Merry Christmas (card)!!

10:06 AM



This week im going to be a little MIA since I am currently typing out this post on my phone from the Aria casino in Vegas.  I wish I could tell you all I'm going something cool in LV this week, but in actuality, I'm just here for work... Running from sales meeting to sales meeting, drooling over the blackjack and craps tables (mama likes to throw those dice!!! Am I any good is a completely different issue. I think I just miss playing  Yahtzee as a kid)

With all that being said, I wanted to share with you (part of) our Christmas card!!! (Of course I had to make our official card complicated with multiple pictures but this one is one of my favorites!
 We actually took this picture on our super gross driveway... Featuring old, run over, (possibly) bug infested leaves. It took a while to convince Chris it would be a good idea, but I'm happy to report he maned up and joined his W for a roll in the leaves... Actually it was more like "Please dear God take the picture because I think I feel something crawling on me, oh by the way, Im starring into the center of the sun", but hey, it's the price you pay for a good shot!

Have you guys done your Christmas card pictures yet? Have any fun ideas or awesome stories about the experience? After Chris had a half hour shower, he agreed the pictured turned out pretty cute :-)

Our digital floor plan

3:02 PM

I'll admit it... our house layout is kinda weird... and extremely hard to explain ("oh you want to go to the back deck? Shoot through the Master, ignore the dirty clothes and unmade bed, and swing a right after the sunroom.... yea, you have to go through the Master... or my office and connect through the sunroom... ya know what, just wonder around until you find the only door that leads out there.  Its a small house; you'll be fine.")

This also makes it hard to explain to California family and my grandparents who aren't able to make it out to Dallas to see our place.

So, over the weekend, I googled "How to make a Digital floorplan" and landed on THIS article from Apartment Therapy.

 Which sent me to download the program SketchUp8 (the free verison)
Direct link to SketchUp HERE
I then attempted to measure the. entire. house....

(insert me running around in my PJ's with a measuring tape, pen, over-sized notebook (apparently I couldnt find anything smaller) and whispering to myself "ok 32 inches for a door, so that makes this 114 inches, but divide that 12, carry the two, add an inch to round up, oh sorry Gus, I didnt mean to step on you!, wait what was the measurement again?".... you can imagine how long this took)

But behold! Our floor plan!
The "c"s stand for closet... g/c - guest closet... m/c - master closets
This is just what I finished today during my lunch break, but Im so glad we have one of these now!!

However, as I look at it, I want to add a couple things like dimensions of  each wall, add where the fireplace is (aka that empty gap below the half bath), our front stoop, and the awesome back deck! (... and maybe a door going out to the back deck from the sunroom... how did I miss that? Oh well)

Overall using SketchUp was pretty easy based on trial and error.  They do have some video tutorials which I hear are pretty good if you are interested (found here) which I chose to ignore because of my "psh, I dont need a video telling me what to do" mentality, but in hindsight would have probably come in useful.

Have you guys ever tried to make a floor plan of your house?  What program did you use?  I would love to hear your suggestions!

If you have any questions that you want to ask about SketchUp (from a person who barely knows how to use it) I would do my best to try and help!

-Samm

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