Our First Home.

I wrote this post weeks ago but I'm a bit superstitious so I didn't want to post it until it was official...so here is the big news...

Our home in Benton has SOLD!!! WAHOO! After sitting on the market for roughly about 8 months, we could not be happier that we have an accepted offer on our Arkansas home. As of yesterday, it is closed, done, official, sign on the dotted line, OVER.

It was never our intention to own two homes in different states especially when my husband is totally changing careers. But God had a plan to get us down to Ruston quickly so we listened. Provided the inspection process goes well, we will close on that house in one month. You know what that means, right? We will be down to only ONE house payment! Hallelujah! Praise Jesus! 

While we were in Little Rock this weekend, we went by our old home one last time. We walked around sharing all the memories the two of us made in our first home. It was definitely a bittersweet moment. Buie even pointed out where the dogs would run over and over along the same path wearing a trail into the grass...the trail was gone and the grass had grown back. It was like the dogs had never even been there at all. When he said those words out loud, I got a gut wrenching ache in my belly because it pained me to even think about losing all of the wonderful memories made in that home. It saddened me think that the future residents of this home will always just refer to us as the future owners. They might even complain about the chipped paint and the nails we left in the walls. They won't know the wonderful friends that enjoyed a burger on the back patio or the countless foster animals who played in our backyard. 

This was the home we brought Scooter home to and later Charlie. This was the home where Buie and I buried George around the side of the house. I will never forget seeing the rare moment of my husband crying as he dug a hole and placed his body, still warm and slowing growing stiff, down in the ground. As we walked around the home, Buie and I said goodbye and looked at the spot where he is buried. The next owners won't know where he is buried because of the ivy that has now grown over the grave, but we will always know. 

If a house had a memory, what would it remember the most about us living there for four years, I wonder? That house might not remember us but we will never forget it. 

It was a wonderful first home. 

Before & After:: Front Yard

I have said more than once that a home to me is like a giant canvas, on the inside and the out. It's like a piece of art to personalize and continually improve upon. When we moved into this 20 year old gem, we knew a major landscaping over hall would be due soon. I put some serious thought into doing it myself but after spending several Saturdays pulling weeds, and getting rid of poison ivy, I quickly learned the value of a great landscaping company. 

Our friends Josh and Jeremy started their own landscaping business a little over a year ago and they have done some amazing work for my dad's business and at my parent's home. Take a look at how they transformed our front yard. 

BEFORE:: All the hedges are overgrown and are randomly placed.

AFTER:: So much better, right?

BEFORE:: My least favorite thing about the whole front yard was this huge ugly overgrown shrub. I believe it was a Hawthorn? It was a home for about a million spiders as well as a huge possum who liked to harass Lannie Cat. 

AFTER:: A million times better!! No more huge shrub or big ugly tree trunk. We hung a front porch swing and now it is one of my favorite spots to sit and watch the sunset.

BEFORE:: See how ugly that shrub and tree trunk are? And the weird thing is about this tree trunk is that it's NOT a real tree trunk. It's pieces of wood formed in the shape of a cylinder and filled with potting soil. Weird, right? When Josh & Jeremy removed it, they said it was housing the largest ant bed they had ever seen. Bye Bye, Ants!!

AFTER:: Now the focus is the front porch instead of that eye sore. Before when we would sit on our front porch, we couldn't see over the top of that huge spider infested bush. But now everything is so clean and the conversation azaleas won't grow very tall so we will always have a great view. They left me a few spots like this one in front to add in some seasonal color. I have big plans to plant some pansies and maybe even try out some tulip bulbs for the upcoming Spring.

BEFORE:: This area right outside the kitchen door was just a mess.

AFTER:: Now all of those overgrown hedges are gone and gardenias took their place. Josh & Jeremy even got the little fountain working for the time being. We are planning on putting a little more moolah into the fountain and sprucing it up a little bit more in the near future. But for now, this area is SO much better than it was!

This area where the grass barely grows and people always walk through, we decided to throw down some flagstone. I love the look of flagstone and I love how the little pebble river turned out. When it rains, the water naturally flows right into the big part of the fountain and then drains away from the house down through the pebble path.

BEFORE:: This front bed was filled with a variety of things and none of which was very pleasing the the eye, including the big dogwood tree that was dying. :( Sadly it had to go bye bye.

AFTER:: But we replaced it with a brand new dogwood tree and a spiffy new lamp post to help improve visibility. Since our home is settled off the road deep in the woods, it gets pretty dark at night. Josh & Jeremy hooked up our new lighting system and set us up on a timer so it comes on and goes off everyday automatically. Modern technology is simply amazing. And speaking of timers, all of our new flower beds have a soaker system that are completely on a timer. I highly recommend doing this if you are like me and forget to water until things start turning brown. ;)

BEFORE:: The other side of the house needed some attention as well. 

AFTER:: We didn't do much but just a small bed with a few azalea plants made a huge improvement! 

We are so pleased with our new beds. It really improves the way the house looks. If you are in the Ruston area, check out Cutting Edge and let them work their magic. :) I'm SO glad we decided to hire them. That's one more thing I can check off my to do list. 

Enjoy Life Now.

There are the kind of friends who see you through anything. You know the kind, they still love you no matter what you've done or haven't done. The kind of friends who know you are a pack rat and come over to help clean out my room with heavy duty trash bags in hand. (Yes, this really happened) They stand by you on your wedding day, hold your hand during bad break ups, buy the champagne when life calls for celebration. Lauren and I once had a fight over whether we were first cousins or best friends. Well, in our case, we are both. 

This is her beautiful son, Trey, who just turned six. Lauren, Wayne and their two kids came over last night to brake our newly painted house. Buie grilled burgers. Trey played hard like a six year old does. 

Baby Elle was the perfect guest. Isn't she beautiful? 

The burgers were perfect, babe. 

Trey left us a chalk drawing that I will be enjoying for days to come. 

Hopefully it all washed off okay. ;)

 Fresh flowers on the today.

Even the dogs had a splendid evening. 

 We ate, listened to Buie tell his many stories like he so often does and wished this night would never end. Great friends are so few and far between so when you find them, cling tight and never let them go!

 I hope you are enjoying this Memorial Day weekend with the ones you love enjoying life's simple freedoms.

Enjoy life now.

Guest Room/ Guest Bathroom:: Before Pictures

I'm almost embarrassed to show you these pictures. Almost. I would be embarrassed if I would have chosen this paint color or put this wallpaper on the walls. Sorry was that harsh? I have to keep reminding myself that this house and this decor and paint colors were all chosen over two decades ago. Maybe they were like the cool kids back in the day. Is that possible?

The guest room is painted a purplish gray. At first glance you think "Oh that's not so bad" but then you realize it's not so much gray as it is purple. And yes I still have boxes from our move in our guest room. Don't judge. 

Now, moving on to the guest bathroom...Well, it just needs a total transformation: rip down the wallpaper, new flooring, new cabinets, new faucets, new lighting, the works!
But for now we're just starting with fresh paint and oh what a difference it makes. I can't wait to show y'all the after painting pics.

Buie's Office: Before Pics

Check out this wallpaper, y'all! I was NOT at all sad to see this room go. This room was a sad mix of nautical print, sad lighting and beige trim. My husband said he could "deal with it" but I, however, could not. 

This room needed an intervention and we gave it one. Stay tuned for the AFTER pics. :)

One Room at a Time.

So for the most part we are moved in and getting settled. Is our garage still full of boxes? Well, yes but we're working on that. ;)  The fun part to me is decorating. I think it's the best job in the world...only I don't get paid to do it. Maybe I should have been an interior designer. The only problem I have with decorating is making decisions. I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to paint colors and home decor, so naturally Pinterest is like an extension of my right arm. I find it's the perfect place to organize all the craziness that's floating around in this head of mine. 

I wanted to document the way our home looks now, just as we are getting settled and calling this place our own. It is bare with nothing on the walls. The paint colors are not our own choices but we are so looking forward to the next phase - the making it our own phase. 

This little breakfast nook has much potential. When I look at it I see cafe curtains... 

source

 a round wool rug maybe similar to one of these...

source

Months ago I saw images of a coffee bar on Pinterest and loved the idea. We have less counter space in this home than in our previous home, so a little coffee nook has been the perfect solution for us! We just used our old dresser than was in our closet and put it right in our breakfast room. One day I plan to paint it a fun color, but for now it will work.

My inspiration for our coffee bar: I plan to put some shelves up and hang a few favorite pieces of artwork. So much to do!

source

Hope you've enjoyed this brief tour around our little breakfast nook. Hopefully next time you stop by, it'll look quite different. We had a meeting with our painter guy today and he has big plans for our breakfast nook, as well as our living room, foyer, dining room, master bath....oh wow, there's a lot to paint in this house!

Stay tuned for another room soon! I'll try to share all the rooms as what they look like before they see the likes of a paint brush and of course after, so stick around! :) And if you're on Pinterest, be sure to follow me at cbbuie. See you there!

Update from the Woods.

Another week has gone by here in our new home as we are settling in. Our daily activities include unpacking boxes, tending to the animals (apparently we have added one more to our herd- more on that later), checking things off of our to do list, going to Lowe's AGAIN, wondering where our hammer is and then finally giving up and buying a new one at...you guessed it, LOWE'S! 

This is the new little kitty that has been hanging around our house. Apparently the story with her is that she belonged to the former owners but she ran off when they were moving out of their house. Well, she has obviously come back looking for them and has instead found a fence up in her backyard, two dogs and two cats and two humans inside what used to be her home. I'm sure she is one confused little kitty. We, of course, have been feeding her and befriending her all the while trying to get in touch (via the realtor) with the former owners. We'll keep you posted!

We really do love it here so far. The woods. The quiet. The afternoon sunshine on our front porch. I might just grow old and die here. :)

I attended my first Tech basketball game as an official Rustonite. B was feeling a little under the weather, so I went on a date with my daddy just like old times. But tomorrow night we plan to go to a BIG Tech game together and can't wait! 

B & I are still juicing 6 to 7 days a week and are loving it. I haven't weighed recently but I'm pretty sure I've lost more weight. (yay!) I love that I can literally get ALL of my recommended fruits and veggies in one drink and I do it first thing in the morning! Hopefully I'll get a blog post up soon about our juicing experience. It's definitely been a fun thing to do together.

Hope y'all are having a great week so far!

The House on Longhills

This past weekend was officially the end of our move. Our whole moving process has more or less been one big learning process. Having never moved before, we made some big mistakes that we will never do again, like trying to pack some things ourselves. We thought we'd just let a moving company take care of the heavy furniture and we would do the rest. I'm telling you, the money that you MIGHT save doing it this way is NOT WORTH the headache and the hassle in the end. Buie and I both are suffering from aches and pains, bumps and bruises. So after one moving company, one PODS, and two Uhaul trips later, I can finally say we are 99.9% moved out of our house in Benton. The .1% is for the few things in the garage that we honestly had no room for but I don't care if I never see them again. 

This weekend we loaded down a Uhaul and Buie's truck and said one last goodbye. We walked around the backyard sharing memories. We stood on the brand spanking new patio that we technically only used like 3 or 4 times. We never even had our friends over to enjoy it.

There were so many things we loved about this house and still do. Buie and I have sacrificed many things that we loved about this house in order to move to the house we are in now but we know in our hearts, it's the right move. And because we are king and queen of doing things backwards in this life, this house in Benton, AR is for sale. That's right, we bought a house in Louisiana before selling our former home. We didn't plan it that way but that's the way the cards fell on the table. So, it would be awesome if this house sold. We have a few renovation projects in mind for our current home that we can't wait to get started on... but until then, let's get this house SOLD!

To check out more about this property, please check out the listing. This house is listed by Cara Wilkerson at The Property Group. There is an Open House scheduled this coming Sunday, February 24th so be sure to drop on by and see the house!

Little Cottage in the Woods

There's a silly song I used to sing when I was a kid about a little cabin in the woods and it goes something like this: 

Little cabin in the woods

Little man by the window stood

Saw a rabbit hoping by

Frightened as could be

"Help me. Help me." little rabbit said

Less the hunter shoot me dead.

Come, little rabbit. Come inside. 

Safely to abide. 

This song has been playing over and over in my head for the last week and it's silly but I thought I'd share it with you. Of course, I replace the word cabin for cottage and it sounds so much better and much more appropriate for our little cottage in the woods. ;)

 It is safe to say I have never felt this way about a building before.  I have seen the Eiffel Tower, The Louver, the Colosseum, among many other of the world's greatest structures. But none give me the feeling like this house does.

 You know when people talk about "their happy place?" Well, it wasn't until we found this gem that I realized I didn't really have a happy place. I don't think I ever truly felt settled in our last home for whatever reason. To me, a happy place is simply that: a place where you can always go and find instant happiness. It might be a quaint little antique shop that you get lost in or a little reading nook in your bedroom. For me, this is my happy place. Our cottage in the woods.

I know over the next few months and years as we make this home more inviting and more our own, I will find specific spots around and in this house that I love. But for now, I am loving the whole house itself. Nestled deep in the woods of Louisiana... where I can't hear any eighteen wheelers whizzing by on the interstate at night. All I hear is the silence that God intended. Frogs and crickets singing me their lovely evening tune.

 I love the character in this 20 year old home. The way that nature envelopes it and embraces it as if it has always been here. I love the winding brick path to the front door that welcomes in friends and family. Though the bricks are broken and uneven, it is perfect to me.

Yup. This is my happy place. So if you see me around town and I can't stop smiling, you'll know why. It's because I get to come home to this every evening.