our own...
owning a home was a dream of ours. one that, seriously, we wondered if we would or could ever attain.
coming home to a place that belongs to you, feels wonderful. and knowing we are making a financial investment feels wonderful. but the thing i was most looking forward to about owning a home, was making it mine. painting all the walls, dreaming of new wood floors, and new windows, and big landscaping projects. making that house from top to bottom and front to back, completely reflect us.
i have dreamt a million different complete remodels, and millions of simple fixes. i have dreamt new furniture, and new kitchens, and a new fire pit and stone patio. and none of that has happened yet. my dreams are often bigger than reality can hold, and making this house my own hasn't been much different.
we have mostly hand me down furniture. in fact, i think the only 3 things we bought were matthew's recliner, the tv stand in the family room, and the big square coffee table i bought at an auction for $25. i love linens, and am often gifted linens. so we have lots of blankets and towels and sheets and pillows. i have acquired a few pieces of art work and wall hangings, and we are making this place our own with what we have and a little hard work.
we may not have lots of money to do the projects we dream, and our look may be eclectic, but it is still us. and there are a few things we do have that help us out greatly. we are not afraid to work. we are not afraid at working at things that we have no idea about, just going by a wing and a prayer. we sweat and we yell at each other a little, and we wake up sore... but we are not afraid to work. and we can buy paint. paint is cheap, and easy, and only a little monotonous. when we first moved in, we painted for 3 straight weeks. we painted everything.
and i have loved seeing this place become ours. i have loved seeing it transform from somebody else's house, into ours. the transformation is incredible... unbelieveable, really. and every day it looks more and more like it belongs to us. the yard hasn't been touched yet, that is to come, and all that will take is some elbow grease. the baby room will come as soon as we can find out what this little booger is, boy or girl? that is the questio... i don't want a gender neutral room. really really don't. our living room is getting there, it will be the last piece to come together.
but for the last 2 days, i have been transforming our bathroom. with matthews help of course. the bathrooms were the only spaces i had not touched. and it was time. the main bathroom has a fresh coat of bright and clean paint, and a few little accessories were bought. and now, this bathroom feels like me.
and with every tiny little project, and little itty bitty bit of money spent, this house becomes our own more and more. this house, becomes our home.
and it doesn't matter that my hardwood floors, and new windows, and professionally landscaped yard aren't anywhere in the near future, because this is us. and the time we spend together doing it, is irreplaceable. precious time that i am so glad we have.
what is your next home improvement project? however big or small... i want to know.
Die Treppe
Claude Monet
oooh...so much to do, so little time and money...
ReplyDeleteBut now that spring is here, gardening is on my mind...
I'm going to build retaining garden walls, and mulch, and tend to baby plants...
In the fall, I want to replace our back screen door, and rip out the basement. The boys want to make it a "man cave", I need a library/office space...
My current office is tiny, too tiny...
and I need more room for beloved books....
I'm in the middle of painting, but the kids are home on spring break, so no paint. We've lived here just about 6 years and bumped from 2 kids to 4, so we lived with white walls and fingerprints until now. Almost every bit of everything in my house is hand me down or resale. We've bought 2 things since we've been together (20 yrs) our bedroom set and a sofa set. The sofa set is on it's last legs now. That's where I"m at.
ReplyDeletesteve wants to rip all the foilage out of the back corner of our yard, and i said "don't bother." i'm more interested in putting a bathroom in our basement, but that could be awhile and a whole lot of money down the road for us.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunatly, we leave in an appartment. Everything is so expensive, here ! And we made all we had to make in this appartement. So my wish now ... is to have a house !! ... A little house, I don't especially want a big one !! The size of my appartement would be perfect... in a house !! ... With a garden ... soupir ... ;-)
ReplyDeleteMelinda- Our next project is massive and involves transforming our family room/kitchen/ dining rooms into kitchen and library...and extending our home eight feet into the backyard and adding a sitting room to our master bedroom and an elevator to our home. (Yes, we do need an elevator. My husband's passion is the darkroom in the basement and with physical limitations he will not be able to use it to our later years without an elevator.) What I want to say is... You don't know how blessed you really are... there is something really special about dreams and working together that offer a satisfaction that can not be attained by simply writing a check. We are at a point in our lives where if I dream of it...all I have to do is write a check. And I envy you the satisfaction you received from your recently remodeled bath. I know that I will not feel that same sense of deep satisfaction from our remodel... that's a reality of life. It will be beautiful, but it will not be the result of the labor of our own hands. You are blessed.
ReplyDeleteOur next project will be installing our replacement windows. My friends called me crazy, but I ask for and received replacement windows for my 20th wedding anniversary gift. The only catch is we do the installation. We hope to at least get started next week. Hopefully after the first one we’ll know what to expect and not be so scared. It only took us six months to put down lament hardwood floors….we can only guess how long it will take to do nine windows.
ReplyDeleteECS