We've had a busy start to our fall season, chasing kids around from dance, to soccer, to piano, and football, and barely finding time in between for meals and spelling words and keeping the shin guards washed. But we have had a lot of time at home in between it all, and Beau's made a permanent shop in the garage for the time being! We've lived in this house we built over three years now, and we've reached this point where all the spaces are finished. It was just a year ago we were in the epic tug of war of just how quick to finish our basement, and now a year later, it's done and cozy and I'm so happy my pushy builder was relentless! And now, we're in this fun part where we see how each space is working for us, fix or make simple tweaks to better fit my style or make something more functional, and add little bits of character to this place we sure love to call home.
And that's where my husband comes in. He's loved wood-working since he was a little boy, he spent his entire senior year building an intricate grandfather clock in shop class, and his four favorite words involving our house are "I can build that." He's my own Chip Gaines, and loves bringing my little visions to life. And he's really good at it! I'll share a post soon about the basement he finished almost entirely on his own, but wanted to start with a couple of smaller projects he whipped up in just a few weeks that have added so much to our space. And this first one might be my favorite thing he's done yet.
When you build a house, you try really hard to master the things you can't fix later. Room size, layout, exterior stuff, etc. We knew we wanted a large deck off the back of the house, but didn't really consider how we planned to use the deck. Knowing we enjoyed eating outside, we purchased an inexpensive table set and have since enjoyed many meals around the table. But. I just kept thinking we weren't maximizing the size of the space. And, as much as I enjoyed eating meals on the deck, I also wanted a place we could lounge and relax. I wanted a place to take a nap. I love how our deck feels like an extension of our house in the summertime, and wanted a way to prolong its use as long as we could into fall. And maybe a place to cozy up with a blanket, a fire, a book, and a glass of wine, without coming in smelling like smoke. I shared my vision with Beau and our good friends one night at dinner, and pretty soon that vision came to life.
Beau constructed the look of "built-in seating" along two short sides of our deck, painted them white to blend well with our Trex railing, then built the prettiest table for seating. And I absolutely love how it all turned out. He used exterior grade paint for the bench and a heavy poly clear coat on the table, and hopefully they will last for years to come. Now I keeping my eyes open for some chairs to go with it.
The table will seat six as soon as I find some chairs, and still opened up a large portion of our deck for more relaxed seating. We invested in a super comfortable conversation set that includes a couch and two rockers, and added a propane fire pit table that turns on with the turn of a switch. We've already sat out here a ton, and I may have fallen asleep the other night, waking up at 1 am! Probably after swallowing a few bugs!
Our very first meal at our new table! Leftover chicken tortilla soup and queso after football last week.
Now that the basement project is mostly finished, Beau tackled a very large console table and very large side table to fit with his dear electronic leather sectional. I didn't love the sectional at first, but obliged because well, this basement was at one point supposed to be "the man cave." The couch adjusts in about two hundred different ways, which makes for a pretty comfy place to watch a movie, but also means cords coming out every which way, all needing to be plugged into the nearest outlet. We needed a way to hide the cord situation and the nice thing about custom building is that you can build pretty much whatever way you want.
Beau modeled these two tables after our Pottery Barn Benchwright tables from upstairs, and I couldn't believe how much they matched the expensive store-bought models. He even did his magic to "destroy", aka, add some reclaimed character to the wood before staining them to match the color of our shelves. I love the wood accents in our very white house and the contrast makes for one of my favorite looks.
And he even made the shelves to fit the exact measurements of some baskets that now house DVDs and video games.
I've been having fun re-organizing and finishing spaces here and the new life makes it all that much more fun to use them! It's amazing how a simple addition to a shelf or a new cozy pillow on the couch makes you want to spend more time in the space. And I have a feeling we are going to be spending a whole lot of time in this space during these cold winter months to come. I'm ready to hibernate!
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