virtual open house

When we moved downstairs into the remodeled house in November we had every intention of hosting an open house in January. But with money being tight we haven't been able to do that. So...I decided to post some pictures of the mostly finished project so you could see it as it is now. Maybe some day we will have that open house.
The living room is part of the original house - built in the 30s. It has very low ceilings and I really didn't think I would like this room. But is is so cozy in the evenings. I am working on a mosaic tile project on the floor in front of the fireplace. Here is a picture of the fireplace that was bright red. I will put another picture of the mosaic when I get that done.

This is the opposite wall in the living room that has my grandma's piano she gave me.
The front door is in the living room but we barely seem to use it. Most everyone comes in the back door through the laundry room.

Our coffee table in this room used to be Curtis' grandparents dining room table. The legs were chopped down and it was made into a coffee table many years ago.

Here is a wall in our dining room. The dining room is a walk-through to the kitchen. Not my favorite but it works.

Our kitchen is really functional. We got these cabinets for free and they were a perfect fit! God totally took care of it!
They turned out great but painting them was a big project that I do not want to do again for a long time!
The kitchen and family room is the new part of the house. It has concrete floors and high ceilings. It is where we spend most of our time.

This is the spiral staircase I showed a long time ago. It is in the corner of the family room and leads to a TV room upstairs.

I thought I would show you the finished closet in Cody's room that Curtis and Cody designed and built themselves. It turned out pretty cool. Here is what the closet looks like lowered to the floor....

And this is what it looks like raised up into the ceiling....

I guess that is pretty cool when you are a thirteen year old boy. This closet makes mom a little nervous - I don't want anyone standing under it at all!

So...there are some of the pictures. I will show more later. You can come by any time you want and see it in person. While this house is definitely not our dream house that we left behind 2 years ago, it is still our home. We miss our old house and our old yard. I drive past it about 5 days a week taking the kids to school and it is sad to not live there anymore. It was our dream home and this one has many things about it that we would not choose - especially it's location. But God has us here for a reason and we look forward to seeing what He has in store for us. We are grateful to have a home.

simple things

It really is the simple things in life that can put a smile on my face. This bowl is one of them. Our family owned a beach house at Rockaway for several generations and had to sell it several years back. This bowl is from the kitchen of that beach house. It has been filled with many a meal and many that I remember as a kid. My grandmother served a lot of sliced peaches for breakfast with a spoonful or two of sugar sprinkled over them - they were always delicious. We would pile way too many people into a very small cabin and around a fairly small table (a table I have here in my house - maybe I will show you that later).

This bowl is now cracked and chipped - but holds many memories of fun times in a fun place!
I am glad I have it and will treasure it always! I will enjoy the simple treasure that it is!

Coming along...

The cabinets are slowly but surely moving along. I decided to go ahead with the red color. I painted them inside with a muslin color. The doors aren't done yet, but all the drawers are. We are trying out a few different back splashes to see what we like with the tile.
We got a screaming deal on tile counter tops and since we know how to lay tile that is what we went with. Tonight will be my final coat on the posts for the eating bar. Then it is on to grout and cabinet doors.
Curtis is sanding all this week to get our basketball flooring ready. It is starting to look so good.
We have to go over it three times before it is ready to seal. The first time over it is the hardest because it was finished flooring when we bought it. All those green, red and yellow sections are a challenge to sand.
Curtis is working so hard. Last night he was up until 2:30 am. Tonight he has already been at it for a few hours. I think I will stick to the painting even though I'm sooo sick of it. Would you want to be bent over like that for 7 hours at a stretch - no thanks!!
Good job, honey!

I will show some more photos this weekend - pray for smooth sailing!

My Faithful God

"My faithful God, help me to call this to mind and therefore always have hope: because of Your great love, I am not consumed, for Your compassions never fail. They are new toward me every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I will say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him." (Lamentations 3:22-24)

The main thing I have learned over this last year of uncertainty is that my God is faithful. It has almost been a year since we stopped getting regular paychecks. A year since our life drastically changed. And though there have been many many months where it on paper it can make no sense how we lived, God has been faithful. He has provided when we needed Him to. He has made a way for us to survive during this time.

He has provided more than just for our earthly needs. He has provided comfort when no comfort could be found. He has provided calm in the midst of many storms. He has provided rest when no rest could be found. He has provided hard lessons that have sometimes hurt. He has provided testing that always brought us back around to Him.

And while I have sometimes cried out for this season to end, it has been bittersweet. It has taught me that He is faithful. It has taught me that His heart toward me is good. It has forced me to know that His compassion's never fail. It has taught me to hope in Him alone.

I don't know when or even if this season will end for our family. The world is so uncertain for many - and thankfully this world is not really our home. Our time here is temporary. Thankfully there is more than we can see.

Enough contemplating...better get to work. I am "the subs" for this remodel project. We are refinishing some old cabinets some family friends gave us. They fit perfectly for our space. I am priming them tonight and then painting them this weekend. Can't decide if I should paint them chocolate brown like my fireplace or a deep rich reddish color. Hmm..have to decide by the morning. Maybe it will come to me while I work tonight!

Weary to the core!!!

I feel like a walking zombie right now! I really don't remember a time in my life when I have been this tired. For some reason I haven't been sleeping well - awake constantly and just not feeling good at night. Then the days are so cram-packed that I feel like I can barely see straight.

We are trying to make a big push to finish the downstairs by Thanksgiving so we can move our kids into their own bedrooms. We finally got the sheet rock done and now the painting has begun. I painted the ceilings today in between my regular life and working so that tomorrow my kids can get their bedrooms painted. I like painting fine, but painting a house inside and out by hand in a year and a half is enough to give you arthritis in your hands! Honestly, I am so sick of it that I really don't even care any more how it looks. This weekend we are hoping to sand and seal our "basketball" hardwood flooring. I will be sure to post a before and after photo.

Next week we start refinishing the two sets of cabinets that we got for free. Which by the way, match each other perfectly - thank you God for providing. Doing all of this of this in the midst of taking care of a family, working, volunteering, etc is getting to be a little challenging.

We continue to pray for God's provision for us - for a peace in the midst of the storm - for a supernatural ability to trust Him. He is good and has taken good care of us over this last season.

I had better get to bed - I think I hear a Tylenol PM calling my name....

Life during a remodel

So this is where we began 8 months ago. We sold our house and are remodeling a fixer-upper. It is hard to imagine this will ever be a place we love to call home. Each week it has been moving along and is starting to become a pretty great house.

Above the garage we built a 700 sq foot apartment that we hope to someday rent out after we have finished and moved downstairs. We have been living in this apartment since June. We ended up putting a ladder on this wall for a great play loft for our kids. They really like it. It is a one bedroom apartment. Our kids are sleeping in a hallway and actually they enjoy it. For us parents, it has been fun to sit outside their door at night listening to them talk forever. These will be good memories for them.

Since we are living along a busy road and we now have a puppy, our fence had to go up in the middle of this project. (I know, this doesn't seem like a good time to get a puppy, but why not add to the chaos!) Curtis, the kids, My dad and I all worked on the fence for many hours. We now have a great little courtyard on one side of the house, that is going to be fun in the summer. My dad has done all of the electrical in both the apartment and downstairs, which has really blessed us. Even my brother got in the act when he visited over the holidays.

Today we got our spiral stair case delivered. We cut a hole in the upstairs floor of the bonus room, which is currently attached to the apartment. The stairs lead down to the main kitchen/family room of the house. The stairs aren't quite finished, but they are pretty cool already. Mark helped Curtis and Pete install them. Then they put in a lot of the trim downstairs. It is coming along.


Here is my children nailing down the dining room floor today. We will be putting wood down on it next week, so we are prepping it. All of our parents helped us paint this last weekend and lots of cleaning was done by Curtis' family this weekend.
We are so thankful for all of our friends and family that have been helping us. You guys have given us a ton of support through this challenging time.

I will send more pictures along the way, to keep you updated.