Home and Self-Improvement

Our house has been on the market for almost six months! I feel like we need to have cake and ice cream or something. 2015 has been a roller coaster of a year because of trying to sell our house. Ups and lots and lots of downs. At the end of the day, we love our home. There is so much that we love about it and we'll miss it when we leave. We have put a lot of time and effort and money into improving it this year, and I think we have something to show for it. Here are some of the projects that have been keeping us busy.

Our realtor, who is a close family friend, tiled our bathroom for us because he is awesome. It was laminate before. Kind of rotten laminate.

New carpet in our bedroom. It was our first time ever ripping out carpet by ourselves. Our eyes were definitely opened. Lots of dust, and lots of sand underneath. It makes me want to re-carpet monthly.

Before

After

Remodel of the loft. It's a bedroom, but we couldn't list it that way because it didn't have a door or a closet. So we had some walls built and a door hung and painted over the green and yellow to make it more neutral. I'm not gonna lie. It made me misty to see that paint go. It seems like yesterday that me and Mom W. were up there painting over the white to make it cheerful and bright for our little ones. We love the result, and the added bedroom on our listing has increased our number of showings significantly. The only downside is that Bryn doesn't exactly have a bed right now. We'd have to rip out some shelving to fit a second one up there now, and we'd just rather not. Luckily, Mom W. came to the rescue again and loaned us her cushy camping mat and Bryn loves it.

We found this original artwork by Bryn when we were getting rid of her old bed. The girl loves birds. And yes, it made me misty too.

Also, I'm grateful that this was not our first remodel. It was nice to just expect that pretty much everyone would be late and flaky, etc. That's just construction. And I must say that I was much more assertive with them than I've been in the past, and it got results! We ended up liking all our workers. Nice to have a little network in case there are ever any more remodels in our future.

Asa enjoying the new arrangement while the framing was going up.

Framework and electrical in.

All done! Nate and I spent many very late nights (and an early morning) painting together. Tunes and riveting conversation got us through. Painting is the worst, man.

I really like the closet. I think it's an effective use of space and it looks cool.

We ripped out the grass/weeds up by the road and filled it in with gravel to make getting out of the driveway less scary for those of us without nerves of steel. I don't think Nate and I will use it much, because pulling out of our driveway for the last 7.5 years has filled our veins with ice water, but we've gotten lots of positive feedback from friends and ward members. And we had a dump truck in our front yard. If that's not a noteworthy event, I really don't know what is. Additionally, Nate is totally ripped from spreading all the gravel.

When we moved in there was wooden privacy fencing on the north side of our house. Last fall we stained and resealed it. Then in the winter there was a crazy storm that knocked almost the whole blasting thing over. It stunk. So we rebuilt and added another one on the south side, and also a split-rail fence in the front, which we really love.

Nate and Dave, our realtor, digging post holes. How cool is that thing?

Nate is so awesome. He can build a fence!

Here's the most recent picture we have on the listing. Isn't it just charming? I love the split-rail fence. Also, we've just about finished staining all the fencing since then, so it's all dark brown now.

It has been extremely stressful to try to fit all these little projects in that we don't have the time, money or skills for. But I've gotta say, that somehow we've come this far and lo and behold, somehow what little we had to begin with has been magnified, and we found the time and money, and gained the skills that we needed. That is called being blessed, I think. The Lord is merciful to us, and has honored our modest efforts as we've done the best we could.

One day I'd just gotten home from the grocery store with all the kids. It was raining, things were crazy, and a friend who'd lent us a shop vac called to ask if we could bring it back over. I was in a rush, the kids were all still in the car, so I ran in the house to get it only to realize that the worker who had been using it hadn't bothered to clean it out. Lovely. So I quickly popped it open and went to dump it in the trash (inside, because our outside one was stuffed beyond capacity because we'd missed trash day for two weeks in a row) and ended up with a gigantic explosion of dust and debris all over the kitchen. This has become typical of our lives this year. Things not going neatly or the way they are planned. In the end, I got it cleaned up and got over it. I look forward to the day when messes and stickiness don't seem like such a huge deal, because we'll be where we're going to stay for a long long time, and no one will be coming over at the drop of a hat to scrutinize every nook and cranny (closets included) of our home.