If You Take a Kid To Target

One of Audrey's favorite books is If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.  I have recently written my own version of this cause and effect story.  Please enjoy.

If You Take a Kid To Target

If you take a kid to target, they are going to ask you for a toy.
You'll be strong and say "no" at first, but then you'll find yourself in the dollar aisle.

While your child picks their 1, 4, 7 toys, you'll also notice a few items you would enjoy.
They'll have pretty stationary, scrapbooking supplies, and oh so lovely bath salts.
This will remind you of all the things you once enjoyed that you no longer have time for, thanks to that precious child in the cart.

You'll wish for the 100th time that your house had just 1 safe "kid" room where you could place said child, so you could indulge in some writing, scrapbooking, or a most wonderful bubble bath.

You'll decide right then and there to finally make that kid room happen, and head through Target with a playroom plan.
You'll stock up on organizational bins, bookshelves, and then realize they don't have any that match your current paint color.

You'll have to take that child (and it's sibling) to Lowes, where you'll grab some paint, a new rug, and a few other "necessities."

You'll work for days until your feet are sore and you are covered in paint, all the while dreaming of those bath salts.  You'll wish you could pad the walls of that room, so the kids could really be completely safe and you could just disappear in that bath for a couple of hours.

During this time, your dear husband will decide to have a 4th of July party and invite 25 people to your house the day before you leave for the beach.

You'll paint, clean and organize, and then organize and clean some more.  You'll inspect your new playroom and be pleased at how neat and organized all the toys are.

Then you'll unveil the room to the kids and watch with a smile as they squeal at those toys like they are brand new.  You decide it's time for that bubble bath.

When you finally emerge from the tub, feeling sufficiently pruney and wonderful, you'll stroll in with your glass of wine in your robe to check on those sweet angels.

MASS CHAOS.  SHEER AND UTTER DESTRUCTION. TOYS EVERYWHERE. MARKER ON THE WALLS. FINGER PAINT ON THE FLOORS. BLUEBERRIES SMASHED IN THE RUG. BROKEN TOYS WITH BATTERIES THAT HAVE SUDDENLY VANISHED WITHOUT A TRACE.

Your child (children) will begin to cry hysterically because her princess mirror no longer lights up and tells her she is the prettiest girl of all because of those missing batteries.

You'll sigh in exhaustion, put on some clothes, and take that child to Target to get some batteries.

No toys this time.  Fo' real.


**Pictures to come  :)

Hey! I've been waiting a couple extra days to allow for anymore questions.  Please always feel free to ask if you have a question!


What is the history of your house? It looks like a much older home. Do you know who lived there before? Was it part of a farm?
Hey April, I am still working on learning all the history myself!! Several family members have told us some history, but a few of the stories contradict each other, so there are still some blanks!   You know how everyone seems to kind of remember things a little differently? :)  I wrote a little bit of what we've been told here.  I'll certainly post when I get some more information!!  I'm also really trying to get a hold of an original picture!!  If any family is reading this and has a picture of the original house, please let me know!! I'd love to frame one!!

What is the price comparison, do you think, to doing a fixer upper like you did, buying a move-in ready house, or building from scratch?
Well I am no expert, but I talked to my parents who are Realtors, (message me if you need help buying or selling a house in the area!! :) ) and they agree that the most economical option right now is probably new construction.  There are so many add ons and extras being included to make things sell, and you can get crazy amounts of square footage for the price right now!  Building from scratch can be a good option if you know exactly what you want and can STAY ON TOP OF YOUR BUILDER!!  I've heard so many stories of people who built a house and ended up taking a year or even longer to build! My parents built their dream home, but were able to go to the site every day to make sure people were showing up when they were supposed to. It took them 4 months and we moved in!

Fixing up a house can go either way.  I would say it depends on HOW MUCH fixing you have to do! LOL!  You can find some really great deals and I know we've all seen the "Flip That House" shows.  Yes, you can find a fixer upper for a good deal, but you can also end up spending far more money than you planned!! Be extra careful if you are dealing with an old house.  I have mentioned multiple times that our "budget" was blown after a few months! LOL!  There are so many things hidden in renovating and you can't do anything about it once you get to it.  Just like when we PLANNED to just add on upstairs and then ripped the roof off only to find that our porch was completely rotten and inches from falling off the house.  What can ya do?!  You have to fix it!  Always double your budget and be prepared! :)


I absolutely LOVE your home and adore your kitchen. We are getting ready to sell our first home and rent for a bit of time while we build our home. I was wondering about the bead board in the kitchen and the color of it, I love it. Is it what is used when doing wainscoting? Also, I love your kitchen table. Where did you get it from?
Thank you so much Nicole!!  Congrats on building!  The bead board in the kitchen can be purchased at Lowes or Home Depot!  It is sold a couple different ways and in different sizes, but we bought it by the sheet.  I believe it was 4ft by 8ft and was around $20.  I am obsessed with it and have used it all over the house!! It's very thin so it's easy to cut and put up.  We used an air gun and small finishing nails, but I have heard of people using liquid nails as well.  The kitchen paint is called "Rain" by Sherwin Williams.  The table came from a store called SouthEastern Salvage.  I wanted something rustic and really big and sturdy that will outlast us all.  I love naturally distressed wood that doesn't show kid dents and scratches! :)

Q & A and Requests!

Hello again friends!  I hope everyone is enjoying their summer!  I have been having "blog block" lately, as in, I have no idea what to blog about! LOL!  I have shown you the main projects that took place to get this house to where it is today.  Now, I want to know what YOU want to see.  Is there a spot in the house you are wondering about?  Need to know the name of a paint color I used?  Questions just about my family in general? (Nothing TOO personal of course!)  Is there a project you want me to explain?  Some of my favorite blogs have question and answer sessions and I always enjoy them, so I'm giving it a shot.  Someone PLEASE leave me at least 1 question or request so I don't feel like a loser! :)  Ask away!

Instagram Roll

I have a new obsession.  And as usual, I'm a little behind the trend.  Being stuck in a house with kids all week seems to have that effect! :)  Have you discovered Instagram?  I LOVE it!! It's the only way I take pictures now!  (For those of you who are REALLY sheltered and haven't yet heard of Instagram, it's an app used to take and edit pictures on your phone.)  It's easy to use, and I love how easy the editing is!  It makes me look like a photographer....which I certainly am not!  I figured today I would share some of my favorite Instagram pictures!  They're a little blurry from emailing and then blowing them up.  Give it a try if you haven't already!

Handsome boy

My Carolina girl at the marsh 

Lookin like his mama!

Snugglin my baby when he had a cold

Her favorite!

Princess Audrey Grace

At the beach

My lefty!

She has to hold my hand to fall asleep

It was a little muggy out!

They love bath time!

Well I have failed you all.  I promised an update yesterday, and I did not deliver.  My apologies.  But, I do have a very long post here today! :)  So much has happened in the past few weeks, so I figured we should take a look back.  So let's look, shall we?

Waaaay back on April 28th, this sweet boy turned 1.

It's hard for me to believe he has been with us for a whole year!! Here are just a couple of the 300 pictures I think I took at his party!

The very next day, that sweet boy's sweet daddy turned 27!  We took him out to Miyos for a yummy lunch.

A couple weeks later, we celebrated my 4th Mother's day!  What a precious day!

That brings us a little more up to date, when we went to the beach for the weekend.  We were there to celebrate mine and Ben's 5th wedding anniversary.  We treated each other to a nice surprise gift for each other.  I finally got him his own John Deere riding mower, and he got me the top band for my wedding ring set!  Unfortunately, we had awful weather at the beach, and it was cold and rainy the whole time!  We did take the kids out 1 morning just so they could play in the sand for 30 minutes or so.  

Can you see the tooth?!  It FINALLY broke through on his birthday!

And lastly, I always like coming home from a vacation, but this time was the best!  Why?  Because we came home to a *FiNiShEd* house!!!  My dad finished the roof while we were gone, and it looks incredible!!  Here is the finished product!!!

The front of our house before:

And the front shot NOW!!!!

Can you believe it's the same house?? We can't!!  In case you have lost track, we had an addition built, raised the pitch of the porch roof, added 2 more columns for support, and got a brand new roof!  I know I'm biased, but I just think it's the most beautiful sight!  

The side shots show the porch roof level really well.  It was almost completely flat before and held water really badly.  Now, it has a nice slant for the rain to run off, and it looks 10 times better because you can actually see the shingles!

Ahhhh, home sweet home.  

Vacation!

Well folks, we've reached that time...my favorite time of the year aside from Christmas!  Summer vacation!  We will be spending a large amount of the next few months at the beach.  We actually leave tomorrow for our first little 4 day visit!  I thought I should check in since it has been 2 weeks!  I haven't been neglecting the blog, I've just been waiting it out!  The dormer addition is complete, but dad has a couple more days on the roof.  He will be finished this week, and then I will share the pictures!! I wanted you to see the finished product all at once! We will be back Sunday evening, so you can expect an update with the final pictures on Monday!  Hope you have a great weekend! :)

Allow Me to Introduce....

The ADDITION.  No, we weren't planning on it being so big.  And yes, we were referring to it as a dormer in the beginning.  We have canned that word.  This thing is huge people.  These pictures I'm going to show you are not how it looks now.  We ran into a little problem with the porch, and it has been completely rebuilt.  Well, the roof at least.  When we (they!) cut the hole out upstairs, it exposed the top of the porch and we were able to see that the rafters were merely leaning up against the house.  As in, NO nails.  As in, getting ready to fall at any second. (In my head at least!) Obviously it needed to be rebuilt.  Our builder suggested that we raise the pitch of the porch roof for a few different reasons.  First, the reason it is rotted in the first place is because the roof of the porch is (was!) completely flat.  The rain came pouring off the roof of the house and then dumped onto the flat roof of the porch and took forever to drain.  It built up and rotted all the wood.  Second, we couldn't see any of the brand new shingles that we spent so much dang money on!!  The porch is a huge part of the front of our house and because it was flat, the shingles were completely unseen!  The last reason is because once the "dormer" went up, Ben and I panicked. It was SO big.  And tall.  It looked out of place to us and there was no taking it down and refiguring at that point!  Now that the porch roof is raised, it looks SO much better!!  We are so happy with how it turned out!  Today I'll show you the pictures I took BEFORE the porch was raised!

Pretty crazy right??  HUGE change!  I love it though!! It's reminding me of an old southern plantation house in Beaufort or something!  One day we plan to wrap the porch around both sides.  We had to take that into consideration when building the new roof line as well!  And speaking of roof, here are a few pictures of the new shingles!

It was getting dark outside!  Things are still in progress here!

Woohoo look at those pretty new shingles!!

Here's a shot where you can see the top is done and the back porch roof below it wasn't.  Look at the difference!!

Things are still going strong here! I'll keep you posted!