Oh...hello there {aka: it's been two years, is there anyone listening?}

Ummmmmmm Hi.

I don't think anyone reads this anymore, and if you do 2016 must have been quite a disappointing year (just 1 post?!?! jeez I really fell off the blogwagon).  So much has happened in our life over the past 2 years: we got engaged, moved to Portland, got married and most recently we bought a house. 

All of these are events I had dreamed of writing posts about when I first started this blog.  I remember 6 or so years ago I got really into weddings, I followed all of the hip wedding blogs, Style Me Pretty was my favorite website and I would sit at work at watch stranger's wedding videos and quietly happy-cry in my cubicle.  I couldn't wait to have a wedding of my own to prepare for so I could post all the DIYs and trails and tribulations of finding each vendor and then finally be able to reveal my wedding photos, or maybe even have my wedding featured on one of the sites that I loved.  But planning a wedding is stressful (especially when you're paying for it yourself), and time consuming and when we were in the thick of it the idea of sitting down to document my experience sounded exhausting, and TV and snacks were such a better option.

After a while even doing the nail posts became a thing of the past, I started posting the photos on Instagram and the immediate gratification of likes was so much more satisfying than writing up a blog post for my parents to read (because let's face it, they were the only followers I ever really had).

But recently we bought a house, (and it turned out to be in worse shape than we originally thought when we made our offer) so for the past two months we've been tearing it apart and making it our own.  It's been terrible and wonderful and all the emotions at once, and lately I've been thinking about how I want to remember this experience in the future.  We're already starting to forget some of the crazy stories that began this process, the details are starting to fade and our re-telling and re-telling and re-telling of the whole debacle keeps getting shorter and shorter. 

So here we are, an old platform and a new story, and if anything, this will just serve as a little journal for me to go back to when it's time to buy a new house and I think "it wasn't that hard, let's do it again!"

...

dream house {shell house}

This house has been in our computer's toolbar for over a year now, and I finally thought it was time to share it with you. I know it's been popping up all over the over the interwebs over the past few years but it's just so beautiful you're going to have look at it again.

This is called the Shell House . . .

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Designed by Kotaro Ide of ARTechnic Architects and fabricated out of reinforced concrete, this home is located in the woods of Karuizawa.  Karuizawa is a town in the Kitasaku District of Nagano, Japan, and a common summer get away for residents of Tokyo.

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Built in 2008 the Shell House is used as a vacation home, and as such was designed with minimal maintenance in mind.  Most vacation homes in the area are wood villas that easily decay, this is why Ide chose reinforced concrete. From reading about the mechanical system, ventilation system, and the ideas behind the shape of the structure you can tell that a ton of thought and research went into building the home.  Everything was taken into consideration, including what happens to the house while you're away. Like the automatic antifreeze system that will kick in when the temperature outside drops below freezing, and the dehumidifying and ventilation systems that run year round.  All of which are energy efficient, and make it so there is less to fix or worry about when you come for your vacation, so you can just sit and relax in your beautiful secluded space.

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I cannot get over how gorgeous and unusual this house is.  How incredible would it be to drive up the rocky path and know you get to stay here for the weekend?!

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Floating fireplace? Yes please!

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The Shell House = A Dream House

dream house {the desert house}

 Oh Man! The weekend is already over! It took me all of Saturday to recuperate from the work week, and my apartment is nice and all, but it would have been great to spend the weekend in a private Nevada desert dream home.  Just crawl into the spring-fed deck-tub and take in the view.

This secluded home in Nye County, Nevada was featured in the New York Times back in August.  It's surroundings are so beautiful I just couldn't get it out of my mind, so I decided to make it my next dream home post.

I'm mean, come on! Look how beautiful that sky is!

The house belongs to a family from Italy and was designed by a German architect living in San Francisco. From start to finish the architect and client's only contact was through e-mail.  They never met or spoke to each other until the project was completed, and the family only came once to visit during construction. 

 

You've got to have a lot of faith to relinquish that much control over your home! And they should be glad they did, because the outcome is beautiful, clean, and serene.

 I love the small window in the shower, it frames the picture perfect landscape right outside, and the green tiles are a nice touch of color in the mostly white interior.

The floor to ceiling corner window and skylight above the bed lets in beautiful light in the day and provides a great view of the stars at night.

Although the desert would probably be too hot for me, I can't help but daydream about this house.

Especially when I read the last quote in the New York Times article:

                      “I had the sensation of being on a spaceship. This winter, we had a really 

                      strong wind one night — the house was almost shaking. And there were 

                      millions, billions of stars from everywhere, you were completely surrounded

                      by the stars down to the horizon, which in the cities or countryside you 

                      are not. Normally you see the stars above you, not around you. 

                      Yes, it was like a spaceship.”

The Desert House = A Dream House

dream house {the sliding house}

Last week The Morning Man and I were flipping through the channels and stop on my go-to pick HGTV.  A show called Million Dollar Rooms was on and it was so upsetting . . . we got sucked right in.  I kept trying to leave the room, but The Man kept yelling "Get in here, you have to see this."

First there was a couple who wanted both an eight car garage and a ballroom so they combined the two to make a room with carrara marble floors and hand-painted frescoes, that the husband could park his boring BMW's in. There were large and gaudy bedrooms, entry ways, and pool rooms, all for millions of dollars.  It was one of those shows that just make you squirm, with a furrowed brow and a dropped jaw.

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(EW!!)

But then, something amazing came on.  Next up was a house, and it was no ordinary house.  It was a sliding house.  The segment started by showing a man sitting in his all glass living area.  Outside is nothing but grass and trees and countryside, and then he began to explain his extraordinary feat.

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Ross Russell and his wife Sally built a home, in Suffolk, England, with the help of an old school friend Alex de Rijke.  The look of the house is similar to a traditional East Anglian barn, but with one push of a very special button the surrounding roof and exterior walls move.

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The glass living room/kitchen is made with very thick (very expensive) glass, to keep the space a reasonable temperature.  But in the cold winter months, or when the sun is scorching down, or when they just feel like a little more privacy they can push a button and within 6 minutes they have an enclosed room.  The buildings exoskeleton sits on railway tracks recessed into the terrace that surrounds the entire structure, and it's four electric motors are powered by car batteries!

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From what I understand there isn't a pool yet, but they made the tracks extendable.  So if they do decide to put in a pool, it too can benefit from a retractable roof!

All the doors match up to a corresponding opening in the exterior, and they made sure that there is always a way to get out in case the moving structure stops short.

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The Man and I kept joking about leaving the car too far out.  Oops! There goes the front end of the motorcycle!

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The house is absolutely beautiful, and the shape, with it's red timber cladding, is actually designed to look like a Monopoly Hotel! I would love to lay on the floor of the living room and stare up at the stars.  Everything else on that show was over-the-top (in a bad way) and really upsetting, but I'm glad we kept watching so I could see this place.

The Sliding House = A Dream House