We have a solid update! Our house plans are DONE. And we don’t want to touch them again, ever, because of how much finagling we’ve done with them since November. I’m kind of kidding there but mostly not. I’m sure four months is a short amount of time for some regarding designing a house, and it’s probably long for others — it definitely felt long to us (home building stuff is just so relative). I think I mentioned this before, but we tried so hard to “live” in the house as we designed it so as to create something that really fits us, and in order to avoid change orders come construction time, and that design approach was just a little intense sometimes. Like one night, Ryan was looking at the plans and noticed that – when set up to scale – the chair at the far end of the table in our dining nook was going to hit the door to the backyard if/when someone opened said door to the backyard. At first I was like, “No biggie. I don’t want to change the plans, so we’ll just never sit in that chair.” Then I thought, “Oh, actually, we’ll just have the door swing out!” But Ryan, being the thorough man he is (which is always a blessing), kept thinking how inefficient it would be to have the main flow of traffic to-and-from the yard right at the table, regardless of the direction of the door’s swing. So we started rearranging rooms on that end of the house, pushing the butler’s pantry into the laundry room, and the laundry room into the half-bath but that got messy, so we scratched that and sat on it for a bit, stumped. Until Ryan came across a banquet table setup with a door next to the table, and voila! Our problems were solved and we edited the plan accordingly. We went through that process a lot – noticing issues as we “lived” in the house, brainstorming, editing, etc. – and while I can quickly say all of that in a couple sentences, it was a mentally grueling process to work through that always took a good chunk of time. So yes. We are glad these plans are DONE.
Our next stop in the building process is getting bids from builders, and our architect is also going to come up with a 3D drawing of the house, which will be super fun to see. And then? Ryan and I have to either fully pull the trigger on this adventure and start building right away, or? We’ll wait.
Wait is rarely a fun word to come into any life chapter, but we are feeling a little apprehensive about the building market right now. It is bananas. Like getting builders’ bids almost feels irrelevant to me because of how construction prices are consistently increasing. Building a house for so much more than it’s actually worth doesn’t feel like a smart thing to do, so in that regard, we’re somewhat embracing the thought of waiting. But then when we flip that scenario, prices here may not come back down for years. Some in the STG area speculate that they’ll actually only go up because of the high demand to live here. So we’re stumped, honestly. We wanted to “build smart” from the very beginning, but the market changes have put us in the opposite spot. My friend that is also building described it like shopping for pair of jeans and having to pay full price for the one that fits when you know you could get them for 1/2 off if you’d just wait for a sale. BUT WAIT – in Construction Land 2021 – there may never be another sale, in fact, the jeans are just going up in price every dang day. Yayyyy (read with so much sarcasm)!
Anyway, that’s where we are. We’re now working so hard to just study things out and get the right vibe as to how to proceed. Crossing our fingers that our bids come back within our budget/a decent range so that we can just run full speed ahead at this thing. We’ll see. 🙂
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Now for some fun stuff. Let’s chat about how to find your interior design style!
Okay so I learned via Alice Lane’s podcast to discover your home/interior design style in the coolest, most practical way: by analyzing your closet. Look at the clothes you wear — are they patterned? Neutral? Bold? Pastel? Vintage? Trendy? Your wardrobe will give you a good idea as to how to naturally, happily dress your home! The concept felt “aha” to me, and when I went to investigate my clothes, I saw that I’m a mixed bag of styles but my favorite clothing items are very similar. My clothes are minimalist (think Gap denim and v-neck tees) with pops of bold patterns (think J.Crew polka dots) and a splash of artsy (think floral dresses from Anthro). If my wardrobe had a color palette, it’d be made up of white, shades of blue and denim, bright pinks, and a bit of sunshine yellow. The realization made me surprised and then not surprised, ha! I am pretty chill, aesthetically (I’m far from fancy or flashy), I love the clean and the minimal, and I love color. I noticed that I barely have any red, black or green in my wardrobe. Oh and I don’t own any tan or neutrals other than white. In other words, I am not trendy ( no surprise there either, haha).
So taking these little nuggets with me, knowing that my style runs in an easy-going, bright, and classy lane, I started researching the aesthetics of definable home styles, like “contemporary” or “industrial” or “craftsman,” and while it took me a second to nail it reign it all in, I finally got it: our home’s style is Traditional + California Chill (yes, that is a style). Here’s what I’m talking about…
You can catch the vibe, yeah?? See the similar threads between the photos? The varied blues and the bright pinks; the pitched roofs and the natural wood? I love each image above for a distinct, unique reason, and man it’s FUN to see bits of my mind and heart all pieced together to make a cohesive feel — a feel that I hope is cozy and refreshing and happy. Thank goodness Ryan is on the same train with me here. He and I pretty much agree on everything in life, including style (phew 🙂 ). Actually his wardrobe is nearly the same smorgasbord as mine (even with the pinks and the yellow!), but he wears darker shades of blue and he has more gray. Analyzing his style was super fun to do, too.
Go give this a try – spend some time with your clothes! – and figure out your personal interior design style. And then, for both of us, let’s go and try and implement what we see, yes?? Or maybe “no,” since that part is way easier said than done. Daydreaming alone here is just as good as the real deal, in my opinion. Start a board on Pinterest, and then throw up your favorite images in a little collage (I used Adobe Spark for this one above. It’s free)!
Yeaah, let’s just go and dream (it’s free)! 🙂
