It's Happening!!! ....Here's to a new era!

Today, Mitch and I were able to walk through what will soon become our "new home" and it was a crazy good feeling.

 Lots of windows = Lots of beautiful light. :)

We decided to move forward and pursue building a new house back in February of this year (before we were pregnant OR knew we would be pregnant :)

It was easy for us to make the decision to go with a Ready-to-Move home rather than building on site because, as anyone who has been on our yard during the summer months can attest to, there is enough going on. I really did not want extra vehicles, bodies, tools, equipment, not to mention a large hole in our back yard, while my kids were constantly wanting to play outside and enjoy the sunny summer months. We began searching many different websites to explore our options, but in the end, decided to go with a company that has done work on our farm several times (built our barn) and we have been very happy with their work.

Zak's Building Supplies & Contracting is based out of Hague, SK. When Mitch and I contacted them about building a house, we were pleased to see several familiar faces around their site, and our main contact person is an old friend that I worked with at Redberry Bible Camp many moons ago. It's a comfortable feeling to be building with people you know and trust.

We decided to go with a bungalow instead of a two-story. If you read my last blog post, "A Century's Close," you'll remember that I'm kind of over climbing stairs ;)

The two things that I refused to budge on as we decided on a floor plan, were
1. A mud room with closet space, a bathroom, and attached laundry.
2. An open concept Livingroom/Dining/Kitchen.

As you can see in the following floor plan pic, we have both of those things and I am THRILLED!

You may notice in the above plan that there are only 3 bedrooms on the main level. Remember, I mentioned that we were planning this before baby number 3 was in our plans? ;) Jett and Kalena will share a room for at least a year or two and, depending on the gender of the baby I'm carrying, one of them will continue to share a room for a few years after that. We are planning on putting two more bedrooms in the basement, but we won't do that right away AND I need my babies a little closer to me for a few more years. ;)

I am actually really looking forward to having an unfinished basement for awhile. It will be a large open space for the kids to run/bike/play around all winter. We will have in-floor heating, so it won't get cold. I've heard of some cool ideas for play space in unfinished basements such as painting hockey lines on the floor. We may have to give that a try!!

The following samples are for what the outside of our house will look like. The darkest charcoal is the colour of the metal roof we're putting on the house. The "Dover Gray" is the colour of the siding and the white is the colour of the soffits and fascia.

There are a million and one things to decide when building, but here are few decisions (in the pic below) we've made and I can't wait to see what it all looks like in the end!

We had originally wanted to go with a hardwood through out our kitchen/dining/living space, but as I daily watch my children pulverize our floor, I decided to go with a laminate instead. It is highly likely that we will be living in this house for 30-40 years and we can put in hardwood when the kids are grown up. I do really like this laminate that we chose, though.

In the top right corner, is the linoleum we picked to go in the mudroom and bathrooms. I like the darker shades and am hoping they hide dirt/dust well ;)

The white square is the colour of our kitchen cabinets (and our fireplace mantle/shelving, but I'll get to that later). The small dark rectangle on top of the white square is our counter top. Did I mention I have an 8 ft island in my kitchen? (Can't WAIT!)

The carpet we've chosen is the second one from the top that is touching the laminate. We want carpet in our bedrooms, hallway and down the stairs to the basement. I love a soft carpet.

The colour swatch is for wall colours. The main colour throughout the house will be the second lightest shade on the swatch. It's light, but will give a nice contrast to the white baseboards and door frames, etc. The second darkest shade on the swatch will be on the "feature" walls of our living room; ie the fireplace wall and the wall that borders our bedroom. I DO realize I've chosen several grays and I'm sure some of you are yawning and thinking, "Boring!" BUT, I do hope to add splashes of colour with furniture pieces throughout the house. (Think RED barstools along the island) Also, we did choose some bright colours for the kids rooms :)

Our lights will come from the Fandango Lighthouse in Saskatoon. I've chosen most of our fixtures from this Malibu collection (pic below).

I am SUPER excited about our fireplace wall in our living room. We will have a gas fireplace and I've chosen to NOT go the stone mantle route. Instead, our wall will look something like this:

I LOVE it! I'm hoping the actual mantle turns out very much like the above pic. We won't continue that white moulding above the mantle, but rather, will have that wall painted our "feature" colour. Our TV will be mounted there and we will have track lighting on our vaulted ceiling to highlight the area. We will have the custom shelving on either side of the mantle, but not all the way to the ceiling. Instead, we are planning to have lower cabinets with one or two shelves built in above. That way the remaining wall above will also be painted our "feature" colour and I plan on putting up white floating shelves. I think (hope) it will look really sharp!

AHHHHHH!!!!! Building a house is SO fun and overwhelming and wonderful; and WE'RE not even building it! I feel completely blessed to be going through this process and be able to anticipate living in a fresh new space. I had come to terms with thinking I would never live in a new house, but life is full of unexpected blessings. God is good!

I may have to dedicate my next post entirely to kitchen space.....

A Century's Close...

It is time.

For a little more than 100 years, this house has stood on the Schultz Family Farm.

We are currently building it's replacement. Or, rather, having it built. Dairy farmers don't have time to build their own houses. ;)

I know that there are people who are cringing/crying at the thought of the old Schultz house being removed, but let me plead my case. I can appreciate old things/"antiques" as much as most and I know there are people who turn old houses into beautiful updated, more modern homes, but I don't think that Mitch and I are those people. As I think about all of the updates that could be (should be) done to this home if we wanted to keep it around, it's more overwhelming than building a new one!

My husband is a 4th generation dairy farmer and Lord willing, one of our children will fall into the role of 5th generation farmer on the Schultz Family Farm. This house has already faithfully served us and our Schultz ancestors for 100 years and I would say, it doesn't owe us a thing.

I have lived in this house for nearly 8 1/2 years, and I can honestly say that I have been content living here. ...Up until about a year ago when we starting talking about replacing it. There are many things about this house that are not conventional, but we've made them work. Since we've been planning out our new home, though, every less desirable quality about this house has become more and more glaringly obvious to me.

Before you judge me too harshly for removing a Schultz monument, let me explain my grievances with this house. ;)

1. The Bathroom.
    The original bathroom looked something like this:

    So, when a bathroom was added to the inside of the house, it was fit into whatever space could be found... below the stairwell. There is no window in the bathroom and it has a bit of a cave-like feel.

2. The Tub. (Or lack there of)
    It is partly our own fault that there is no tub in our house... There was one, but we took it out almost 5 years ago. We were trying to give the bathroom a face-lift and removing the old tub that was in there was a major part of the renovation. The tub had a textured surface that was next to impossible to clean and it always looked/felt dingy. The tub was shorter than standard and since neither Mitch nor I were big on soaking in the tub, we opted to replace it with a modern shower. This worked out great for the short period of time after that in which we had no children. When Jett came along, we realized WHY people have tubs in their homes. We have embraced our "ghetto bath", but I certainly won't miss it!

3. The Back Entrance.
    This is a "feature" of our house that I might be known to occasionally describe with the strong word, "hate." I guess the biggest problem with the back entrance is that it's too small. We live on a farm and we need space to store coveralls, rubber boots, work gloves, etc. It is all crammed in that small space along with an ever-growing heap of garbage because we have no attached garage or good place/system to store our trash until we can remove it properly.
    The location of the back entrance is also an issue. It is directly off of my kitchen. Did I mention that the bathroom is also located directly off of the kitchen? We live on a farm. Several times a day, dirt, straw, and what we affectionately refer to as "not mud" (poop), is tracked right through my kitchen. I can't really get after my husband/children for it though, because where else are they to go? Most times they are on their way to get cleaned up.

4. The Basement. AKA. The Dungeon

    I actually think the above picture actually looks better than our basement; partly because it's full of storage junk and is much more cluttered, but...
    The biggest downside to having a dungeon cellar, is that it's not livable space. Rather than being able to put toys and a play area in the basement, the kids' toys fill our living room/dining/kitchen space. It's kinda like a constant obstacle course, which may sound fun, but the novelty has worn off.
    Have I mentioned that our dungeon is also full of spiders?

5. The Tenants.
    You didn't know we have tenants, did you? Well, we have evicted several mice and birds over the last number of years and a multitude of flies are our faithful companions. I know we're not infested with mice, because we have traps that are strategically placed at all times, but our house is definitely not air tight! Somehow those little critters find their way inside and I'm sure it's not always through a door!
    The birds have a secret entrance in the basement that we have yet to find. As long as the door between our kitchen and back entrance is closed, we can usually chase the birds outside before they invade our living space. Jett was my brave little bird extractor a few weeks ago. He went out the front door and around the house to the back entrance and then went inside and chased the bird out! My hero ;)
    The flies. We live on a farm and I know that there will always be flies, but it's the quantity and where they come from that is so frustrating. My in-laws also live on the farm and they don't have a fraction of the flies we have. I really think it's because the flies only really get in through the doorway. In our house, I think they get in every nook and cranny they can find. Especially at this time of year, it feels like a losing battle as we incessantly swat flies.

6. The Upstairs.
    I'm sure someone reading this is thinking, "Didn't they just renovate the upstairs?"The answer is, yes. We did renovate half of the upstairs area just before Kalena was born in an attempt to make the space more functional. You can read about that venture HERE, if you are interested.
    I really like what we did with the upstairs. I like the way it looks/feels, BUT the biggest issue is the closeness of the quarters. We have a white noise maker as well as humidifiers and fans to add extra white noise in each room. We've got a good system going with Jett and he's a good sleeper, but Kalena, she is a very LOUD sleeper. When she stays in her crib though the night, she wakes me up in the next room a few times during the course of the night and I have a very difficult time falling back to sleep. SO, my sweet little Lena gets banished to the living room every night. She begins the night in her crib, then when Mitch and I go to bed, we transfer her downstairs into the playpen in the living room. We all sleep better as a result, but obviously this is not an ideal arrangement ;)

7. The Stairs.
    As you can tell from the above pictures, our house is a two story. The stairs never used to be a problem, but now with 2 toddlers and one on the way, I swear they've gotten higher and steeper. Stairs were made much steeper 100 years ago. Chasing after the kids, doing laundry, putting kids down for naps etc. I think I must climb at least 20 stories a day!

8. The Temperature.
    Our house doesn't do well with extreme outside temperatures, which in Saskatchewan, we deal with for much of the year ;) There is no A/C in the house, which I realize is the case in many people's homes, but this house gets VERY hot in the summer. We do everything we can: turn the furnace fan on, close the blinds appropriately, use fans, and we have a ceiling fan above our bed. BUT for this pregnant chica, these hot temps are a challenge.
    In the winter, we deal with an opposite scenario. I imagine that the sawdust insulation in our walls is sitting at about knee height, which creates great air exchange ;) but doesn't hold the heat in well. Also, there are very few heating vents throughout the house. Upstairs there are only 2 and they are both in the hallway/landing area. Last year, we put in space heaters, which did help the situation, but is still not ideal. Our kitchen floor also gets very cold in the winter.

9. The Electrical.
    I'm not sure how much electricity was used 100 years ago, but in our house their are very few outlets to plug into. Several of the outlets we do have only support 2 pronged plugs, which is inconvenient for the several items that have 3 pronged plugs! As a result, we have more than one location in the house that looks something like this:

    Okay, so they're not quite THIS bad, but you get the point! ;)

10. The Windows.
    The final grievance I'll mention (which makes the list a solid 10 ;) is the windows. They are ALL dated, and very few of the windows actually open. Most of the windows are old double paned glass that never looks clean because their is so much dust settled between the panes. (I know I almost never clean my windows... But maybe I would if they would LOOK clean! ;)


AND that's it. I'll stop there. I know that no house is perfect and even new houses can have some of these issues, but as we plan out our new place, FUNCTIONAL is the goal we are reaching for. There will be a blog post coming soon to actually introduce the house we are building ;)

I really am thankful to have a roof over my head, and this house has been a blessing to us for the past 8 and a half years. This is the home Mitch and I began our marriage journey in and where we have brought home both of our beautiful children. God has been good to us.

...I'm also VERY excited to move into a NEW house!

It's a....BABY!

With each of our children, we have been excited/eager to learn the gender of our baby at the earliest time possible. This has been our personal choice. I realize that many people would rather wait and be surprised at birth to discover the gender of their child, and I respect that. I don't believe this to be an ethical issue, but rather a matter of personal choice. I love the surprise!... when the doc/ultrasound tech lets us know! ;)

Jett kept his gender hidden from us until we had a late pregnancy ultrasound at around 31 weeks. Kalena was considerate enough to let us know she is girl at our midway ultrasound. THIS sweet babe is deciding to go the route of older brother and keep us guessing for a while.... patience isn't my strong suit! Dr's words during the ultrasound were something like this, "Maybe that's a penis... could be a swollen labia..." (sorry if anyone reading this finds this to be offensive, I kind of found it funny). Afterwards, she informed us that there was about a 52% chance our baby is a boy. I later discovered that approximately 52% of babies born are boys, so this really tells us NOTHING!

It is mildly disappointing that we were unable to learn our baby's gender, but hearing the doctor talk about how every part is forming and looking healthy the way that it's supposed to, is incredibly wonderful to hear. Tomorrow, I will be 22 weeks along and I still do not feel much movement in my womb. The ultrasound confirmed that placenta is in the front, which means that baby is kicking against a "pillow" and it does take longer to feel significant movement. Kalena was the same way, but until I can feel consistent movement, I tend to worry that everything is okay.

Here are the ultrasound pics we took home. A cute side profile, then the freaky directly on the face where the eye sockets look empty. ;)

I haven't been good at taking "belly pics" throughout any of my pregnancies, but here's one I took a few days ago. I've had people tell me they think I look "good" or that I don't look "too big". ;) I kinda think they're lying to make me feel good because I feel HUGE.

We aren't able to know the gender of our sweet baby-on-the-way quite yet, but as we imagine our life with a third child, we have a fairly good idea (an educated guess ;) ) of what our wee one will look like. In the following pics, Jett is on the left, Lena on the right. Both are from moments after they were born. I think we seem to have a fairly specific "pattern" and it's hard to imagine our next child looking any different. Jett was 9 lbs 1 oz, and Kalena was 9 lbs 2 oz.

SO, 18 more weeks to go. The time has sort of gone fast, but I am at the point where I'm starting to feel like I've been pregnant forever! I've never been this big during the summer and our 100 yr old house has no air conditioning. At least we have plans to remedy this situation... ;) (blog post coming soon)