in the bedroom

sooner or later i'm gonna get around to decorating our bedroom. i'm pretty much at a loss on where to begin. i've been building somewhat of a furniture backbone but still need to get ideas on how to bring everything together. thank goodness for the internet. i stumbled across a really great website to find ideas for any room in your house.



above are the gender-neutral designs i like. below is what i'd love if i didn't have to worry about appeasing the man. yep, i'm sure i need a little girl or avery's gonna be surrounded in purple and poofs pretty soon.

if you build it

some of the latest construction going on around the house. nothing like a baby to get you motivated to get stuff done. above is a flagstone staircase being installed. it's currently getting rocked and i'll have finished photos next week.

below is a bump-out to our deck. we decided since we can't use much of the back yard anyways, we'll make our own flat land via more decking. it's amazing how increasing it a few feet gives you a ton more space. eventually i plan on staining it black or a dark walnut so it's not so mismatch.

got to finish packing for our trek up to maryland for my sister-in-law's baby shower. we've got a jam-packed weekend but i thought i'd update the blog while i had a minute.

rock and roll

here's a pic of what is currently happening at the westphal abode. our house is officially becoming a mountain home. we've been talking about rocking the exposed sides of the house since we bought it a couple of years ago. it just looked unfinished to us. and with the pipe bursting last winter it left a huge water stain on the cement in the front. it's amazing what a little rock can do, the house looks like it's gotten a featherlift.

here's a little preview of aaron's hiking trip to zion national park.
i'll post the flickr photos once i upload and resize all the them. also i'll post my 26 week belly shot in a few too.

weekend work

the house is slowly getting painted. this past weekend i decided to do a small project and painted the foyer area. i needed a color that would somewhat compliment the green so we went with this blue. i can't believe how much the molding and wood are popping with the addition of color. we got our chairs last week and are waiting on the couch. the next room to conquer will be the living room. i have absolutely no clue what i'm going to do in there.

sofa king cool

the past few months we've been on a quest to furnish our house. it's actually been an ongoing process since we've moved in, but a serious consideration the past few weeks. we made a special trip to charlotte to look for a bed frame and some new living room furniture. we pretty much came back empty-handed. our main problem: delivery. most places do not deliver to the high country or if they do, it almost costs more than the actual furniture. we considered renting a uhaul and picking things up ourselves, but we have to have everything ordered or in stock for it to be worthwhile.

the other problem: i can't find anything i like. i'm extremely picky. don't want anything overstuffed, leather or wood-colored. and that seems to be what's popular and in abundance. i really don't want to settle. so it's been a very slow process. aaron's pretty much given up and has left all the decision-making to me. although i'm happy about this, i know it's going to be extremely tedious task. there's a reason why the only rooms painted in our house are bathrooms!

so i've been scouring the internet, trying to find home decor. hopefully there's gonna be some changes in the westphal house soon. how soon is the real question.

busted

friday afternoon i heard a big bang that shook the entire house around 12:30p. i stood there and listened intently, nothing. i shrugged it off thinking it was a gust of wind. a few hours later i grab a picture frame and head down to the basement. when i hit the bottom step i hear a buzzing noise. sounds like a generator pumping. i look towards the noise and then down. WTF!! it's water! i step down and i'm standing in half an inch of water. i turn to my left, my right, where the hell is this water coming from? i run upstairs and call aaron's office. "this is dr. westphal's wife, i have an emergency, i need to talk to him!" he answers and i start talking non-stop.

"the basement is flooding, i have no idea where the water is coming from, what do i do?!"
"did a pipe burst?" he asks.
"i don't know, i hear a gushing/buzzing noise, i guess that could be water." holding the phone up to the noise. "hear it?"
"yeah, turn off the water line."

i turn off the water and the noise starts to dissipate. thank goodness. i tell him i tried calling todd and jerome and can't get a hold of either one. i ask him if i should go to their job site, since maybe they're not getting phone reception. that's probably a good idea he tells me, he'll be home as soon as he's done seeing his patients.

i corral the dogs into the car and head over the job site. i get there and it's empty. i start to panic. i head back home and call my brother. "who do i call about a busted water line?" a plumber he tells me. i get home and thumb through all my basement construction papers, looking for the plumber todd hired to do all the plumbing in the basement. my phone rings. it's jerome. "i'm on my way." he tells me. a wave of relief gushes over me.

he gets there and i show him where the noise was coming from. he tells me it looks like's it could be the line to the outside spicket. he cuts a 10x12 hole into the drywall and sure enough there's a crack running down the length of the pipe. he said he'll cap off the line for now, so we can have water to the rest of the house but we'll have to replace the line in the upcoming weeks. i ask him if the carpet is ruined. he tells me as long as we get all the water out, it should be fine.

so we've spent a majority of the weekend sucking the water out of the carpet using a shopvac and my "pee-pee" vac. luckily the carpet pad we opted for is supposed to be moisture resistant. and so far the carpet is still damp but no longer squishes when you walk on it. i think the only damage done is to some of the molding which is easily replaceable. thank god! most of the storage boxes we have are those five gallon plastic tubs. all-in-all the damage has been minimized.

i'm so glad and thankful we have todd and jerome when it comes to home "problems." having someone we can trust and is so knowledgeable when it comes to home repair is such a blessing. i'm almost positive if i'd have called someone else the whole wall would be ripped out right now.

the first pic is what my pants looked like after working for two hours. damn, those knee holes are a lot larger than i realized. i think the end is near for them.

from the basement

yep, i am updating from the depths of the basement. inspector came this morning and gave it his stamp of approval. we are officially done! well at least with the building part, the decorating...that's another story.

our sectional is finally a sectional again. doorways, windows and a fireplace made it impossible to fit upstairs. now we've crafted a home to house it. my advice, don't ever get a sectional unless you know you're going to live in the house forever!

we'll probably spend most of the weekend moving stuff from upstairs to downstairs. i got the guys to move the bulky items down before they left yesterday. there's also a room filled with junk covered in drywall/cement dust that needs to be addressed.

i just christened the new toilet. everything is a go!

what's in between your toes?

our new carpet! i can't believe how different the space looks. the carpet should be finished tomorrow. a few more stairs need to be covered. then another coat of paint, finish off the baseboards and install all the bathroom goodies. yay! here's this week's progress shots.

i also want to thank everyone for their kind words and support! it means a lot to both of us. we'll keep you posted as we progress. thanks again!!

knock, knock

progress! it's finally looking like a living area. paint has been applied and the doors were installed today. and no, it's not carolina blue. jason, who did most of the framing, came over yesterday and i asked if he liked the colors.

"i like the green but not the blue."

"what? why?"

"i'm a duke fan."

i kept the colors light (vast sky in the tv room, atmospheric in the bathroom and dancing green in the guest room), since it is a basement and i didn't want it to feel like a dungeon. we both agreed to add color and not a beige or brown. these are the colors we both liked. if he had his way, we'd be drowning in a sea of cardinal red, which i promptly nixed. i contemplated doing wallpaper. which he nixed. (having it professionally done, of course). i'm thinking about doing tone on tone blue along the long wall and perhaps an accent wall somewhere. so many ideas!

we have walls

more progress shots. we can finally get a gander of what it's gonna look like. amazing what a couple of walls will do. unfortunately there isn't any electricity on the tv room side of the basement. that should be fixed in the next few days if not today. the pictures are with a flash and somewhat blown out because of it but i think you can get the gist. hopefully we'll be done in the next two weeks. fingers crossed.

in the basement

more progress shots. right now the sheet rock is in the process of going up. i guess i could have waited til it was completely done but it's been a little while since i posted pics.

it's amazing all the decisions you have to make when doing even a small construction project. i can't even imagine what it would be like if you were actually building a house from the ground up. outlets where? doors? carpet? fixtures? tiles? it's a bit overwhelming.

today, they're pouring the concrete to cover the plumbing and finishing the sheet rock.

do as the romans

i finally got the roman shade finished for the master bath. made completely from scratch. i installed all the hardware, including a stop pull and corded it all myself. yes, i am patting myself on the back. and - double bonus - it's fully functional. i did buy a pattern to make it, but in the end i didn't use it. the only thing i needed were measurements. which i'm sure i could have found somewhere on the web. the room is pretty close to done. i was thinking about taking the pattern on the shade and making some type of stencil with it to place around the room. not sure it'd be too much in the way of matchy-matchy. i'll ponder that a little while longer. i did buy a couple of shelves to install and plan on stocking them up with white pottery. i've been eyeing this vase. and these would also be a perfect addition. the possibilities are endless.

under construction

progress! most of the framing is done. the only walls left are the bathroom's. the shower has to be installed before the walls can be finished and hopefully that day will be today. here's week two of basement construction.

17 gallons

in case you were wondering what 17 gallons of drylock looks like when applied. ta-da! i'll try and take progression shots as the basement comes along. i finally got all the materials i need to start/finish making the roman shade for the bathroom. our house is just full of construction these days. here are some more pics of the "before" for the basement.

a little cuteness on a monday afternoon

from time to time i'll try and post some of my favorite etsy sellers. today it's lou and lee. they make the cutest things for baby. mostly of the girl persuasion or for the little boy who wants some flair! diego?!? ;)

things are starting to get busy around here. we've decided to finish our basement. the walls need to be drylocked, which we've decided to do ourselves. once aaron started i think he quickly changed his mind. the stuff is super thick and we've already gone through a five gallons of it and only finished one coat on half the basement. he knocked out a quarter of it saturday and i chipped in last night and we got halfway done before running out. it definitely went faster with two of us working. i'll probably be spending most of wednesday finishing up so they can start construction. at least my blisters will get one day of rest before they multiple and enlarge!

tonight we're heading down to charlotte again. we've got reservations at the melting pot tonight. i think the last time we went was when i first got my braces on, about three years ago. so the westphals do do fondue. tomorrow we're hitting up carowinds. hopefully we'll have less of a crowd with kids back in school and the weather will be a little cooler. 88 degrees. which sounds tolerable. i can't wait.

i'll be posting pics from last week (went to a johnson city cardinals game and visited another waterfall in blowing rock.) and pics from tomorrow hopefully on wednesday. i've been bit of slacker when it comes to blogging. need to get back into the swing of things soon.