Bryson asked to “borrow” my blog for a post that was too long for Facebook the other day. I was hesitant asking what he wanted to talk about. When people read this blog, they have a general idea of what they’re about to read. They say consistency keeps an audience.
He told me he wanted to write about our latest house renovations, which doesn’t quite fit the bill. I told him I’d read over it and let him know if we could put some type of spin on it to make it work on a blog focused on mental health and motherhood.
I didn’t have to.
For the past few months, I’ve dealt with my emotions with my ectopic pregnancy outwardly. I’ve cried in bed. I’ve had pain. I’ve written posts. I’ve told others. I’ve gone to the doctor numerous time. Etc. Bryson has done nothing of the sort, which honestly, tended to make me irate. I was heartbroken, and I assumed he was fine.
Then, I read what he wrote about our house renovations. Men grieve in a different manner than women, and that’s sometimes very hard to understand. Bryson could not fix my ectopic pregnancy. He couldn’t move the mass to my uterus. He could not make my pain go away, emotionally or physically. Instead, he “fixed” our house.
…
We moved into our house just over 2.5 years ago, and we loved it. We still do, but as all homeowners do, we started compiling a list of things we’d like to improve in our home…the never-ending list. The past couple of months have been hard as a family as we’ve been struggling with an ectopic pregnancy. Instead of spending our time continuously asking, “Why us?”, we decided to re-purpose ourselves and make some changes to our house. We’ve been busy. And I don’t advocate for being too busy, but this was a good season for us to be busy.
We’ve always wanted new flooring, and we landed on carpet as the affordable alternative to what may not be our ‘forever home’. But when you think about changing one thing, there are about 46 other items that should precede it.
If we’re going to change the flooring, we should paint. Should we paint the ceiling or get rid of our old popcorn ceiling? Should we make our house more open? Should we just burn it all down and start over?
The last one is typically where my mind goes when I start to think about this list.
We decided to repaint our ceilings, get rid of the chair rail, repaint our walls, replace all outdated outlets and switches, replace toilets, and replace all our door hardware. Then we’d be ready for carpet. If you know Kate, you know she’s all in, and we were all in.
Thankfully, Sherwin-Williams had their best sale of the year going on – 40% off paint. This deal prompted us to buy 25 gallons of paint. Twenty-five doesn’t seem like as much work as it really is. And for the next month and some, we’ve painted. We invited friends over and Kate made fried chicken in exchange for a few hours with a brush or a roller. We pawned Auggie off on grandparents so we could work. And we recruited just about anyone who was willing to help. We stayed up until 2 am two to three nights most weeks. We didn’t think, we just did.
It was stressful. Stressful on our family, our dogs, and our marriage. I mention the dogs specifically because I’m pretty sure our Goldendoodle has been refusing to eat for the past week and a half because of resentment toward us for not paying attention to him. We’ve grown. And now, I look at what we’ve accomplished, and I think, “this is good.”
The restoration process was good for us.
It’s helped us get our house where we’ve wanted it to be since shortly after moving in. As a first-time home buyer, I just didn’t notice things until we’d lived here for a while.
Not only does our house feel renewed and clean, but our family feels the same renewal. The hope, for me, is that the fruits of this labor is ultimately more opportunity for family time. We spend a lot of time cleaning, and I’m convinced the new carpet and updates, and a Roomba (Thanks, Mom!), will help us spend less time cleaning.
It’s cozy, too. And I really feel our house is finally a home. I used to spend time thinking of what our house could be. I don’t want this to sound like I’m not grateful for the blessings we’ve been given. – I was, and I am. But there had been an element of being a good steward of what had been given to us, and it was our responsibility to make it happen.
We conquered what we set out to accomplish. There’s more to do, but, for now, it’s time to rest. And as we prepare our hearts and our time for the Christmas season, I can’t help to feel anything but thankful.
Thankful we put in the time and hard work. Thankful for great friends and family. Thankful for growth and learning experiences Thankful for my wife, my son, and our home. Thankful I serve a God who sent His Son to earth as a baby boy to provide the perfect example of true restoration.
Below are some pictures of what we’ve been up to. There are before and after pictures of each room. We painted some rooms new colors, and others we just put on a new coat of paint. Our new toilets are awesome. I used to feel so embarrassed for guests to use our bathroom because they never flushed well, even with a #1. I’m pretty sure they were about 30 years old. The new ones are so clean and tall and big.
We have some minor updates left in the bathrooms, but those will come later. As will fresh paint in the kitchen. And then we’ll move downstairs. And then our “probably-not-forever home” might be the place we stay. I’m proud of us for doing all of this on our own, and thankful for help from our friends and family.
Living Room
This was by far our biggest room to do. The ceiling goes up to about 17.5 ft tall, and there’s a portion of the wall that follows down the stairs. We started in this room on November 4th and ended in this room on December 3rd with the finishing touches of some new gates. We removed the chair rail, which was a huge mess, painted the bannister, and made the whole room the same color (a little lighter beige than the before picture). The fresh ceiling and light color have really brightened the room. We also thought our carpet was going to be a little darker, so the almost-white carpet doesn’t dim the room down any. This is the room I feel most accomplished with.
Master Bedroom
We also removed the chair rail in our room. We went with the same color, just added a fresh coat as well as painting the ceilings. This helped because we only had to do one coat of paint. Taking the chair rail off seriously makes our room feel so much bigger. We’re not professionals, so the walls don’t look perfect where we puttied them, but that’s okay. Sorry for the difference in photos of the finished product. The first one is with the old carpet and the second with the new. It’s hard to tell because there was very little sunlight when I captured the most recent photo.
Auggie’s Room
We painted the ceiling and put a fresh coat of the same color on in Auggie’s room. We made the most changes in his closet, where we added some extra storage and organization. I think this was Kate’s favorite thing to do out of all the work we did, and she did a great job! Plenty of room for growing!
Guest Room
The guest room was a terrible brown color. We gave it a fresh coat of a very light grey (a very close color to the living room color).
Guest Bathroom
The guest bathroom is now painted the same color as the living room. Like I said, there’s more work to do in here, but we’re going to wait until 2019 to restart.
Hallway/Doors
We removed the chair rail and painted. This was the first area we did, and it helped us realize how much brighter we would be making our home. We replaced all door hardware to be a darker color. I really like how the doors turned out. At first, I was considering buying all new doors and trim…until I started looking at prices. We replaced hinges, doorknobs, and repainted. These updates were cheaper than what one door would have cost, and we were still able to get the look we were going for.
Well done both of you. I’m sorry life is hard for your family right now. Best wishes for 2019. Your house looks great, I’m sure you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of your hard work.