I haven’t posted much about our house over the last few months, mainly because there is always more to do.  We have a few rooms that are finally done (I think, for now, always subject to change) and wanted to share our work.  Friends that are at our house frequently have seen the stages of transformation.

{before}

There are lots of things we like about this living room.  We love that it’s small and cozy and right off the kitchen.  We love the big fireplace and we even love the dark woodwork (Ok, Jason loves the dark woodwork.  It’s growing on me).  Our furniture fits in the space pretty well but needed some adjustments.  Here is what we did in this space:

• Paint the walls, including the chair rail and wainscoting (I did this several months after we painted the top half of the walls)
• Take down the mini blinds and valence rods and put up curtain rods and curtains
• Replace all of the switches and outlets (from almond to white)
• Painted the black media stand with Miss Mustard Seed milk paint (Curio with white wax)
• Hung pictures and decorated the mantle
• Built and painted a sofa table behind the couch
• Centered the ottoman in front of the fireplace and rearranged the rest of the furniture
• Bought floor lamps since there weren’t any lights in the room
• Later bought a ceiling fixture (the lamps weren’t enough light) and then painted the floor lamps and recovered the shades
• Mounted the TV to the wall
• Painted the brass on the fireplace black

{after}

I love this room now.  I love the paint color, the mantel decorations, the furniture, and I’m pretty much obsessed with this light fixture.  Now, if only I can talk Jason into letting me get a DSLR so I can take better pictures!

In the Fall of 2007, while I was in my last year of school, Jason got an email from work advertising town homes in a community his company was master planning.  We decided to go check them out, and even though they were on the complete opposite side of town, I had no idea where I was going to work when I graduated, and we had no extra money, a week later we signed a contract to build our first house.  Later, we found out that we both had “what in the world did we just do?” thoughts, but kept them to ourselves!  Looking back, I have no idea how in the world I convinced him this was a good idea in a week, as I have a hard time convincing him of lesser commitments in that amount of time.  But thankfully, it has been apparent that God led us here to discover a community and a church that is truly our home.  After 6 years and 2 children in this house, it is time for us to move on.

In February we started exploring the idea of selling our house. We weren’t sure if we could afford our next house this year so we spent some time looking. Once we found a few houses we really loved (that sold really fast!) we decided to go ahead and list our house.  The day before we planned to sign papers we found out that our car that had recently been struck by lightening (and was being “fixed” for 3 weeks) was not repairable and was totaled by the insurance company.  We delayed listing our house for a few days while we decided what to do about a new car.  After deciding on a new Honda Odyssey, we still felt like we wanted to sell our house.  We listed our house and had an accepted offer after the first day of showings!  We were thrilled, but still needed to find our perfect house.

After a few weeks of a slow market and a few houses that were clearly not right for us, we were notified that one of the houses we saw before our house sold came back on the market.  When we first saw this house, it seemed like it was made just for us.  It was in our desired neighborhood, had a huge back yard (including a playhouse), and plenty of space.  It has features that we never even dreamed we wanted, but fell in love with.  When we heard it was back on the market, we immediate put in an offer.  Soon after, we found out that we might run into the same complications the previous buyers did, and were very uncertain how things would end up.  Thankfully, we haven’t had any problems and we are set to close this week.

It is definitely a bittersweet (and very stressful) time.  This house holds a lot of memories including new jobs, new babies, friends, family, good times and hard times.  But we are so excited for our new house and the possibilities that it will bring.  We are thrilled for our kids to have a yard and to have more space for friends.

We have been so encouraged by our friends and family who have supported us during this very uncertain and stressful time.  We couldn’t have made it through on our own!