update: dining room

The night we received keys, I ran through the house with my camera before T$ could lay a single hammer to it. In my haste, I completely forgot the dining room! The previous owners seemed to use it as an office/study space.

This is the only "before" photo I could find. It's back there...A white room behind the white wall.

The first couple decisions we made were to (1) rip up the carpet and (2) tear down half the wall between the dining room and kitchen. After we had done these things, I remembered that the dining room should have its picture taken. 

 Once the carpet and wall were gone, we had hardwood flooring installed to match the kitchen's hardwoods. Fun fact: The hardwood flooring in the kitchen is about the only material (besides the house itself) that we have kept. We simply had them refinished.

 Besides the two big projects, we also replaced the windows (and every other window in the house) and swapped out the lighting fixture. Down the line, the newly hung trim will be painted.

Our first official meal in our dining room was move-in day back in September 2014. Pizza, salads (sans forks because I couldn't find them anywhere...), and Gatorade.

We found our lamp at World Market, the rug at West Elm, and the floating shelves at Crate & Barrel. My sister-in-law even did a little artwork for me- the canvas print of Acts 2:46!

T$ still dreams about owning this table someday, but for now we're content with our hand-me-downs table and chairs.

This room has already seen a lot of love since we moved in 16 months ago: holiday meals with family, showers celebrating life's joyous events, many meals with family and friends, and countless messy breakfasts, lunches, and dinners as a family of four.

Another fun fact: the night I went into labor with Sawyer, we were playing cribbage with our friends around the table and during contractions it helped when they kept talking and we kept playing (pretty sure my team didn't win that round).  

update: living room

It's hard to even remember that THIS was once our living room! As I write this, I'm snuggled up right where the fireplace should be. When we received keys - we had no idea what secrets this space had in store for us. Namely: mold and an uneven base floor.

Right away, we decided that a wood burning fireplace was not for us. It took up a lot of space. Space that we knew would be needed for...

 jumping off couches, 

and a lot of football watching. 

So out it came. The only memory we have of the fireplace (now) is a chimney to nowhere on the exterior of the house. 

Also, as I mentioned before we quickly realized we had a mold problem. A pipe in the wall had a significant cut in it so that each time the washing machine ran its cycle.....water was DRIPPING out of the pipe!!! Leaving mold in its place (pictured below).  That meant the entire bottom half of the drywall needed to be replaced. 

MOLD! 

Pipe with a very obvious cut. 

Drywall: REMOVED!

New and mold-free drywall

After ripping out the old carpet we discovered that the cement slab had not been poured correctly. We probably could have left it but T$ figured that since we were already in construction mode, it was time to make it right. Thankfully, in our community, we knew a guy who does this for a living and loaned out the tools so T$ could get the job done: jack hammering out the old floor and laying new concrete. 

New concrete pour. New drywall. No fireplace. 

 For the accent wall, we chose Miller Paint's deep waters.

And here it is today. Again, it's still a work in progress. But it has already become a place we love to gather with friends and family. The toy box in the background is hardly ever closed - ready to explode at any second with all of its excavators, dump trucks, recycle trucks, garbage trucks, baseball bats, golf clubs, hockey sticks... We also have plans and dreams for a built-in book shelf around the television. I've been looking here and here for inspiration. 

There are still a few things we would still like to accomplish in this room: 

• built in bookshelf
• a fire insert below the television
• a railing (insert nervous face emoji). As of today - zero babies/children/adults have accidentally fallen from the open space although I'm not sure that will always be the case. We have an almost crawler on our hands. 

Some regrets we (already) have: 

• The carpet we chose! It's so white! It's so clean! And it shows absolutely every little speck of dust, dirt or baby spit up. 
• Carpeting the ENTIRE space. This living room leads to the garage which naturally tracks in a lot of dirt, etc. Even in a no-shoes house, the carpet just inside the door is already pretty sad. In the future (aka when the rest of the house is done) I think we want to switch out the entry space to either match the tile in the bathroom or the hardwood flooring in the kitchen.   

2013

Just found this unpublished and incomplete post. Felt like it needed to see the light of day. Who knew that a little hud my bud was growing inside and now he's a 2.5 year old boy I love oh so much. 

Hello 2013! And hello jetlag. I've been up for the past hour or so despite having forced myself to stay up til midnight after flying home from London on minimal sleep. I'm sure I'll crash sometime later today... hopefully after the laundry is clean and 7th grade tests are graded.

2012. A year in which I will not soon forget. So. Much. Change. I don't always feel adequately prepared for it all.

January, February, March, April - Oh, to think back on my student teaching and grad school. Although only a year ago, it already seems like a foreign memory to work in someone else's classroom and learn to teach and grow and change. The forever dreaded Teacher Performance Assessment. It may sound weird, but I have almost no memories of actually writing and typing any of it up. I still have the files saved in my computer partially out of fear that I may need the 15 pages of single spaced text as proof someday.

Was it that terrible?

No.

Did I work hard?

Yes!

Am I glad I never have to do it again?

YES!

Thankfully I was blessed with so many people who helped come alongside me throughout the process. As I finished my student teaching (thank you ST), stepped into the role as long term sub (thank you KG), applied for jobs (thank you CB and TM), turned in my homework (mostly) on time (thank you, again, CB And TM), and stayed hydrated and nourished (thank you T$).

There are so many other small blessings that took place during these months. Spending time with my small group seniors at Suncadia. Watching my kindred spirit step nearer to marriage to her love. Turning another year older with T$ by my side and a quick and romantic trip up to Victoria, B.C. And the week of snow days! My first true snow days since my own school days!

May - My kindred spirit became a wife! There was much celebrating and feasting leading up to the date and the date itself.  May also included countless job applications, a few interviews, yet no clear direction as to where I would end up.

June - Shasta. The Tourists. An epic skit (in my biased eyes). A lovely time spent with girls who grew up so fast and are now in the middle of their first year of college/adulthood. I feel honored to have played a part in their lives for four years. It's still strange and surreal that that season of life is over, that I have no obligation to be somewhere on Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights, random weekends. I  pray that they continue to grow in strength and wisdom that can only come from Christ. That the Holy Spirit would convict, change, and mature the women I had the blessing to "lead."

Also while on the shores of Shasta, with my toes dipped into the water off the back of my houseboat I was offered a JOB! Middle school math. Really and truly? How would I ever teach math? What are middle schoolers like? What do you do with them? I didn't feel adequate to step into such a role. I still don't in many ways. But I trust that God is wise.

July - The pinnacle of all the months of the year. In the midst of homework and summer vacationing and thinking of the year ahead, T$ and I found out we would be welcoming a baby into our lives. I suddenly felt completely inadequate to take on the new role as mother. Middle school teacher seemed like a serious enough task. But now...mother?!  Are you sure?

And then, the first ultrasound came. And I instantly fell in love with the tiny life growing inside me. The tears overflowed with the overwhelming feeling of love. The little heart beating at only a few weeks. Quietly growing and developing.

No, I have no idea how life will change. But isn't that the beauty in it? To completely depend on Christ for wisdom rather than feeling like everything is in control? Even as I type this, baby H is kicking and squirming and rolling around. I still have no idea how life will change each day, but I welcome it.

August, September - I'm a real live teacher! Meetings and lesson planning and . September 5, 2012 - I met 150 6th and 7th graders.

October

November

December

update: guest bathroom

It has been nearly a year since I have done any updating here.

Babies have been born. And are growing (way too fast).

Hundreds of meals have been cooked. Cleaned up. Cooked again.

Our carpet has seen a few spills, stains, and messes (some have been removed...some stay behind as little reminders of happy memories).

Our infant is growing into a squawking, scooching, teething baby.

Our toddler is growing into a potty trained, full of non-stop complete sentence conversations, curious boy.

As a way to ease myself back into this world of documenting our home renovations I present our guest bathroom. The smallest room in the house.

T and I debated on the sink. I had my heart set on a pedestal sink even though the logical side (aka T$) told me we would be losing out on storage. In the end, the heart won over the logical brain. We found a Kohler pedestal sink that suited both our different styles - clean lines, simple.

Although complete, this bathroom is still calling out for a few final touches. Perhaps a better mirror or at least a framed out mirror down the road and some art for the walls. For now, it's beautiful, functional, and simple.