Life in our Fairytale House | The Meadow – Chapter 02 Ep. 01 | Lauren Liess’ Dream House

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Before I ever put pencil to paper for the design of our home at the Meadow, I dreamt about moments like these—quiet, simple, everyday rhythms that would shape our family’s life. After more than four years of dreaming, drawing, and building, we’re finally here: living, slowing down, and embracing the exhale.

In this episode, we:
🌱 Try all-natural solutions to protect our vegetable garden from pests
🪵 Build a rustic fence to (hopefully) keep the deer out
⛈ Experience dramatic skies and a tornado watch in Virginia
🪺 Spend sweet time with our geese and learn how to shepherd them
🌸 Return to find the Meadow in full bloom, buzzing with bees and butterflies
🥘 Cook family meals together and laugh about “Time optimism” in the kitchen

This is our family’s journey of creating home, putting down roots, and finding gratitude in the everyday.

#TheMeadow #LaurenLiess #HomeAndGarden #SlowLiving #FamilyLife #HomesteadLife #DesignAndBuild #BloomAndGrow #SimpleLiving #NatureInspired

Design by Lauren Liess Interiors
Renovation by CarrMichael Construction

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⭐ CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Bloom and Grow
01:34 – Title Sequence
04:39 – Subscribe
08:36 – Hungry Root
09:44 – Tornado Watch
13:52 – Cooking with Christian
15:21 – Fence Building
17:12 – A Surprise for Lauren
21:53 – Nighttime Fence Building
24:51 – Hello Virginia
27:58 – End Credits

🎵 MUSIC LICENSED VIA EPIDEMIC SOUND & AUDIIO*:
The Immigrant’s Jig – Roy Edwin Williams
Kerosene – Sean McVerry
Second Wind – Northside
Chasing Clouds (Instrumental) – As Tall As Pine
Maple Whiskey (Instrumental) – James Spaite
Flowers in Her Hair – View Points
New Name (Instrumental) – Jones Island
Under the Surface – OTE
Snow (Instrumental) – Matthew Wright

*All Licenses held by David Liess / Lauren Liess & Co. We have full rights to use these tracks in monetized content.

before I even put pencil to paper for the design of our house at the meadow I dreamt about moments like this quiet simple everyday moments I wanted a place that forced me to slow down a land that would draw me outside and a home that created joyful habits in my life after more than 4 years of dreaming drawing building and growing we are finally just living I’ve embraced the exhale and feel an immense sense of gratitude though there will always be projects it’s all downhill from here or so I hope when we found this property almost six years ago we could only dream of making it our own we’ve moved every couple of years since we started our family of seven so home for us has always been wherever we are together when we came across this land it finally felt like the place to put down our roots I design homes for others for a living but I really think about it as designing the backdrop for people’s lives not a single one of us needs to live a normal life not a single one of us need be limited by the confines of society our home set the rhythm of sleeping waking and all the in between moments of life this is my family’s journey of finding that rhythm of creating home guys I’m gonna make lunch in just a little bit we’re gonna put um this concoction on the garden moths and other pests have been going after our cruciferous vegetables in the garden alright we made this stuff what is this do more it keeps away the bugs that eat your plants I’m gonna need dad to figure this out I know how to you press this well you’re gonna gonna have to wash it out okay keep going coming out fast the clay is for the fruit we do all natural gardening so didn’t want to use any chemicals on the plants now does this keep the bugs away or does this just make them happy it’s got a strong smell so it keeps away the bugs see there are bugs on our plants and now they’re OK evacuating Rory watched a video about an all natural turmeric milk concoction that can be sprayed on the vegetables that deters pests and wanted to give it a try hey it’s really big my feet are gonna smell like turmeric uh turmeric toes and let’s I’m really worried about this um cauliflower here meanwhile Dave had a big project of his own to get started on it was time to get started on the fence around the vegetable garden that would hopefully keep the deer out hi ladies hi you ready can you help me work release the Kraken I’d always imagined a rustic fence around the garden something that felt old and charming I decided to go with round post and rails because it feels primitive and fairy tale like now that our house itself had been built by the professionals it was time to build our much less professional fence with our geese we have to be vigilant about watching for Hawks around here David decided to try to dig the fence by hand since it wasn’t very many holes but the clay is insanely compacted around our house because of all of the construction and it’s no easy task you sure you don’t want the post hole digger yeah it’s fast it’s really fast to do this yeah um cause well not not in there let me get the boss lady oh my gosh so wait so it’s not gonna be this tall right like it’s just not in the ground yet so I can put it deeper or I can cut it off oh how how much how far in the ground is it it’s pretty far in these are gorgeous right aren’t they yeah they look perfect with the pergola okay so remember we don’t know yet if the deer are gonna come in and decimate the garden and so if they do we wanna add more of this fencing here so it goes out here ugly you tell me I mean it can’t it has to like be touching the um it has to be touching the stone not like space the way you have it I mean it can only get but so close uh huh like like that one is about as close as I can get it’s kind of weird that to look at the side of this thing like it it actually should be where you have it now how wide do you want you can make this any the door yeah you can make the door any width you want are these for this tea is so good yes it is dandelion with milk did you try mine no I don’t know if you want to cause you won’t like yours anymore that’s so good that’s delightful you should ask the boys if they wanted it I didn’t I will later they will love that I know I hadn’t actually drawn the garden fence plans out on paper so this was really more of a figure out as we go kind of project the flowers we’d planted in the spring were beginning to bloom and it was starting to look like the place I’d pictured in my head all these years as a mom of 5 kids running my own business with Dave grocery shopping seems like a bygone era what did we get this week Hungry Root is like having your own personal shopper they take care of the weekly grocery shopping recommending healthy groceries tailored to your taste nutrition preferences such as eating organic and health goals this week I have shrimp tomatoes basil and I’m going to make a super healthy super easy dish Hungry Root makes it easy to eat healthy there’s no high fructose corn syrup artificial sweeteners or preservatives in any of Hungry Root’s food they only source top quality meat and seafood free of hormones and antibiotics go to hungryroot.com and use code laurenlease to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life thanks so much to Hungryroot for sponsoring this video and you guys should definitely take advantage of this offer if you click on the link in the description you can head over to Hungryroot and get 40% off your first order your first box enjoy I love the feeling in the air before a storm and as the clouds gathered the girls and I waited everyone in the meadow seemed to know something was up I like how our days are so shaped by nature here how it makes us stop and pay attention the house sits on a hill and we get so much mist around here it rises right up from the Meadow Valley in moments like this I feel fully unplugged fully present it’s crazy how on and available I feel all the time and it’s something I’d like to change I know I need to take some time to sit down and figure out what habits I need to stop which ones I need to start I need to reassess and to recalibrate I’ve been moving at such a fast pace for so long it feels hard to slow down to stop you come look over here it’s even like wild over here it’s yellow it’s crazy and it’s like misting us too this is just like mist look at it it’s like pouring at us what it’s this is blue over there Dave did you Google this is totally tornado sky in the Midwest when we see crazy creepy yellow green skies how green it is it’s so cool yeah green usually means tornado I know it’s a good thing that we have a basement oh wait we don’t what what did you just say tornado watch okay I’m gonna say this Midwestern girl knows what she’s talking about like it’s beautiful but it’s a we got a tornado coming in no basement we don’t get a lot of tornadoes in our area of Virginia and even when there are tornado warnings they usually never actually develop this one was no different what honey what oh my okay that’s magical 오늘은 이런 건데 it’s hard for me to walk away cause I’m a liar inside my heart but I’ll let you go sometimes I just wanna hug and love the deer so badly you little love snow drop you wanna come up you little love I know oh gosh that’s my wine yeah that’s my wine I know what you want I know what you wanted yes you were beating around the bush a little bit weren’t you like the ring I know it’s not yours at least I have other cute fluffy things that will let me pet them we love cooking around here especially with things we’ve grown in the garden Christian loves making fun of me for what we call my Tim optimism with that being said I’ve also realized there are a lot of things I would never even have attempted if I knew how long or expensive they were actually going to be so I like my Tim optimism and the fact that it actually gets me doing things I think I think my favorite story about this when you told me and my friends that um if we made homemade pasta it would take 20 minutes and half halfway through 45 minutes in she’s like alright cool we needed the dough we done everything now we gotta let it sit for half an hour like how’s this gonna take how’s this gonna take 20 minutes you have to let it rest for half an hour in my defense I didn’t have the recipe memorized and I was reading as we were going I just thought it couldn’t take more than 20 minutes but it it does oh yeah the total time I believe was like two hours I know and poor Mac his friend was grating the Parmesan cheese and we didn’t notice him over in the corner grating like a whole big thing of cheese like this big for like over a month and it was awesome and I just quietly grading cheese in the corner I didn’t say anything and then at the end I was like hey guys did you think this was worth it his best friends are twins they were like no I treasure this time with the family and we’ve been having so much fun making recipes for our other channel down to Earth Kitchen can you help me out nope making progress got the trench for the water line and we got the ground leveled the new Goose house which is actually right back there waiting to get built and we got all the beams picked up and sent down to the watch place is coming together after having attempted to start the garden fence by hand Dave finally decided that renting a post hole digger was the best solution things went pretty smoothly after that as post after post went in in under a minute I couldn’t wait to grow flowers around and up the fence and know that my vegetable garden would be safe from those fuzzy adorable deer but it rained and the guys had to give it a rest this is gonna be hard nice high five we would soon be heading to the Outer Banks for the summer and we had a lot to get done to protect the gardens before we could head out hey baby won’t you sit down at the table and I’ve got a surprise for you oh no your face is scaring me my face should never scare you should I be closing my eyes or just sit down just sit down okay ready alright close your eyes I hear something keep them close no you’re gonna do something to me I’m not gonna do anything bad to you I feel something mechanical coming I heard open your eyes there’s nothing mechanical oh hahaha okay what is this open it okay oh it came so fast oh my gosh you this is this is our our Shepherd stick it’s a huge look hahaha did you know how big it was gonna be I did why did you get it why did you because this is now with the geese and when the hawk comes we can you know watch I feel like I’m gonna hurt somebody but huh wait show us your Bo staff skills do you like it my Bo staff skills yeah you you clearly think you have Bo staff I don’t have them yet oh you’re gonna get them I need somewhere large enough this is a really large Bo staff wow holy dynamite over here I should be on Stick Nation hahaha I really like it I’m really into it you guys like it try it so that that’s for watch out guys I’m gonna spin it Aurora you got sweet baby rays on your face she got barbecue sauce on her face so this is for um with the geese we can hurt them oh bother oh bother we gotta uh we gotta show the geese oh my gosh should we they don’t like brooms Dave I forgot they don’t like brooms let’s go they hate the broom it scares them this is very similar to the broom they’re gonna hiss at it I think let’s go try it alright let’s see if this works okay let’s go back in come on yay let’s go in come on come on they don’t wanna go back in this way this way good it’s working Yay this way oh my gosh this is so much easier Dave I know right yeah go in that you lost one Yay I’ll just do one at a time maybe oh OK ha ha it’s working great it is help more helpful than your hands yeah I guess so wait wait wait wait go back in go back in wait wait ha ha ha ha wait ha ha ha you girls somebody’s about to get hooked I can feel it Coco it’s okay I actually think this is harder than just picking them up haha this way I just gotta learn my skills I don’t have shepherding skills yet okay hahaha girls we gotta go in Camrose can you be a good girl go in go in go in go in no no no go in go in go in yes yes yes go in oh yay OK OK we’ll get used to it OK should I let them back out isn’t that nice they didn’t hiss at it give us a give us a good over the head spin how do I do an over the head spin yeah I can’t really do a one handed spin oh yeah there we go I love doing that now say I have the power I have the power that’s actually more of a nonchalant pass none shell well oh wow you didn’t sell that at all I was more of a She Ra fan thanks girl while the Shepherd’s Crook may not have been our most functional purchase we were definitely having a good time with it it’s another one of me needs to stand on top of it it’s so hard cause it’s so much you’re good g I know but it’s so heavy alright real life campers we have three meetings with contractors at the watch tomorrow morning and then we have a moving truck meeting us there so we have to leave for the watch tomorrow morning this is one of those crazy crazy nights when we’re just doing what we gotta do to get out of here leaving at 5:00am in the morning I was supposed to finish this fence today before we left so I could protect the vegetables while we’re gone but the weather did not cooperate so the fence is not done so I’m gonna be doing it tonight these poor guys are putting a fence in so that hopefully the deer do not eat everything not awesome but real life kids are inside packing actually probably better off out here should be done let’s do this we got one section finished right here we still have one other section and this is the gateway part this is gonna be the hardest part cause you have to put up chicken wire over here I already prepped a lot of this stuff so I go faster than over there did but and you did a great job thank you yep I’m running around the house collecting everything that we need for this next week and trying to leave it in some semblance of order sorry I’m taking you through the darkness dad do you think this video will uh will quash the rumors that we don’t actually do this ourselves that’s the whole reason I’m doing it I wouldn’t be doing this work of the I mean oh alright alright take two take two there we go look at this gorgeous fence they’d still gotten a lot done and the structure of the garden was truly coming together now all right we are headed home to the meadow to see what things are looking like there gonna have a lot of work to do get to see our geese’s you guys excited yeah yeah how much weeding you think we have to do that garden we’re gonna be weeding and hopefully I’m tying up tomatoes and I can’t wait so excited so going home hello hi hello hi oh hello hey it’s alright let me see her hi oh ho ho I don’t even know who’s who right now I miss you hi how are you doing it’s hot here is this too hot for you hi did you guys break your sweet hi even though we have a wonderful goose sitter being away from the geese for so long is hard it takes them a bit to warm up to us whenever we’re away at all and it makes me a little sad come on sweet girls oh wow look at all the butterflies there’s so many butterflies on your verbena I know they’re so amazing and your verbena got so big everywhere it did it takes time to build that trust back up look at these orange flowers over here where on the fence line oh yeah these are pretty sweetie I know we were going to fall you’re both shaking I love you girls you okay I think they were really good to you weren’t they yes they were want the ring I know you do I know you do I’m scared so much has changed at the meadow this past month it had bloomed and there were bees and butterflies everywhere it was good to be home to see what those spring seeds and that summer sunshine had brought to life oh these guys gotta go please got too much sun but we still got lots of babies on there it’s really hot it is so hot isn’t it it’s really hot come here Marty come here are you coming to dinner with me oh you it was the hottest summer I could remember in Virginia but it was still just amazing to be back at the meadow hello Virginia hi if you’re enjoying our videos please be sure to subscribe to our channel we so appreciate your support subscriptions allow us to hire editors and get more videos and better content out to you thank you so much