Emily | An Artists Lifestyle Session

Lifestyle photography has been an interest of mine for years. But when I found my niche with seniors I ran with it and shifted my focus away from lifestyle sessions. Back in April I took a circular weaving class taught by my dear friend(and amazing artist) Emily. I started the first few months of the year feeling dry and uninspired so I was beyond ready for a creative break, and I was hoping this class would really help. 
Well not only did I learn a fantastic new craft, but during the workshop I started brewing some ideas of my own. I was so relaxed and so happy to be a part of the passion that Emily pours herself into everyday, and I couldn't help but long to document that. 

life·style

ˈlīfˌstīl/

noun

the way in which a person or group lives.

There are a lot of different opinions on what lifestyle photography is. But to me it is capturing people, places and things right where they currently are. Lifestyle photography is telling the story of the here and now, and the passionate reasons why. 

I asked Emily if I could come over sometime to photograph her while she works. 

Emily "Yeah! We would be two people doing what we love together!"

And I certainly loved it. 


Emily, thanks for hanging out with me, being a fast friend and for inspiring me and so many others to pursue their passions. You're a rock and roll lady.

Thanks for reading friends!

Go check out Emilys website here! And don't forget to follow her on Instagram!

For more info of lifestyle + family sessions head to the contact page and shoot me a message!

The Pierce Home Project: The Messy Middle Stuff

It's been too long since I've updated you all on the #PierceHomeProject. I sat down last week and wrote out a long and detailed blog about how busy and crazy February has been. And of course I forgot to save the draft and it's all gone(score 1 for Mr. Messy).

I'll spare you the details(mainly because I don't fully understand what went down myself), but Thomas and I found out that we only had until February 12th to get all the repairs down required by HUD(Housing and Urban Development). 

There was some miscommunication about what needed to be done and to what timeframe we'd been given. We were under the impression that we had until April 12th to have these repairs done, while the government was under the impression that our house would be livable by February 12th... Oops! (Score 2 for Mr. Messy)

The good news is that we got an extension for our deadline which is now April 12th!
The bad news is that we still have loads to do and that might require some band-aid methods.

Viewpoint from the kitchen looking into our living room which wasn't always visible. We knocked down the wall that divided the two rooms to make an open floor plan and added a beam. 

The band-aid method is pretty simple. It's quick fixes to meet the standards of HUDs requirements long enough for them to inspect and approve, that later we will rip off and repair how we'd like them to be long term. 

And while putting "band-aids" on problems is far from ideal, our deadline is approaching very quickly and a lot of these fixes will require some TLC if expected to last long term. Which we simply wont be able to get to do for every repair on our list.

Gutted kitchen and makeshift work tables.

We've also run into several problems that we wouldn't have noticed if we hadn't decided to take the plaster off the walls. 

There was a crack in the bathroom ceiling that we decided would be easier to fix by replacing the entire ceiling(which was already poorly installed) rather than patching. 

Lucky for us(sort of being sarcastic here) we found out that the pipes were completely out of whack. The material had been recalled back in the 80's and was never replaced. So it's a good thing we found it, but these are the problems that push us back even more. 

So for now we are doing all that we can to fix things properly with in reason to our timeframe.
We've been ripping out damaged hardwoods, repairing the subfloors and laying new ones, fixing electrical problems and hopefully getting to insulate and hang dry wall soon! 

Dining room area, gutted and being rewired. Old, damaged floors about to be ripped up.

Mr. Messy is doing his best to get in the way but that's not stopping us. 

As nerve racking as it is we are SO excited to move onto the next phase-putting the house back together!

Prayers and good vibes are appreciated! 
 

Renovation Vacation

Well it's 2017 and I already know it's going to be a much bigger year of accomplishments than last year. The first reason is the fact that we are officially home owners, which is probably the most rewarding, and equally scary, thing that I personally have ever done. Especially when you're only 21 and you know for a fact that your knew house needs an abundance of care, most of which you have no clue how to go about, in order to even move into. I think most people call this "adulting". 

If you haven't already read how we got out house you can do so here.

We knew going into this process that buying a fixer upper would take a lot of time and patients. But let me just tell you that it takes even more focus just to remember to be patient than anything else. I'm constantly reminding myself that we would have never gotten this house if previous owners had taken good care of it. And that the family who originally won the bidding on this property backed out because they didn't want to put the time into fixing all of its problems.

It doesn't help that we are constantly watching Fixer Upper(on Netflix of course because cable television isn't worth it just to watch Wheel Of Fortune) and the biggest projects get done in a matter of weeks because of a large team they have working on any given house. And to take that one step further, one episode is less than an hour. So basically you can watch a full season of Fixer Upper in the time it takes to pull the walls out of your kitchen(a task we still haven't completed). 

We want to have it all and have it all now.

It's nuts that we think this way, but in our fast(way too fast) paced culture we expect results immediately. And we barely give a moment to think about our actions before we throw a fit when things don't go as planned. 
I mean after two years of searching we are finally homeowners and my husband and I took an entire week off of our jobs to work on this house and we still aren't painting our walls yet?? I'll be honest, owning a home and not living in it is super annoying to think about you guys.
But we are a people who focus too hard on how we want to present ourselves and, even more frighteningly, presenting ourselves as someone we are not. 

So today we are not focusing on our highlight reel, like the 90% of all other social media you look at today will be. Today, and for a while, we will be updating you all on the current state our house is in. It's not going to be ideal, it will look gross, and there will be cockroaches(don't worry, I spared photos of those nasty little beasts). But it's our honest and present now. And I believe that living in the present will only help us to build a much stronger, safer and pleasant home in the long run.

Welcome to reality!

Our master bedroom had a sag in the ceiling so we ripped a section out to evaluate the water damage from the roof. It was worse than we thought so we had to take out even more ceiling.

And since it was only about 7 feet to begin with we decided to take out all of the ceiling! We are planning to vault the ceiling to try and make a little more headspace. If I can touch the ceiling with my feet flat on the floor something needs to be done.

This is obviously the damage that went down. But it's also where we met about a hundred little NASTY COCKROACHES. I say little but they were honestly some of the BIGGEST bugs I have ever seen. Yuck!!

Let's move onto the kitchen before I get sick!

Here I'm in the dining room looking into the kitchen. It's not terribly laid out at all! The cabinets are in great shape and the island adds a ton of storage and counter space. But everything seems really massive for the space it's in. Just taking down the cabinets made the room feel twice as big!

I would have taken more "before" photos but the day we closed we went over to our new place and got a little bit too hammer happy! We didn't have power at then so it was already dark by the time we got off work and headed to our brand new place. But you can't just close on your first home and not go give it a big ole hug, right? Well it got a little more than a hug. We started demolishing the kitchen wall that night with a flashlight as our guide. We took out a small section and decided during our "renovation vacation" that we would order a beam and knock the rest of the wall out!

Our living room is super cute and cozy. But we definitely want to make this home one for hosting game nights and get togethers. An open floor plan was definitely the way to go.

And that's where we are friends! It ain't pretty but it's our here and now! We are anxious to be able to move in and continue to work but we are fully enjoying ourselves in the meantime!

We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas! What would you do with this space if it were your own??

Don't forget to follow the progress on Instagram!! #PierceHomeProject