Home Reno

We bought our first home in the summer of 2011.

We’d been married for about five years and we’d moved to a new apartment every single May.

We bought our house just before the market exploded (and we’re so grateful that we did!)

We had looked at a few homes, but this was the first one we found that was within our price range and in a really great neighborhood. It was only 12 miles from work and was surrounded by great schools.

I remember we went to look at the home on a Wednesday night.

The sellers had made it clear that if they didn’t have an offer by the next day, they were going to take it off the market for a while because the wife was due with their second baby only a few weeks later.

We ran through the house, took a bunch of photos, and then headed off to a nearby Chick-fil-A to contemplate our next life steps.

We left Chick-fil-A full and happy and decided to put in an offer that evening.

I’d also like to note that we’d looked through the house so quickly that we didn’t realize there wasn’t a bathroom downstairs and there was no pantry in the kitchen.

We went on living our lives, carelessly believing that our new home did indeed have these two critical features.

(Ugh! We’ll never make that mistake again!)

We closed on the home a few months later and moved in mid-September.

The house, built in 1998, came with its fair share of (outdated) “character.” Our favorite being the apple and fish checkered wallpaper in the kitchen and dining room.

We vowed to get it taken care of as soon as possible, which turned into 8 years later.

After a severe hailstorm in the summer of 2018, we were given the chance to make some necessary updates on our little house on the hill.

BEFORE

2011-2019

Included in these treasures: Our first Thanksgiving to host in our new home, closing on our first house in the summer of 2011 (using a feather quill pen, of course), and the nasty wallpaper we thought would only be around for a few months but stuck around for yearssss.

During

June 2018-Nov 2019

The outdoor repairs were completed last spring and we were able to work it out to have the indoor repairs done on the house over Thanksgiving Break while we were traveling in Wyoming.

It worked out perfectly so we didn’t have to be in the house while it was being gutted.

Pictured: the only “during” photo we received from our contractor. It’s hard to believe our house looked like this, and yet somehow, it actually looks better this way than with the wallpaper!

Also pictured: our beautiful, new fence I came home to one day. Bry had worked it out with our contractor to surprise me with this initial repair. I literally cried I was so excited!

The fence had been leaning very badly for a few years, so it was time to replace it. This first repair got us so excited and expectant about all the work to come.

When all was said and done, it took about a year and a half to complete all of the work. BUT, it was worth the wait!

“AFTER”

I will never be the girl with the “perfect” house.

If you’re looking for that, you can just mosey on by and keep lookin’ somewhere else.

I’m the girl who’d rather save money for epic summer vacations, so we have hand-me-down bedroom furniture and used couches in the living room.

Our tv stand was literally the $20 Walmart floor model that I’d had since 2003 until a few months ago. So, believe me when I say that before this remodel, we hadn’t really prioritized fixing up our home.

I’ve never felt like I needed to have the nicest, newest house, and I still don’t feel that way.

But, renovations are always fun!

Sprucing things up and a good, ol’ before and after is always fun.

The Father is doing so much in our home. And what He’s doing goes beyond new windows or drawer pulls or new kitchen tile.

He’s building unity and fresh joy and delight in our marriage.

He’s sowing grace and forgiveness in every “room” of our hearts. He’s walking alongside us, asking to partner with us as we clean out each room.

We welcome Him in this place.

We invite Him to remodel, repair, and renovate our hearts; to reconstruct us from the inside out.

“Great sorrow awaits you religious scholars and Pharisees—frauds and imposters! You are like one who will only wipe clean the outside of a cup or bowl, leaving the inside filthy. You are foolish to ignore the greed and self-indulgence that live like germs within you. You are blind and deaf to your evil. Shouldn’t the one who cleans the outside also be concerned with cleaning the inside? You need to have more than clean dishes; you need clean hearts!”
- Jesus (Matthew 23)

What’s on the inside always matters more to Him than what we try to clean up on the outside.

He’s never been into slapping fresh paint on the walls.

He’s more of the Chip and JoJo type - like, “Let’s tear down this wall and make something brand new.”

Brand new is more His style.

Wholeness and perfect peace are more His style.

“I am doing something brand new, something unheard of. Even now it sprouts and grows and matures. Don’t you perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and open up flowing streams in the desert.”
Isaiah 43:19

I have after in quotations in the title because we aren’t really finished with our home remodel. What follows are not the perfectly curated, Pinterest-worthy photos of our “completely remodeled” new home.

Hardly.

What follows are a random assortment of a partially-complete renovation of rooms in different lighting, using different cameras and temperature settings.

Obviously, because our new paint looks like a different color in every single photo!

So, if you’re ok with imperfect, but perfect-for-us at this point in life photos, by all means, enjoy what follows!