Hello!

Hello, from Heart and Home!

If you are visiting here from Elizabeth at The Vintage Contessa, Welcome!

I haven’t posted on my blog in a really long while, 

 but feel free to scroll down to read past posts, 

if you so desire!

It’s an honor to have you here, I hope you enjoy your visit.

I love hearing from you so leave me a message!

 If you are interested in seeing more of my paintings,

Please go to heidimichelleartstudio.com 

You can also follow me on Instagram @heidimichelle.artstudio

Thank you!

Until next time,

XO

Heidi

An Update from Heart and Home!

Greetings my friends! How is everyone? I hope you are all well and happy.

If you're new here, or came to visit from Crazy Blonde Life, welcome!

When life gives you lemons...well you know the rest!

It's been so long, my last post to Heart and Home was way back in 2011.

At that time I put blogging on the back burner and concentrated on rebuilding our home.

 You can scroll through some of my last posts to read 

all about what happened to us one dark and stormy morning.

In the years since we moved back into our new, improved house

 I've reawakened my creativity gene and started painting, 

and right now that's where my main focus is. 

I haven't given up on this blog entirely, but in the meantime,

I'm really proud of what I've been able to accomplish with my paintings so far!

 I hope you'll go have a look at my instagram account and website to see what I've been up to.

PLEASE VISIT MY INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @HEIDIMICHELLE.ARTSTUDIO

OR MY NEW WEBSITE:  heidimichelleartstudio.com 

Until the next time
xo Heidi

Rebuilding Heart and Home, One Step At A Time

Hello everyone! How are all of you? Are you surprised to hear from me after such a long break? I thought I'd share a quick recap of what I've been up to these past six months. Many of you are aware that we lost our home during a storm this past March. I am so grateful to those of you who have been checking in with me during all this time, and I appreciate your kind, thoughtful messages of support. I can't lie and say this has been easy, but it is getting better every day.

If you hadn't seen it yet,  go here to see the aftermath of the storm. This was our home, cut in half:

After that monster tree was removed from the inside of our house we had one week to empty the contents, and put everything that wasn't destroyed in boxes and into storage. Most of our furniture, rugs, books, art, bedding, drapes and many smaller, personal or decorative items were taken to the dump in a huge dumpster. That part was hard, let me tell you.

After nearly one month in a hotel, we finally moved to a rental house with rented furniture, rented dishes, rented pots and pans, rented towels, rented sheets and pillows. That part was weird and unsettling, and took some getting used to. 

The past few months have been a whirlwind, and I have experienced confusing and conflicting emotions. While I was grieving for our lost home I was also filled with extreme gratitude for everything I still have, for the love and support of our friends and family, for our warm and comfortable new temporary home.

Actually, most days I was torn between feeling  immense relief and gratitude, and enormous grief and guilt.  I realized that, even after taking into consideration everything that had been destroyed, we still have so much more than so many other people in the world. And, I am alive and strong and healthy - that tree didn't get me, it just missed me by a few feet! There must be a reason I am still here, I hope to figure it out someday.

 For now, I am plugging along, working on the rebuilding process. I have spent countless hours preparing loss reports for our insurance company. That part continues to be frustrating and tedious.

Inside, most of the walls were damaged or completely destroyed by the tree, the roof was torn in half the length of the house and the interior was flooded by rain for almost one week before we could secure it with a tarp.  All the walls in these pictures, the ones with the blue tape on them, were eventually removed due to water damage. My favorite stone floors throughout the upstairs were ripped out in order to allow the subflooring to dry.

It was sad to see the house in this state, but after slow and steady progress, and I can finally glimpse the light at the end of a long and arduous project!

 These are temporary posts and rafters in the living/dining/entry holding up a gigantic tarp to protect from further rain damage, before the floors and walls were removed. You can see the hole where the tree ripped into our house, along the ridge of the roof. Luckily, part of the tree came to rest on a berm at the edge of our property, or it would have continued to fall through the floor and to the bottom level of the house.

The carpet on the stairs was soaked through and molding. Not a pretty sight. Downstairs in our bedrooms and closets it was worse.  Everything was smelly and squishy with water.

During the summer, we figured we didn't have a lot keeping us here. We couldn't start  rebuilding until our engineering drawings were done, and then we had to wait for county permits.

So, we decided to head out of town for awhile. We went here:

London!

And here:

Brussels!

And here:

Paris!

And here:

Coburg!

And here:

Wurzburg!

We explored parts of Europe, ate delicious food, 

saw the most wonderful sights, ate delicious pastries,

wandered through museums, ate delicious chocolate,

 and I even had a chance

to spend time with my long-lost relatives in Germany. 

Our trip was a dream come true for me.

I cherished every moment, and will remember it always.

(In future posts, if you're interested, I will put together a travelog for you!

I only took about 1,200 pictures,

 plus all the ones my girls and husband took.

I think I have a few to share with you! 

 If you'd like to see some of them let me know.)

Anyway, when we returned from our time "overseas" the work began

 to restore our house, to make it better than before.

We interviewed and chose a contractor.

We applied for permits.

We had engineering drawings made for a new roof and deck.

We have spent countless hours

pouring over brochures and websites seeking information about

 windows, skylights, flooring, electrical work, plumbing, 

heaters, water systems, bathroom fixtures, tile and stone.

We've changed a few things about the layout that bothered us before,

and I know this house is going to be better than ever when we're done.

 I still have so many more decisions to make!

But, the project is coming along,

and we will be back in our home before too long.

 New interior framing, awaiting skylights:

 Part of the new roof:

We are still awaiting electrical work, then insulation and sheetrock.

At that point, I think the house will feel whole again.

 Right now, it is all wood and studs, and tarps and plywood.

But, I do see progress, and I can glimpse the results, just barely!

In the meantime,

when I need a break I take long walks along the ocean.

Lucky me!

 I do my yoga and pilates, and try to stay CALM.

 Thank you for dropping by today, I appreciate your loyalty and support.

I am blessed by your continued friendship and kindess.

Stay tuned for further progress reports.

I will check back in with you again, very soon!

Until next time,

xo

Heidi

I'm joining everyone at Metamorphosis Monday. Thanks!

You Won't Believe This, at Heart and Home

Hello everyone, I realize it's been a long time...

I will admit,

since my Dad passed away in September

working on Heart and Home had become

difficult for me.

I felt like I had run out of things to write about,

and lost interest in  DIY projects.

I was down in the dumps,

depressed and uninspired. 

After my trip to Austria and Hungary things started looking up.

I was feeling a little better,

ready to start working on projects again,

ready to begin fresh with new ideas.

I was getting excited to plunge in, and pull out the spray paint!

BUT NO...

INSTEAD,

I'm still processing what happened to us near the end of March.

Daily, I remind myself

to stop and count my lucky stars.

Because, it really could have been much worse.

.

 STILL...

This has been really difficult.

We are all shook up.

And sometimes, we are still in disbelief.

During a particularly nasty rain storm,

while I was in the kitchen

 preparing my first cup of tea

(you know how I love my tea!)

determined to do nothing on that stormy day but

nurse my very sore back

and read

and relax,

and take it very easy all day,

suddenly out of nowhere

I heard a very loud crash of thunder.

Which was weird,

because we don't get thunder around here.

So, I was a bit puzzled.

Turns out, the sound I heard was the sound of

one of the trees on our property,

a 100' tall,

 5' diameter, giant Douglas fir, 

as it came crashing down into our house,

just missing me by a few teeny, tiny feet.

This is what happened to our home:

The entire thing was split in two.

Right down the middle,

all the way from end to end.

 Our outdoor patio,

which we used for entertaining and dining,

and reading and relaxing,

no longer exists.

It was smashed to smithereens.

Almost everything on it was smashed flat.

Demolished.

The living room, dining room, entry, hall,
guest bath, family room, office, stairs

 and the entire downstairs

where our bedrooms, sewing room and bathrooms are located

(including my "favorite spot")

were either structurally destroyed,

 or severely water damaged.

 This is a view from the side door,

looking back through the hall into the entry.

The wood planks used to be part of our cathedral ceiling.

That is the roof on the floor of my dining room.

Almost every piece of furniture,

and a great number of our books,

and the pretty decorative items,

 and many of my favorite things

including Mr. and Mrs. Chin,

were destroyed.

Projects I had worked hard on over the years,

many that I shared with you here,
(including my favorite bookcase, and the slipcovered chair)

are gone now,

thrown away in a big dumpster.

Within minutes after the tree fell,

Local firefighters and officers from the sheriff's department 

were on the scene.

They are amazing heroes,

and quickly rescued a very frightened Maggie,

who had been hiding beneath some furniture.

There was a very joyful reunion between the two of us.

The firefighters rescued all my photo albums,

and many of our cherished framed photographs,
 and the important files.
All without me uttering a word to them,
or even knowing what they were doing.
They found my purse, and my keys,

and they knew just the right things to say to me.

 Brave, calm, and kind,

they worked in the dark, in the pouring rain

to save what they could.

I will be forever grateful to them.

Immediately, three media vans descended onto our property.

Reporters and photographers

prowled the grounds,

looking for the best angle,

peering in the windows,

and interviewing the neighbors,

while I sat at the house next door,

shaking and in shocked disbelief.

The destruction of our home was big news that night, and the next day.

Photographs were in the newspaper again, just last week.

When this happened, my husband was out of town, on a business trip.

He Googled "downed tree house storm"

 and, not even ten minutes after I called him,

he saw the pictures of our mangled house on his I-pad,

on his way to the airport in Budapest.

After a few days, the weather changed dramatically,

and we began the long process of accessing the damage,

determining the losses,

and getting ready to rebuild.

Things are moving very slowly.

The tree is gone, and so are two others that scared us.

A giant tarp on a temporary frame

protects the interior from further water damage.

There is a lot of paper work to complete.

It's a lot to take in, and at times hard to comprehend.

We are thinking this through carefully,

and, after living almost a month in a hotel
we are getting settled temporarily,

into a rented house that is not our home.

But it will become one to us in time.

The Cecil Brunner roses on the front arbor

 were just starting to bloom when this happened.

They will bloom again next year around this time,

when we move back into our rebuilt house.

In the meantime,
I'm thankful to still be here,
to have celebrated another birthday with my family,
to have been given the chance to live my life the best that I can,
and to be able to see the beauty amidst the destruction,
in what was once our home,
 and will be again.

Thank you for stopping by today,
I appreciate your visit!!
I will keep you updated on any new developments.
I hope you will check back in with me now and then.
Until next time,
XO
Heidi

linked to Susan's A Southern Daydreamer, for Outdoor Wednesday,
and at the Wednesday party at A Beach Cottage. Thanks!

Hello from Heart and Home

Hello my friends!

I realize I am long overdue for a post.

But, I have very good reasons for my disappearance from blogging.

You will not believe it when I tell you.

I can hardly believe it myself.

But for now, please be patient with me!

I will be back soon, with a story and pictures that will explain everything.

In the meantime, I miss you all!

I think of you often.

I hope you are well.

I hope you are happy

.

I hope you are enjoying a beautiful spring.

I will be back again soon.

Until then,

XOXO

Heidi

PS. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by Heart and Home while I've been away.

Thank you for the emails and the comments. I appreciate you and your continued support during my absence!