Thursday, October 14, 2010

Vacation, Sort Of




My husband and I decided earlier on in the year to spend our money to fix up our house instead of taking a vacation this year. Nobody was happy about it, but our house desperately needed updating. We have been working on it slowly since we bought it 10 years ago. We added a new sun room, installed wood floors, put in new kitchen counters and cabinets, painted and added crown molding, refinished the basement and added a bathroom. We both agreed that now it was time to update the outside of the home. Plus we needed more space for our family and a front porch would be a great place to hang out. So we had my brother in law, who owns his own contractor business, add a front porch to our house, a new driveway and a new stone wall. We also decided to build pillars with solar lights at the beginning of the driveway. It was a lot of work and took three months to complete, but I'm so glad we did it.

Since my husband had not taken his vacation time this year, he scheduled it for this week. Just some time at home. No plans. Having a husband at home is a lot of work! Just today alone he had us going out to buy bikes (I haven't owned one since I was 14 years old!) and riding them all afternoon on the local trail. He also took me to lunch the other day and tomorrow he wants to go for coffee. Some people. Really.

Needless to say, I haven't been home much to get any baking done and dinners have mostly been on the fly. It's a nice change of pace and I'm enjoying having some company all day! I'll miss him next week when he has to go back to work. I will have my baking to comfort me, though.

"A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in."
-Robert Orben

10 comments:

CountryDew said...

Doesn't sound like a bad vacation at all! Enjoy it.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I love it!- Bean

Sweetflutterbys3 said...

Anita- thanks. It was a pretty good vacation. No stress with packing and traveling kinda makes it nice.

Bean, your hubby does great work, doesn't he?!

Sweet Virginia Breeze said...

I love what you've done! That is a real transformation. Your home should have been on HGTV's Curb Appeal.
When I worked, we always used vacation time to catch up on work around the house.

Greener Pastures--A City Girl Goes Country said...

That doesn't even look like the same house! I am impressed! You really have to have an imagination to see that swan! I just called hubby over, "Come look at this." No wonder you wanted to go into the house flipping business. Nice job.

Ha ha, yeah, hubbies are a lot of work when they're home.

Sweetflutterbys3 said...

Sweet- thank you! I am very flattered!

Debi- how sweet! Yeah, I kind of like fixing up houses. I just need to find a way to do it without having to live in them for 10 years first :)

Anonymous said...

WOW! Your house is just beautiful! It really made for a big change in your curb appeal. I know you just love it. I would give up a vacation for this, too. Thanks for showing us the pictures. You could be featured in the magazine, This Old House. I just love that one and can't wait for each new issue. Have a great week.

Sweetflutterbys3 said...

Why, thank you Southernlady! I do love the change. I joke that I sometimes forget to turn into my driveway when I come home, thinking that the house is not mine!

I hope your week goes great too.

Beth said...

Oh my goodness, Mary Ann...that is such a beautiful transformation! I love it! I especially love that porch---do you have a porch swing there? I am such a big fan of porches---we spend so much time out on ours.

I'm glad you got to spend some relaxing time with your husband---sounds delightful.

Sweetflutterbys3 said...

No porch swing yet, Beth, but it's part of the plan for spring. We kinda didn't get the porch done in time to really enjoy it since it turned cooler here about a week after it was completed! But in the Spring, I plan on fixing it up. I have my eye on those rockers in front of Cracker Barrel too :)