing and I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself with every decision we’ve made and every item we’ve purchased to make sure our house is perfection. And I know it won’t be, and I know that there will still be things we need to buy and changes we want to make … I’m just hung up on every individual detail and what it means and how it looks. Seriously people, it keeps me awake at night. And don’t even get me started on landscaping. That needs a post all on its own.

But decision anxiety aside, I can’t wait to watch all our design selections get installed in our house over the next seven weeks. We’re starting to get to the fun stuff with tile, flooring, etc. and I think it will help ease my fears that we’ve made a ton of crap decisions. We saw a sneak peek of our master bathroom tile (which we upgraded) and it looks AMAZING! The standard tile is also installed in our laundry room and guest bath and looks pretty darn good for being a “free” option. The only thing I wish we would have done is to have gone with a darker grout – a taupe or light grey. But it still looks amazing.

Photos will be posted soon, but in the meantime, here’s a recent shot of stone being installed on the front of our house.

we work hard for the money

As I mentioned in my last post, we’re fortunate to be able to buy new furniture for a couple rooms in our house. Part of that good fortunate is our ability to save bucko bucks while living at Dad’s. The other part is working our butts off with the part-time job we’ve picked up.

I’ve never been a patient person, so the idea of slowly adding a piece of furniture here and a piece of furniture there has never appealed to me. And after spending seven long years getting out of debt, going into debt to furnish our new home was even more unappealing. The answer was one we’ve used before to help pay for our kickass honeymoon: pick up a side job working for a catering company. It’s a win-win for us because we get to pick our schedule and the pay is decent, and, because most of the events are long weddings, we’re able to work around 30 hours over our weekends. The downside is that we’re working around 30 hours over our Friday evenings and weekends … in addition to our more than full-time careers. We’re also not able to spend a lot of time with our puppy, Dudley, and our friends. The former is made somewhat better knowing that my Dad is with him and we’re not leaving him alone for days at a time, but it still pretty much sucks.

I share this for multiple reasons. The first is that we’re not insanely wealthy as our new house, landscaping and furniture may imply; we’re hard workers. It’s moderately feasible for anyone who’s willing to put in a little extra to accomplish the same as us. I share this because I sometimes feel when I read other blogs that they must easily bring home $500,000 a year in order to pay for the homes, furnishings and lifestyles they share. I know that’s not always (or often) the case, and wanted to plainly and transparently state that while yes we have a good income, we’re also working hard to meet our overly-ambitious goals … and it’s something you too can do.

I also share this because it’s my early excuse for why posts may be far and few, or why when I’m actually able to post, it consists of a lot of rambling and bad grammar (alright, the bad grammar is always going to be there).

So there’s my disclaimer to help explain how we’re able to do so much in such a short time without being millionaires, receiving a windfall or winning the lottery.

small spaces and big decisions

You may have noticed in my first post I mentioned quickly selling our townhome and simultaneously signing a contract to build our new place ... which begs the question, where are we living now?

Evan and I are both Colorado natives and incredibly fortunate to still live close to our families. As luck would have it, my Dad is an extremely generous and patient man and invited Evan and I, our dog, Dudley, and a box or two of our things (or 20 and a couch) to stay at his house while our new one was being built. 

It's been a great solution for us as we're not only able to save a boat load of money, but it also gives us a built-in dog-sitter (more on that later) and, most importantly, time to hang out with my Dad.

The downside is downsizing from a 1,700 sq. ft. townhome to a bedroom, bathroom and shared living space (albeit, downside is a relative term considering we have no bills and unlimited wine). We're a little ... cramped, which is leading to daydreaming. Lots of daydreaming. Too much daydreaming.

We've furnished, refurnished and re-refurnished our great room at least 10 times on paper; countless times in our minds. We're fortunate to be able to buy all new furniture for a couple rooms in our house (more on that later too), but our lack of space has somehow brought on indecision and as we're holed up in our bedroom we keep vacillating between this coffee table and that couch, or this couch and that coffee table. 

It's not that we don't have time to finalize these decisions, but I feel like we're living in some decorator's version of "Groundhog Day" and we'll get so sick of trying to make a decision that we won't, and our great room will consist of a whole lotta "great" nothin'. 

At least there's always Pinterest.

dreaming up our dream home

It all began with a dream ...

After owning (and living) in our townhome for seven years we began dreaming about what and where our next home will be. Given that it took us two years to get there (thanks economy and the brilliance of buying a suburban townhome), we dreamt a lot. We pictured renovating a great Denver bungalow, talked about how we'd tear out walls, knock down cabinets and blaze a hardwood trail to our new-to-us home. Depending on the time of year, available budget and level of angst with our old home, our dreams varied from grandiose to simple changes. But the dream of renovating an older home and making it 100% us was always at the forefront of our mind.

So imagine our surprise when during a trip to a builder in a suburban community, on a random Saturday I burst into tears because we "found our home." Instantaneously our dreams flipped and we were suddenly talking about building our own home and choosing our floor plan, finishes and extras. And with the quick (finally) sale of our townhome, we signed on the dotted line and anxiously began visiting our plot of dirt that would eventually be the foundation for our future.

So why had a new build never entered our dreams? For starters, we thought a home we'd fall in love with would be far outside our price range. I'll be honest; we're picky -- like really, really picky. For us the concept of building a new home was more closely attached to seven figures than reality. Once we got past the budget conversation, it was always about location. The only places we knew of that were building new homes were places we really didn't want to live. Nice, fun, amazing places for sure. But not the place a couple of lifelong DINKs were jumping to move into.

Solterra, our suburban community, and Cardel, our builder, blew our mind and all of our preconceived notions about new builds out the window and we're counting down the days until we can open the door to our brand new dream home.

our little plot of dirt, February 10, 2013