The Modern Home

The Sandbox Truck Show

We were lured out of our hermit house recently with the promise of a real life monster truck. BIG FAT FIB. No such truck was on the premises. Sure there were firetrucks and ambulances and army trucks and big rigs and just about any other truck that would impress a 4 year old and a 1 year old, but the promised monster truck was nowhere to be found. I’m surprised Ezra didn’t demand to speak with a manager. We tried getting Memphis in a truck – any truck – but he wouldn’t have it. The whole outing lasted about 10 minutes before the siren (intended to impress) frightened the timids resulting a speedy exit.

We tried.

Inheriting new plants

We recently inherited a few plants from our tenant in the Beaufort house – an aloe plant, two dracaena marginata looking plants and this one pictured here with my purple toes. I forget the name so if you recognize it feel free to shout it out. And then after you feel silly for talking to your computer screen type it in the comments for me to see. My mom has one of these and last year it bloomed this enormous hot pink flower. It was really pretty. Oh, and it had babies! Which I know isn’t the technical term, but it’s still cool. There are two in this pot here and when they get a little bigger I’ll divide them so they can have more pretty plant babies.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a little excited because a) I like plants and b) free is awesome. I’m also somewhat apprehensive because plants in my care don’t have a very high survival rate. My only hope is that they like it here on the island. I’ve had 4 plants literally come back from the dead since we’ve moved here. Like this chinese evergreen:

It’s thriving now, but when we left Beaufort there were only two tiny yellowing leaves clinging desperately to a wilting stump. I thought for sure it was a goner.

And speaking of things hanging on… look what I found:

A teeny tiny red potato. The ONLY thing to survive me my summer garden. Here allow me put the size in perspective for you.

We’re going to feast tonight! Ha! Maybe I’ll be more successful next summer.

Is it the weekend?

Because it sure doesn’t feel like it. I’m buried in work up to my eyeballs: a print piece and two site designs due tonight and a lesson to prepare for church tomorrow. Plus, I’m trying to squeeze in a little photo editing of my sister Christina and her boyfriend David so I can get them done in time for Christmas. Oh, and grocery shopping because these crazy kids of mine like to eat. (The nerve!) Hope you enjoyed reading a snippet of my to do list. I’m sure you want to know all the mundane details of my life. Enjoy your weekend. Try not to be jealous of mine.

the guest house that never was

We have a decently spacious lot and at one point considered putting a small modern guest house on the property. Isn’t it cute? But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

The idea was to build the guest house quickly and then live in it while the main house was built (at a slower pace). Since we were going to be in there at least a year, we wanted to be comfortable so Brad created the plans in SketchUp with 2 bedrooms and 1 bath comfortably squeezing in as much as possible in 800 sq ft. We also had to make sure we left plenty of room for parking and a turn around space between the guest house and the main house.

We contacted our architect to discuss fees and timelines. We contacted the bank regarding the loan. We contacted our contractor about the construction. We were thisclose to laying down some $$$ to start the process when we decided to meet with the building department just to make sure everything was on the up and up. Boy am I glad we did. Turns out there are some setback restrictions on our lot that logic would assume should be there, but we were led to believe weren’t there. Why did we think there were no side and back setbacks? Three reasons:

1. Our neighbors lot is the same size as ours and their house clearly encroaches into that 5ft side setback zone. This picture doesn’t show show anything. I just like to include pictures.

2. If each house honors the 5ft side setback there should be a 10ft space between the houses (for fire safety). Here are some houses in the neighborhood on the other side of the park:

That is NOT 10 feet people.

And…

3. We were TOLD by the building department themselves that there were NO side or back setbacks.

Remember the crap shack we had previously planned to buy? Our plan was to re-use the existing foundation which was 2 1/2 ft from the property line. We met with the building department back then to ask our setback questions and we were told we could build on the existing foundation – that there were no side setbacks, only front. We’re assuming wires got crossed somewhere. Perhaps they meant the existing foundation for that house would be grandfathered in or something. So that was the information we were basing things on. I’m glad we questioned it. Don’t think I’m at all annoyed with the building department. They are great. They’ve been so nice and really helpful and the main woman we’ve been working with is incredibly knowledgable. Her mind is like a super-computer database for every building ever built on the island. It’s bananas.

When we asked about our neighbors we were told that they paid fines through the nose for violating the setbacks. We obviously don’t want to risk paying thousands of dollars in fines, so we nixed the idea of the guest house. And thanks to this new information we’ve realized our current house plans (the ones designed to fit on the foundation for the crap shack ) won’t fit within all of the setbacks. The current plan is nearly 2′ too wide so we sent the plans off to the architect a while ago to make the necessary adjustments.

Here’s a tour of the guest house that never was. Brad’s never worked with SketchUp before, but I think he did a pretty awesome job. The interior is small so I’m sorry if all the spinning makes you sick. We’re not responsible if you puke on your keyboard.

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Sponsor the Modern Home

We’ve received lots of inquiries over the past couple of years about advertising on the blog and each time I’ve either given a flat out no or some ambiguous date on the horizon like “Next spring!” or “In the fall!”

I’m a commitaphobe. That’s all there is to it.

But lately I’ve been doing some thinking. I LOVE blogging. I really do! The only reason I don’t blog on a consistent basis is because it takes up quite a bit of time. Accepting advertisers can be my little way of justifying the time I put into it and hopefully introduce you to some awesome shops and blogs. It’s a win-win for everyone! Yay!

If you are interested in sponsoring the Modern Home, fill out our contact form here or send an email to info@themodernhome.com subject line SPONSOR. Rates are very affordable and small business friendly.