Welcome to Tour Tuesday! Today we are spending some time with my friend Jaime at her home in the Bay Area. Jaime shares this beautiful home with her firefighter husband Zach and their four children, ranging in age from almost 15 down to five. I’ve known Jaime for about four years and I am SO glad that we are friends. She is a total ball of energy and fun. So please say hello to Jaime and come on inside!

Me: “Hi Jaime! Thanks for letting us “into” your home today. So, tell me how did this house become your home?”

Jaime: “In 2013 we decided our home was too small and we needed to find something a little larger to accommodate our family of 6. But we loved the community where we lived and didn’t want to move from there. After months of searching in vain, we decided it was time to look outside of that town and look elsewhere. We came to this neighborhood to attend an OPEN HOUSE, decided we would put an offer in on the home and drove away. On our way out, we saw a sign for another open house. We had already seen this home online and knew the backyard was too small for our family, but we thought we’d look anyway”.

“As we were walking to the front door, a couple behind us asked us if we were interested in buying a house. Their friend was selling her home and hadn’t put it on the market yet. We got back in the car and followed the couple over to the friends house. It was the EXACT same layout as the one we had seen previously. We agreed on a price and it was done that afternoon. It was crazy fast and easy”.

Me: “Wow, that is one of the craziest home purchase stories I have heard! So what is the overall feeling you were going for with your furnishings and decor here?”

Jaime: “I love the HGTV show ‘Fixer Upper’. I love their country rustic decor, their style…the whole thing! But instead of doing it all at once, I just work on things one area at a time. I also love chalk paint. I like to experiment with color.

Me: “Do you have any further plans/changes for your interior? What is on your reasonable wish list?”

Jaime: “YES!!! The living room drives me crazy. It needs a mantle and new fireplace (with actual flames). But I want a sitting area in front of the fireplace, so we would need to do some serious reconfiguring. I’d love to tackle the master bathroom, I just haven’t found the time yet. And my older son’s room needs to be remodeled. We’ve tossed ideas back and forth, but we can never agree on the look. (we’ll keep working on that). I want to do something in the laundry room, but not sure what just yet. There’s no natural light in that room, so it makes things a little tricky”.

“Also, I know you asked about interior, but we are in the process of building an outdoor living room area. My husband built the fireplace last year, but it’s windy in the summer so we can never use it. But once the wind dies down in late fall, the rain starts. With a roof over the outdoor living area, we can enjoy the fireplace during the winter/spring, even if it’s raining”.

Me: “Did you decorate your home all at once or in little bits over time?”

Jaime: ” I decorate a little at a time. I usually see something (either in a magazine or on the internet) and think “Hey, I can do that!” Then I try to re-create it. Sometimes it turns out great. Other times, not so much! I never feel like I need to invent an idea myself—I love recycling other peoples ideas”.

Me: “What are your favorite things about this home?”

Jaime: “I love the layout of this house. We have a large downstairs area. I can be in the kitchen and still be with the family when they are in the living room. I love the extra space as well. We moved from a 1300 square foot home. I always believed that it didn’t matter how small a house was, we would be able to make it work. I was WRONG!!! After four kids, we were bursting at the seams. In this home each of our children could have their own rooms, but the three youngest choose to share a room—or rather, the youngest has decided that she wants roommates and has moved into the other boys’ room 🙂 My favorite single piece is probably my kitchen table. I found it on Craigslist and I got a screaming deal for it. It was already chalk painted and distressed…so I didn’t have to do any of the work. But I LOVE IT!”

Me: ” What decor projects have been the most fun or rewarding to accomplish and which ones have driven you crazy?”

Jaime: ” The kitchen was a TON of work. I think we put 6 or 7 coats of paint on the kitchen cabinets. They are white and I love them, but they show all kinds of dirt, spilled drinks, etc….(but I guess such is life with a house full of kids 🙂 My favorite room is the office. My husband bought some cool old wood from a nearby mill (it’s 1.5 in. thick). He cut, planed, sanded, refinished it himself. I am positive that the neighbors HATED us that week. Planing wood is LOUD!!! And a friend was pulling all of their “built-in” cabinets out of their home, so we took them and re-configured them to fit our office space. Recently, we finally got around to hanging up family pictures on our “public service wall”, as we refer to it. I come from a long line of public servants (firefighter, police officers, Army, Navy….) Their pictures are proudly hanging on our wall”.

THANK YOU Jaime for letting us tag along inside your beautiful home! I think that the American flag made with a giant fire hose is my favorite creation. Jaime and Zach are so talented :).

*Would you like to appear in a Tour Tuesday of your very own? Contact me at trulaaluu at yahoo dot com; let’s collaborate!