We Have a Studio!

I can't believe we have made some progress!  Let me explain this post...

This little lady is The Sassy One.  She is a freakin' amazing ballerina!  This is my blog so I'm allowed to brag about the children that I created!  Plus, what is a farmhouse without the people inside?  It's a house, not a home.  This is one of our tribe that make this freakin' awesome Farmhouse, a home!  She has danced since she was 3.  From her first day, I was told that she had a gift for dance.  That gift has grown into an amazing talent and she loves it more than anything!  Even more than her smart phone and you know that in this day and age... that's A LOT!!! This last year has been a rough one for her.  If any of you are familiar with competitive dance, it's hard on the mind and body.  From stretch classes where the dancers are required to sit in "super splits" for several minutes all the way down to  force stretching extensions that your body is just not ready for, it's rough!  This is the world of competitive dance.

This is her team.  They are pretty amazing, but Haven just wasn't loving it.  She danced hard and didn't let her team down, but all of the stuff outside of the actual dancing wore her out.  If you can't pick her out, she's the little blonde in the middle and her facial expression pretty much sums up her feelings about the politics and drama of competitive dance! I love her!!!

Unfortunately, after years of avoiding injury, this last year our 10 year old has had her fair share.  It started with a broken foot last fall and ended with a torn hip flexor and pulled labrum compliments of her over eager ballet teacher.  Then she ended the year with a sprained wrist because her coaches made her dance full out before she was ready and she fell pretty hard.  In competitive dance, if you're puking, you come and dance with a garbage can next to you.  If you are in the hospital, you ask to be discharged in time for rehearsal because if you miss, you're out of the dance and blackballed FOR-EV-ER!    

Needless to say, after 10 years at the same studio, we decided to look for teachers that could help her with her rare talent and leave behind those that couldn't.  To keep her spirits up, we promised her a studio where she could practice.  So, as part of the basement finishing, we added a raised floor with a marley top so that she could dance all day and all night if she so desired.  It would have been wonderful had we had the 9 ft ceilings that we were supposed to have {Argh! Stronzo!} but although she won't be practicing a Pas down there, she can still turn and run choreography so she is happy.  In these pics, the marley wasn't even installed and she couldn't wait to get down there!  Here are some photos after the install.  We still have to touch up the baseboards, run the TV wiring behind the wall and add shutters, but overall, it turned out great!  Shouldn't every Farmhouse have a dance studio?  Yes... the answer is always YES!

A Backsplash for My Birthday!

Flowers, shoes, jewelry, clothes, vacations, spa days... these are usually the things that women ask for on their birthdays, but not me.  I wanted my back splash done.  We didn't have much of a budget, but luckily Lowe's had what I wanted.  I wanted a beveled edge, glazed subway tile.  We tiled the back splash at our last house and it looked great so we decided that we could do it again.  It was a mess.  It was a pain.  It hurt.  We had moments of frustration.  We had moments of triumph.  I know I'm making this out to be more than it was, but DIY projects are always more of everything {time, money, physical exertion} than you planned.  Overall I love the way it turned out.  I still need to caulk the edges, but it is exactly what I wanted and I will check this one off as a success. 

October, How I Love Thee!

I'm not going to lie, I live for October.  I love Spring with all of it's blossoms and warmer weather.  Summer is wonderful because it's filled with kids, swimming, vacations and fun!  Winter has Christmas and that is hard to beat, but if I had to pick a favorite month and season, I will always tell you that it's October and Fall! My husband and I chose October as the month to get married and I have never regretted it!  There is something about the cooler temperatures, the trees changing colors, the gutters filling with leaves, the last lawn mow to get your yard ready for snow, the decorations, the hot chocolate, the anticipation of the Holiday season, pumpkin everything, haunted houses and hayrides, gah I just love it!!!  There are two sounds and smells that I can't get enough of.  One is rain.  It is so calming to have rain on the rooftop when you're drifting off to sleep... and the smell!  {Insert thumbs up!}  The other is a walk in October when the leaves are crunching under your feet and the cooler air smells like nature and the smoke coming from the chimneys of the close by homes.  {Insert happy dance!}  I imagine Heaven to be something like that! ;)

Sod It All!

We have a front lawn!  I could cry!

Honey, not to be naggy, but now we need trees, the decorative path to the porch, 

the path in the side yard, plants, ground covers, shrubbery, a fence, gates... 

What's with the eye roll... wait where are you going... babe?  Babe?  

I had some ideas for the backyard that I wanted to talk to you about! ;)

Manual Labor

People often ask what possessed us to have FOUR kids!?!  First of all, I'm from a family of 6 kids and my husband from 5... our family is perfect for us.  Also, my husband needed some testosterone in our home.  He is the best Daddy of girls on the planet, but dance competitions and Princess talk can get a bit redundant so we had to go for that 4th!  GOAL!  The real reason we had 4 kids is quite simple... free manual labor!  If you want to own a farmhouse, it takes a lot of work!  Especially when yours was left only 72% done my Stronzo and his Cronies.  These kids are learning the art of burrowing a canal under the sidewalk for sprinkler pipe!  Look at The Prude's face in the first picture compared to the second when Dad turned the water on!  Mud right up the schnoz!  Why didn't I get this on video?  Oh that's right, I was sitting on the porch, drinking Dr. Pepper in the shade!

Why-o, Why-o, Why-o Did I Ever Leave Ohio?

Okay, so we never lived in Ohio.  In fact, I'm not sure that I've ever been to Ohio.  I'm sure that it's a lovely place.  Tommy Boy made Sandusky, Ohio look like a beautiful place to live.  But this, my internet friends, is the cry of my people!  My original purpose for this blog was to create a place where I could share my love of old {or old looking} things as I made our suburban farmhouse a home.  You know those beautiful blogs that feature gorgeous pictures of white shiplapped walls with perfectly arranged gallery walls hanging above a distressed church pew turned entryway bench that has grain sack pillows and Hewey the Golden Doodle resting upon it?  You know exactly what I'm talking about and I wanted that!  However, things do not always work out the way they have been carefully scripted in your head!  I'm learning to cope with that stupid, trite phrase "you don't always get what you want"!    I'm okay with that... well, mostly okay with that!  So, this blog is now my venting place... because everybody needs a venting place.  This is very different than the laughing place where our family usually hangs out.  It is the place where I can rewrite the script of the movie "The Money Pit"!  We really do love our home.  Even in it's unfinished state.  This is why my originally titled, "Farmhome on Alexander" blog is now titled "My Friggin' Awesome Farmhouse".  It's reverse psychology and so far it's not working, but it will... one day!  This blog will journal our adventures into fixing all that "went wrong" during our build job!  Okay... back to the beginning.  We are self employed.  Do you know what bites about being self employed?  The taxes do!  Its a game every spring to try to figure out how to only pay an arm rather than throwing the leg in as well!  Our accountant's advice... build a new home.  We loved our little, cozy rambler that we had owned for 14 years, but the time was right, the advice was heeded and we bought a 1/2 acre next to a bison, elk and horse ranch.  I know many of you tried and true country folk are huffawing at our little 1/2 acre piece of property, but in all honesty, in the suburb where we live, these properties are very hard to find.  We still have the aroma of the country so we pretend we live in the middle of the country.  It's an amazing dream until our neighbors wave at us through our bedroom window while they stand on their deck.  When we started planning our home, I told my husband that if I can't have a 120 year old farm house to renovate, then we are going to build a house that looks 120 years old.  He was totally okay with that.  Plans were drawn up and we began our hunt for a builder.  We received 3 bids and decided to go with the builder that the company that did our engineering suggested.  I figured that since I saw the crack of his hind parts creeping out the top of his jeans on the 1st meeting, he must be a qualified builder.  His naked hind parts weren't all that I based my opinion of him on!  We made our decision on a few other factors, but I'm not going to lie... I thought we had a winner.  Nope.  No we did not have a winner!  In fact, we had a loser!  That loser will now be known in the blog as Stronzo.  Just go with it!  Lets just say that he was over timeline, over budget and did not necessarily follow the plans.  Weren't we supposed to have 9 ft ceilings in the basement?  The plans say yes, Stronzo said no.  Seven months into the build, Stronzo took his family on a 1st class cruise to the Bahamas.  Our bank was livid when they asked where he was.  They sent him a notification and the next thing he sends us is a text informing us that he is quitting!  Are you serious?!? All heck broke loose and we had no idea what to do.  Lawyers got involved.  Threats were made.  A "friend", Stronzo Jr., that happened to be a builder volunteered to help us finish the house.  With the tiny bit of money that our original builder had left us, we had to be super careful so our "friend" brought in some guys that he said would do an amazing job at a lower price.  Let's just get this straight right now... my husband and I try to see the good in everyone and are far too trusting.  Along with this, we NEVER learn our lesson.  You can imagine what happened.  No?  Let me catch you up... the moldings were put in completely wrong, but they wouldn't fix them.  Some of the lights were put in wrong, but never fixed.  The painter used a paintbrush taped to the end of a broomstick to do the top of the walls where the ceiling meets the wall.  We also realized that the "paint" he was using and dripping all over my hickory railing and floor was actually tinted primer.  Yep, tinted primer for the final coat.  He was kindly asked to get the H-E-double hockey sticks out of my house that night and reminded to never come back. We had to eliminate some of the cabinets, tile work and specialty molding to try to stay in budget.  We still didn't stay in budget.  Then to finish it all up, our "friend", Stronzo Jr., demanded tens of thousands of dollars as payment for helping us "finish" the house.  Let's just say that he didn't get what he wanted.  We finally found a backbone and haven't talked to him since.  The house is still far from finished, but is any house really ever finished?  So... this is all about our progress in turning this house into the beautiful farmhome it was meant to be and maybe a little bit about the antics of the minions we call children.  There's 4 of them so the chaos is plentiful!