Building a house, Selling a house, Moving to an apartment.......

oh yeah, and a wedding.  It's been a busy summer.  This is my catch up post.  There are lots of pictures.

We are building a house - our dream house.  This was all my husband's idea.  I just wanted to remodel the kitchen.  But, I was seduced by the idea of the house we've always wanted and a larger sewing room.  But what comes with building a house?  Lots and lots of stress.  My sweetie was eager to build a new house but not to do all the "work".  Finding a designer, a builder, picking all the stuff that goes in a house, etc.  So, I get to do all of that fun stuff.  All of this was made harder by the fact that we had a very rainy spring and the builder couldn't start on time. 

I'm not great at keeping up with taking pictures at every step and also, who wants to see the roughed in plumbing.  So I'm just going to hit the highlights.

Our lot.  It's a beautiful corner lot in a  neighborhood that we've wanted to live in for about 15 years.  All the houses are charming Victorians, Craftsman Bungalows, Southern style - timeless houses.  

 

Our lot once they finally were able to start clearing.

 

Inner "bones".  It's not actually a 2 story.  The stairs lead up to the attic for storage.  We've tried to plan this house for our elderly years.  Or in my case, possibly the near future.  We've tried to make it easy for wheelchairs, walkers, etc.

Now it's starting to look like a house!

 Just this past week, they got most of the exterior painting done and even started on the shingles.  This room in front with the 3 windows is my sewing room.

The lot has been cleaned up since this picture but I put it in mostly so you could see the house color.  It's Sherwin Williams Peppercorn with Extra White trim.

 

 

So, along with building a house comes selling a house.  We got our house all spiffied up and put it on the market.  It's 12 years old.  We got an offer within 2 days.  The catch was the buyer needed us to move out quickly and wanted to close on the house in about 2 weeks.
Out we went looking for an apartment.  We found one and put down a deposit.  We started packing and even started moving things we couldn't take to the apartment to a storage room and my in laws house.  Then of course, the buyers backed out.  We were more than a bit pissed.

So, what do you do?  Do you loose your apartment deposit and stay in your house?  What if you get another offer tomorrow?  You don't know when the house will sell, it could be 2 days or 2 months. And it's really hard to rent an apartment for less than 6 months.  They look at you like your nuts if you say that you just need a place to stay for a couple months.  Sigh.  So, to decrease the stress on myself (because of my health issues) we decided to go ahead and move into the apartment and pray it sold quickly.  This time to someone who actually wanted to buy it and wasn't nuts.

I've got to say, our apartment is really cute.  If I was single and apartment living, I'd love to live here.
The first thing I did was set up my sewing area.  It's in the spot where the dining table should be but I confiscated it because it had all the lights.

It's not as spacious as it looks.

 

 My pared down stash. 

My desk/ computer.

 

 

 

Ok and now for the wedding!  My mother who is 80 married her boyfriend who is 88 on June 27th.  They had both been widowed for about a year but I guess at this age, you have to move fast.

I have sort of a weird relationship with my family.  My parents were miserably unhappy and honestly, all I want for my mom is for her to be happy for the rest of her life.  Here we are, me and my mom, before her wedding.  We were helping her get ready.  We all wore blue as you can see.  I don't have any pictures of the service because I was the Matron of Honor and no one has sent me any.  But it was such a sweet ceremony.  They had it at their church with their minister who was a really sweet young man.  He altered the vows to fit them and they brought tears to everyone's eyes.  Especially the groom who had to take a minute before he could repeat his.  I think it was the sweetest wedding I've ever been to.

 Here is my sister with my mom before the wedding.  My new stepsister was also a bridesmaid but I don't have a picture of her.  My nephew, my sister's oldest son who my mother adores and is closest to, walked her down the aisle.

 My new stepsister made about 6 cakes for the wedding.  I think she had every flavor.  I volunteered to make a plain white cake with buttercream icing and ta da - here it is.  The roses on top is a cake topper.  I really stink at decorating cakes but I can make a tasty one.  I love to bake but I have trouble standing long enough to do all the sifting, egg separating and all that jazz.
 

 And here is the bride - Katie and the groom - Woody as they are cutting the cake.   It was so cute.
 

This is after they fed each other cake and wiped their faces.  I didn't want to put the smeared cake pics up.  Don't they look sweet too?  He is constantly telling her how pretty she is and how much he loves her.  He holds her hand and they giggle together and kiss.  My son thinks it's so gross :)

Well, that's been my summer so far.  At least the big stuff.  There was so much more I could add but let's get back to quilting and sewing stuff.  I actually got lots of things finished that I need to get posted.  So stayed tuned for many awesome things!