Tell Me About Life in a Reno {Part 2}

Yesterday I started my pretend interview with myself about living in a Reno House. Today we finish it up. I kinda think today is longer. But I didn’t want to make it a three day thing. If you get board feel free to stop and read more tomorrow. ;) 
(Also, I wrote this in another word processor, and for some reason the format is a little ify now. Sorry. I think it’s still plenty readable, even if it doesn’t have quite as many paragraph indents as I told it to.)


Here we go again:



Is it a lot of work, fixing this house?

YES. More work than I could have comprehended before I bought it. 



The work here really is basically just cosmetic stuff. (Not structural.) But when you are resolved to DIY it (because it can save us thousands of dollars) you sign up a for a HUGE time commitment. And even though most of this work is just a painting, paint does not go on as fast as you can watch an HGTV show.  If I have no kids around, It takes me 2 days -- full morning to evening, only a fast lunch and bathroom breaks, to get a bedroom painted. (I paint the ceiling, then I paint the trim, then I paint the walls. Each one of those takes two coats at least -- trim often takes three, because semigloss just takes more coats.) And after that I am exhausted, my house is a wreck, I need a day just to recover. And then the rest of the week is often spent trying to un-hurrican my house from dishes, laundry,and toys. My elbow always hurts. And usually I don’t get the luxury of painting while the kids aren’t around. I did get to do each of my daughter’s rooms while Grannana watched them. But usually I need to work around them being with me. So everything is always slow going. I just checked, and we’ve been working on our downstairs bathroom for 3 months now! But yeah, it all just takes forever because we are busy: I have the kids, Blake works full time.



So how do you do it with such young kids?

This is the hardest part of it all. It’s really, really hard.When we first moved her Jasmine was 3 ½ years old and Ruby was 1 ½ years old. So When we got here they were too needy for me to work on the house while they were awake. Meaning I did any work when they were asleep. And it seems that my kids (regardless of sleep technique) seem to take about 2 years to sort-of sleep through the night. (sigh.) So Ruby would start her night time wake ups (sometimes 4 of them a night) right around 1:00am -- which was when I was getting into bed. I was pretty much a zombie. But somehow I just kept going. (I think God has equipped me in my time of need for such a time as this.)Thankfully Ruby sleeps most the nights now, with an occasional bad one thrown in. And sometimes Jasmine needs me here and there for something. But I do get more sleep. (Praise the Lord.) But no where near a full night. (My body actually won’t let me sleep a full night anymore, it’s grown so used to this shenanigans.)I used to try and get some stuff done during nap times too. But that was always hard on me because there was no guarantee on how far I could get before they’d stop me.     Now my girls are 4 and 2, and surprisingly that makes a huge difference. I can leave them in the family room for a bit while I work on something in another room, and for the most part they do great. This doesn't last too long or anything, but it’s good for small projects  -- like painting one coat on a door. And I can go back and do more once they are in bed. Jasmine has totally given up on, not only naps, but I also quit trying to have her do quiet time in her room because she was so lonely she basically spent the whole time getting me to come back in her room endlessly. But after we both adjusted to just letting her play downstairs while Ruby naps, she’s doesn’t mind me going off and working. So nap time can still be good for accomplishing things, even if it’s only dishes or dinner.



And other than that, I have to rely on using my time while my mom visits to get the really tricky-to-do-with-kids stuff done. A couple times I have had a mothers helper come over. I plan to do that some more, but it has a learning curve for me -- I’m not used to it, so I feel pressured to work faster than I actually can to make it worth my while. It’s hard for me to relax. And I try to use my time during the day to mentally plan out what I want to do to the house, since I can do that while I’m still giving the girls lots of attention. (You will notice Pinterest activity during this time -- it helps me brainstorm.)But the general summary of how I do this is: Not Sleeping. Plain and simple.



That’s how you work on the house renovations, but how do you work on regular day to day stuff like laundry and cooking and cleaning?

Ha! I don’t. My house is a wreck all the time. And by wreck I mean a scary, most people can’t comprehend the level of mess I am talking about, wreck. It’s “new mom can’t keep up” messy, plus some, a lot of some! Imagine the worst messiest new-mom-day (especially like mew mom with older kids making messes all over) you’ve ever had and then generously sprinkle drywall dust and paint droplets all over it. And add constructions tools and torn out house bits to the general chaos.



I just get by. I wash laundry all at once, tons of loads at a time -- It’s usually a two day festival of catching up. If I’m lucky I’ll put it away too. I clean my bathrooms when I get scared of them. Blake is really good at helping keep the dishes at bay. And food is ify around here no matter what - cause I’m working on figuring out how to feed a insanely picky, allergic to tons of stuff, child. We eat of lot of basic randoms: rice, an acceptable to kids veggies, a meat. Not all at once like a meal. That would be too ideal… Like we eat one of those things at random times of day! We don’t have family meals at the table together -- we just eat when we are hungry. But I have total faith in our ability to recover and become normal people who have a clean(ish) house someday, who eat a meal (that looks like some sort of meal) together. It’s just not time for that for us right now. Right now it’s time to get our house done. And we all handle it really well. And Jasmine is at an age where she might just barely remember this age, but not like a ton. So I feel pretty good about pressing hard through this stage of life -- it feels like good timing.



Do you have any guilt about doing all this house work around your kids?

I think every mom feels mom-guilt about one thing or another, or more likely a plethora of things. So yes I do. I don’t live up to internet boasts of how great others are mom-ing their kids. We don’t do tons of detailed projects together. I do let them watch a lot of TV (PBS) and movies (Princess stuff and Disney.) And they have no concept of table manners (outside saying please and thank you.) We don’t work on chores, and we don’t have any real routine (well besides bedtime, and "mommy needs you to let me have my morning coffee" time.)So some days I feel really bad about that -- especially when I get some kind of Facebook smack down. But to be honest, when I step back from it all, and if I could look at it the way I would have looked at it pre-motherhood (hormones and suffocating love included) I am really rather pleased with where we are. 
Is there a better way to raise kids? Probably. Could I do any better right now? Nope. I’m giving it my all. And I like where we are going.We do read books together. I try to pick out good ones specifically off this list when we go to the library (we also pick up movies while we are there.)I do give them crafts to do -- just they usually do them without my direct supervision.We do go outside and play together -- when we are outside I try to be very present.And to be honest with you I don’t mind that they watch PBS and princess stuff. PBS has taught them amazing stuff -- I’m shocked (in a good way) at some of the stuff they can tell me about because of it. And here’s the thing about the Princess movies, Einstein said if you want your children to be intelligent read them fairy tales. We read them too. But they can’t read themselves yet. Movies are basically pre-books, as I see it. When I was a kid I loved movies. And as I got older I really loved books. I still do. I read and read and read. Mostly non-fiction, but give me a good fiction book and all is well in my soul.  I also think we have a lot of time to work on table manners and chores later. I’m pretty sure I’m not spoiling them. I keep reminding myself I wasn’t raised the “perfect way” that I, or is it the internet, that keeps telling me I need to maintain to raise my kids. I was raised well, and I turned out well. I can’t do perfect and neither can my kids. We are gonna do life together. I am forever grateful to my parents for living the life they have (redoing houses, fixing everything, sewing tons of stuff, DIY-ing before they called it that), because if they hadn’t I wouldn’t be brave enough to be living mine. I have to tell myself that my kids will reap more benefits than I think they will from this house reno work.

 



Has this house had any bad surprises for you?

Yes. But nothing that’s been crushing. But there definitely have been some hard surprises.When our furnace went out on Christmas Eve. That was an adventure.Then our shower, and later our bathtub leaked through our ceiling downstairs. Thankfully those were both easily fixed with caulk.Our drain in the laundry room needs to be snaked out so I can’t leave the area when I do laundry -- I have to baby sit the wash machine to give the drain a break while the machine drains 2 or 3 times a load. The girls have been screaming in terror for me when they hear “The BUBBLES” -- they think the first instant they hear the sound our house will go under -- they just start panicking and NEED me to go in there NOW!!! (In reality I have at least 2 mins before I need to worry. And even if I didn’t catch it nothing too bad happens, mostly just bare tiled floor gets wet.)We didn’t foresee needing to tare out the walls in our downstairs bathroom. It’s turning out gorgeous, but it was surprise.And we knew the sunroom needed a new roof, but it definitely leaks in there when it rains. I always beed to go see where to move to buckets to that day if it’s raining.And of course there was the day our family room flash flooded.



What do you think is the hardest part about fixing this house?

As far as specific projects go, the entryway is my biggest challenge. (Blake may have a different opinion on what’s hardest about this house because he does the drywall and wiring and fixing. I do the painting and decorating.) It was no surprise, I walked into the house and saw wallpaper up a two story entryway wall and knew that was going to be no fun.We are going to have to either hire someone or rent scaffolding to get the wallpaper down and the paint up. AND under the wallpaper is fun ancient wallpaper paste I need to wash off, and walls that need a lot of mudding and sanding. AND last time I check I was afraid of heights. (Fingers crossed I’ve outgrown that…it can happen right?)Right now I have the wallpaper torn off as high as I can reach, then I’m gonna do the stuff I can do before we get scaffolding.



But as far as what most emotionally challenging about fixing this house is just the inability to settle in. I feel like a dog who is circling in his bed, trying to make a soft spot, so he can lay down --- only I haven’t been able to lay down yet for 8 months. The other thing I think is hard is that people don’t really get it when I tell them we are working on our house, I can’t commit to much else. I think they just think I mean I painted a room. It’s hard to convey my whole life is a crazy mess. It’s hard to explain: I love it, but it’s hard, and I want to buckle down and only do this so I can live normal ASAP.And it’s hard to have people over for dinner or anything like that -- when there are paint cans and drywall dust as part of your kitchen it just feels wrong to ask someone to eat with you there.



How do people react to your house?

Well it varies a lot. If they haven’t been there they kind of say stuff like “have fun doing your house” -- which of course I am having fun -- but it feels like they think it’s a day trip to the beach, not like a full year of extremely draining effort.Upon visiting, it seems like most people kind of get shell shocked and overwhelmed. (Can’t blame them -- if you’ve never lived in a reno it would be totally shocking -- I lived in one before I’m used to it.) They seem to (very hesitantly) think it will be nice, but that it’s not nice to the standard eye initially, and they can’t really understand how I knew it would be nice.And then there are a couple friends, and our family, who walk in and marvel with us.They know how fantastic this house can be, and they have total faith in us that we will bring it there. That’s my favorite. But I think the funniest thing is that almost everyone who takes a tour seems to take authority of the house saying at least one thing they know for sure they house needs, or say one thing that MUST change. I don’t always agree. Which is why it’s kind of funny. It’s just different taking someone through your house in progress than it is if you house is in order.



You said at one point, that your elbow always hurts, is this job really taxing on your body?

Oh yeah, I can tell it’s taking a toll on my body. I always have dark circles under my eyes (but I’ve had those for 4 years now….my oldest is 4. ;) ) But I can just tell I look worn. I’ve honestly assumed it’s gonna age me faster than had we not done this. But then again they say you need to keep working to stay young. What’s a fine line or two in the grand scheme of things, right? My back hurts often. Like you said, my elbow often hurts.The bummer of all this physical work is that, I do think it tone my arms, but none of the rest of me. I am more tired than if I had done a good work out, but I don’t get the endorphin rush from it, or the muscle tone.I tried to work out for a while there while doing this house stuff -- but it was really super hard to get my body to agree to doing all this stuff at the same time. I’m going to try it again, just a little differently and see if I can do it, but if I can’t I know that some day I’ll be able to again.



With all this hardship in mind, why is your family ultimately doing this?

Well, if this house had been for sale all fixed up, it would have been way out of our price range. Actually, this house was out of our price range originally, as is, but we told the seller that and we were able to get a price we were comfortable with.We really see this as an investment. Not just into the monetary value of our house. But also into our lives. We can easily see ourselves raising our family (a potentially larger family) here. This house has tons of space for us, and I really love imagining our Holidays and our day-to-day here.I also think of this hard work I’m doing as my gift to my family. As a stay at home mom I often feel like I can’t contribute to our income. But this, in a way, is like working from home. I am able to add tremendous value to our home. And I am able to give us a house we couldn’t have otherwise afforded. It feels like a worthy sacrifice to work day and night for a little while.



At the end of the day what gets you through this?

I really feel called to this house. Like God placed us here for some reason. A really good reason. Even if it’s only for our family. But maybe it’s for something more here too? I feel like it’s kind of a symbol of his love for me. This house isn’t fresh and perfect, it’s wood work is scarred and messy, and I’m redeeming it. And it reminds me of Him and His love for me. I think it’s a really beautiful picture. And so I lean on Him and the fact that He has called me to harder things before and gotten me through them. I drew this on my chalkboard door months ago, and it hasn’t failed to give me pause and a boost of courage every time I’ve walked past it.






So with all this work you are putting into the house, what are you looking forward to the most about it being done?

Well, we are thinking about homeschooling the girls. So I’m looking forward to having a space for the school stuff (I’m planning on our “reading room” aka the old dining room, to be our school space), and the time and energy to focus in on that. I’m happy about the timing of us buying the house, relative to the age of our family. I see it melding together well. I think we’ll have the house in pretty decent order by the time Jasmine is ready for kindergarten.I’m also looking forward to evenings where I just pick a spot in the house and sit down at read once the girls are in bed. There will be so many spots to choose from.I also really want to have people over more. Right now it’s very hard to have people over because the whole house is crazy -- tools everywhere. Or right now there is drywall dust coating everything. But later I hope to have an inviting house were we host dinners, or nights where we play music with people or games (although to be honest I’ve never been a game player -- but Blake comes from a game playing crew.)And I just generally look forward to getting my brain back. If motherhood takes up most my brain, house ideas take up the rest. As much as I love thinking house design, I’m ready to have some room in my head.



If there was anything you could change about your house what would it be?

The only thing I really wish I could change was that there was a bathtub in the master bathroom -- I’m an avid bath taker, so while I’m soo soo glad we have a master bathroom, and the shower is great, I would really love a tub in there.



I’ve scoured the internet over for any short of way to make a tub fit in there. They make small tubs, but not that small. There is a way that we could someday bump out the wall and add on. But who knows if I’ll ever be that lucky. :) I may just have to enjoy the bathtub down the hall forever. And that’s ok.



What’s your favorite thing about the house?

It’s not really a specific thing really. I just love the feeling inside the house. I think it has a bit of magic. I can very easily imagine fairies living in the back yard, or Narnia showing up in our closet. And I can’t really put my fingers on why, but I can’t stop telling myself it feels like our cottage we grew up going to in Michigan. They really aren’t too similar, but I think the windows with their square panes and the trees outside with the birds always signing in them somehow makes them feel just the same to me.I just really love this house. A whole lot.


Do you regret buying this house because of how much work it is?

No. Never. Not even in my hardest moments. 
Honestly, being a mom is what wears me out more than the house. I didn’t know being a mom was so much work. The house reno stuff renews me. It’s just hard for me to find the balance between the two. Every day I wind up shocked that this awesome house, in an awesome neighborhood, is mine and I always end up just humbled by that, and praying a deeply felt thank you prayer. So many times I feel like this house is nicer than I deserve. I know I’m overly blessed. I really never expected to live somewhere this fantastic. 

Tell Me About Life in a Reno {Part 1}

**Quick update on the Family Room water issues.

I think it’s just fine.

We got the carpet dried out. And our friends lent us their carpet shampooer which we’ve cleaned the whole room and then I’ve been running over the previous wet spots a few more times. I think we’ll be able to pretend it never happened. Phew. And you know now I just get to laugh at me freaking out over nothing, right? ;)

Anyway, today I thought I’d do something different.

Since the girls and I were up at my mom’s house for a visit, I thought I’d take the opportunity to sit on her lovely country front porch and write a little bit, with the wind on my face.

People have been asking me a questions since we bought our house.

I thought It’d be fun to fake interview myself, since…. when I was a kid I was sure I’d be on Oprah someday. (Back then I’d open my heart to her about how my brother wasn’t sharing. And somehow that made me worth while guest. My audience, of porcelain dolls up on the shelf, was riveted.) Might as well continue to indulge my crazy notions that my day to day life is Oprah worthy. :) (But since this is pretend, I’ll be making up the questions, and I don’t think I have quite her knack for it. :) )

For the interview I’ll use questions I’ve actually been asked, questions that have been implied, and questions I’m assuming people have wanted to ask.

It’s kinda long, so I’ll do it in two parts. (You can read the rest here.)

Here goes:

What made you think you could buy a house that needed to be fixed up?

Well, I think a lot of that came from our parents. Both my own and Blake's parents are hard workers who’ve both bought houses that have needed a lot of fixing up, and I think watching them made us feel confident we could do it ourselves.

Blake’s parents in the last couple years purchased a home which needed major updating. So they install new hardwood floors, a new kitchen and two new baths. Did lots of painting. Tons of landscaping. The list goes on. And they are still renovating their basement now.

My parents bought their country farm house when I was fifteen years old. It was a total overhaul. Basically going down to the studs and back up again. I was a stubborn teenager so I only did the bare minimum of helping them do anything, which basically consisted of clean up -- mostly remains of the walls my parents took down and junk left in the barns. The rest of the time my parents let us run around outside and play in the barn. Or I liked cutting the grass on our hilarious rickety wheel popping riding lawn mower. So I didn’t learn too much specially about renovating a house, except that I watched as a run down dump of a house get built back up to a beautiful home. I also learned that it takes a really long time to do that. 

I didn’t actually live in our new house until we were about half way through my first school year (attending the school that this house belonged to) before we moved it we would commute from our old house (it took a long time to sell.) And even when we did move into the house the floors were bare, the walls barely put up, and I’d sleep in my winter coat and learned I couldn’t sleep next to the window because snow was falling on me!

We lived inside a world of tools and wood and drywall sheets. I’d come home, sit on a patio bench that just happened to be inside, have a small snack, maybe talk on the phone to a boy who called (while my stomach flip flopped around) and then go to my soon to be parent’s bedroom because it was the only place that wasn’t a major construction zone, to do my homework. At one point I had to walk across a wood plank to get there because there was no floor in the room.

And the crazy thing is, none of this phased me at all. I was so happy about where we moved I just didn’t even bat an eye. The only thing I balked at was staying there before my parent’s fixed up a bathroom. The one that was there was in  VERY  rough shape -- moldy, the toilet rocked on the soft floor, the bathtub had this hose taped onto the faucet for a “shower” option. That was my one rule, I wasn’t sleeping there without a different bathroom. No “showers” for me.

But the rest I was fine with. Including no Air conditioning through a whole summer of work.

So all that to say, fixing up a house is in my blood.

And our house is not even CLOSE to the level of fixer-upper that my parent’s was.
(I really need to do a post on their house some day!)

So if you didn’t actually learn how to fix a house as a teenager with your parents, what made you feel confident that you had the hands on skills you’d need to fix stuff?

Well, we have family on both sides who can help us if we need more help. Like I said both our parents have done this before. And our brother in law is a contractor who fixes and builds houses. So if we have questions we have at least three excellent sources to call.

And outside of that we are just pretty confident we have the skills or could learn the skills. My dad knows how to fix just about anything, and he’s taught himself how to do it all. So it’s in my blood and in my history to know I can teach myself new things and do it well. And I’ve taught myself a lot of other things in the past. Plus there is the internet -- the source of pretty much anything I’d need, right at my fingertips anytime.

Plus I’ve painted all the rooms in our first home -- so I know I can do that well, and that I like doing it. I’ve also pulled wallpaper before, I’ve mudded walls and begrudgingly sanded that mud.

I’ve painted lots of furniture.

I sew stuff.

I love to buy stuff at the thrift store and tweak it.

I’ve changed the way lots of things look.

We just felt sure we could do it with a house.

I was worried about being physically strong enough for some of the tasks -- like pulling up carpet. So I literally worked out before we bought the house just to be ready. It was hard, but we did it.

What was it about this house in particular that made you buy it?

We looked at all sorts of houses. LOTS and LOTS of houses.

We were moving here at a set time, so we couldn’t look forever. But I think I looked at every single house that look even remotely appealing in our price range.

Many of the houses I just could not see myself living in -- they just didn’t have the right sensation. But there were a handful that I could. But ultimately there were really just two I’d want to pick from. The house we own now (a fixer) or a house that had just been fixed -- fixed up beautifully and stylishly. Everything about the house was nice. New beautiful dark floors, small but new and beautiful kitchen. HUGE master bathroom. Nice, nice, and nice everywhere. But the neighborhood just wasn’t as great as. We knew that if we bought the fixed up house we would be buying a house at it’s peak price point, there would no appreciating in value. We’d just be buying it to enjoy living there, not to really invest.

Our house on the other hand is in a fantastic neighborhood. (I could tell that when we came to look at it. But I really only started to fully grasp just how nice it is this summer as we take walks around -- every time we take a new route I am bowled over by what I nice place I get to live in.)

So we knew if we bought this house and fixed it, we’d be accruing home value. That’s really important to us.

Our first house did not accrue value despite us working on it, and it’s a little crushing. We are still renting it out because we couldn’t sell it due to it’s unappealing location, even if it’s a great house.

So really number one on my list when shopping this time was “location, location, location.” And this house had that inspades. Zillow lists our house as worth about $30,000 more than what we paid for it. And that’s just Zillow’s rough guess. Our realtors told us our neighborhood could support a house worth $100,000 more than what we paid -- depending on amenities. And in comparison our first home Zillow lists as worth about $15,000 less than we paid for it. (Purchased before housing crash and this area may not really recover, I don’t know. Sad times.) And no amount of fixing it up will add any value to it. The neighborhood is not selling well anymore at all. (More sad times.)

But that’s instant equity in this house. And like I mentioned if we fix it up really nicely it will be worth more than Zillow’s guess. And since we are DYI-ing everything we possibly can, there is no way we will spend even close to what the house will be worth.

We don’t have plans to move out of the house anytime soon. But we like the idea that we are investing into something of worth.

Besides that, this house had everything on my House Hopes list. I didn’t make a dream house list. I made a”It’d be nice if” list.

I gave a lot of thought to the layout of a home I’d like to have. This has has all of them. The main things were number of bedrooms, at least 2 bathrooms, and two living spaces (the theory being one could be for toys and one could be for grownup brain activity.) But it even has some unforeseen little hopes I never wrote down -- like when a hydrangea plant just popped up in the back yard by surprise -- its little things like that, that feel like a God hug. And it even has stuff I wouldn’t have not-bought the house over, but was hoping for -- like the sun rising into our bedroom windows, and setting into our living room windows.

But one big thing I was hoping for was a NOT-open floor plan.

Why do you prefer non-open floor plans?

In spite of the popularity of open floor plans, I actually discussed many times over with Blake how’d I’d prefer to not have a un-open floor plan. We looked at open floor plans while shopping, we would have potentially bought one, but they are re not my ideal. I LOVE that we ended up in a home that has a kitchen separate from our living spaces.

We started our marriage, and had a baby, while living in an open floor plan house.  Then we moved to a duplex that had a kitchen clearly open and visible from the living room.  That design DOES make the space feel bigger. And I like the look of it in pictures. But in my real life existence I don’t like how it ends up feeling. I’m naturally a messy person. I like to do projects and leave them out. I’m not the best at keeping up with the dishes or clearing the table. Then add in kids and the house is a wreck. I love being able to leave the room and leave the mess instead of seeing it from every angle. I love being able to leave the dishes at the sink and not see them from the couch. And I love that we don’t even have the option to watch TV from our table.

I was sort of nervous about the girls not being visible while I cook or {sometimes} do the dishes. But at the ages my girls were when we got here I felt ok about being out of the room (just around the corner) and they can get my attention very easily when they want to (believe me.) And for us it actaully works out so much easier for me to be out of sight to get stuff done. They just play and forget to “need” me. If they can see me, they don’t want anything but ALL my attention. I love that I can duck into the kitchen and get a few accomplished moments in.

Plus I read on Houzz this tread about open vs closed floor plans, and the idea was brought about about introverts perferring closed floor plans so they can get more alone time. That REALLY registered with me.

How did you know you could make this house beautiful? Can you make this house beautiful?

I feel very few things in this world can not be beautiful. Honestly. It’s a deep seated knowing. I think it’s part of how God made me and how I can understand Him a little bit. I think it goes back to “God made it, and it was good.” And I think it’s part of being created in His image. The need to create, and to create beautifully. I very rarely think I can’t make something beautiful. And honestly, if I don’t think I can it’s really just because I don’t have the time, money or skill set. I likely still think it’s possible.

But this house has fantastic bones. If you just imagined the walls a good color it’s pretty much done. This house is nothing like my parent’s house were it needed EVERYTHING. Our house is mostly cosmetic.

We do hope to take one wall out to open our kitchen to our eating space -- but what’s funny is, now that’s been cleaned and painted in there, everyone compliments that wall when they walk through. I can’t tell if it’s just because they feel like they should say something nice, or if people actually like it. But the room works great before a big overall.

I know the power of paint. I know that just because something looks dingy doesn’t mean it’s worthless.

And I knew this house wasn’t to far gone -- like the walls were still good walls. When I walked into this house I could literally feel how solid it was. When you walk through like 20 houses in one day, you can feel good crafts menship in your foot steps.

We knew we had hardwood floors upstairs. We knew we could install nice floor downstairs.

What’s your biggest aid in planning how your house will look and function?
Pinterest. Hands down.

How does Pinterest help you so much?

I’m a very visual person. I’m nonstop noting what I see. As I’ve aged I’ve trained myself to see more and more. The first time I took an art class, during a summer while I was in high school, I was shocked to learn how little I took in about things I’m looking at. When I was instructed to do a light-and-dark shadow study for an entire 3 hour class I was introduced to the concept of actually seeing things instead of just grazing over it. I didn’t know how to draw because I wasn’t truly observing how anything looked. Since then I’ve been a student of sight. I make mental notes of colors -- noting what I like about them, how they make me feel, what the do to spaces, they way the change things around them. I make notes about shapes and what they seem to say. I make notes about people’s outfits and why I like them and how I could recreate them. I note furniture. I note textures. I just note everything I see and keep it stock piled up.

Pinterest is basically my brain visible to other people. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that pinterest got created.

So the more I look at Pinterest to search out house stuff the more ammo I have for my own home’s renovation stock piled up for me to reach for.

I’ve made a huge effort to make sure I use Pinterest in a way that is non stressful for me. I only follow boards that inspire me on topics I enjoy. And I unfollow any boards that either don’t apply to my existence or stress me out for any reason. Pinterest is my happy place. It  IS NOT my guilt center.

If pinterest hasn’t been created I would have been doing this same process online, just not as efficiently.

I use it to get a general idea of the looks and feels I want too surround myself with. I just pin anything feel like I would like living in. And then I go back and look through those from time to time to narrow down common themes, and try to think through how that would fit in to my house.

But I also look for tiny actual details of things, like how to lay out our closet and pantry. Or how people laid out their laundry room - -trying to get the most bank for my buck in every single space.
I pin TONS and TONS. Sometimes I pin a picture just for one small bit in there. Or sometimes just because I like the vibe, and I don’t plan on using anything in the picture, but trying to capture the same feeling the room had. And then there are the pins I plan on following the link to follow a specific tutorial. (But you can usually count on me tweaking it a bit.)

(I do this same kind of thing with clothes too.)

Man do I love Pinterest!



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Remember to come back and read more of my “interview.”:)

Updated!

I realized my “About Me” section was totally outdated -- our life has changed a lot since I had last updated it.
So I took the time to rewrite it this morning.
If your new around here, or you want to get to know me more, or just need a review of our story, check it out here. 
:)

Waterlogged

Friday night Blake and I made our plans for Saturday.

I was feeling the need to get out alone for a while so I planned to go to the thrift store (one of my fav activities) in the morning. Maybe stop for a coffee along the way.
And then in the afternoon Blake had a friend coming over with a truck and they were gonna clear out some more brush from our yard.
We were feeling good about our plans.

Saturday morning my iPhone (which a a relatively new item in my existence) was laying next to me on the couch (actually I hadn’t realized it was and I was half sitting on it) started vibrating and making a really loud never heard before sound. I reached under my leg surprised and pulled it out to see it telling me we had a flash flood warning. It was raining at the time. But I didn’t think much of it. We’ve lived in this area and seen plenty of flash flood warnings before. In my experience it had only meant you can’t get through the streets that dip down under railroad tracks. It had never done anything at all to our old house’s yard or even the streets there.
So Blake and I waited a while, talked about it and decided,  “Yeah, you can still run to the thrift store, there are no deep roads on the way.” I was READY to get some alone time, so I didn’t argue much about the storm.
Hoped in the van. Drove down my street fine. Turned down the next, enjoying the radio, got close to the end of this very very flat street and saw a car driving through a puddle that was half way up it’s doors. And with that, I threw away my day’s plans. Stopped, did a three point turn, and went home.

So I’m back, just disappointed I couldn’t shop. Feeling overly closed in. I start to come to terms with it and then we realize our family room has water coming into it from underneath the back door.

(Our family room is an addition our our house. So while most our house is up above the ground with  crawl space under it, this room is resting right on the ground.) Outside our window was a 3inch deep river flowing by, and out past our deck, our entire yard is at least 2 inches deep of water.

It’s a feeling I’ve never had before. I mean I knew it’ wasn’t going to wash our house away, and that we weren't going to drowned or anything, but it was an awful feeling knowing I am incapable of fixing this, and knowing the water was in charge now. Knowing that the water was gonna do whatever it wanted to, and I was just gonna have to watch it, all the while wishing it wasn’t doing that!

Blake ran outside with a shovel trying to swish the water away from the door. But the water was too far gone -- it was everywhere.

We started moving all our stuff to the other side of the room, away from the door.
And Blake ran to the store to buy sand bags and a pump, as soon as the rain let up. I was nervous for him to drive anywhere after I saw the streets, but I knew he’d be safe and that we needed the stuff.

After that the day just kinda tumbled by slowly.
The room was basically half wet. The carpet feeling like a waterbed in places, it’d bounce buoyantly on the water hiding beneath.

Blake set the sand bags in place. I paced in complete disarray.

The water cleared away from the door so we didn’t think we needed the pump now.

I was an emotional ball of total upset.
The floor under the carpet (I discovered while white-washing our fireplace -- getting curious and yanking a corner of the carpet back) is a brick floor. This made my brain say “ooohhhh!” because the floor in here feels lumpy and uneven in a way that made me think the concrete must have been insane -- brick, now brick makes sense.
Part of me got excited to think about how it could be aesthetically cool. Another part of me wondered how scary that could be -- lumpy brick floor with small ones running (potential future ones crawling) around. I don’t know if there are toe-stubbers in there or what we’d see. BUT…ok the last people to live here were bad pet owner renters, and this room apparently smelled like cat urine so bad they replaced the carpet (despite the whole house reeking of pets -- so it had to have been HORRIBLE!) I’m sure that no one cleaned the floor under the old carpet before putting in new. So on warm days were we hadn’t turned on the A/C I could smell a bit of cat. I’ve wanted to clean under the carpet.
BUT…I did not want to do it now. And I did not want to be forced into it by rain.

SO all that to say, I didn’t know what we were supposed to do, try to dry out the carpet. Or tear out the carpet.
If we tear out the carpet, I have no idea if this room would be able to house anything by lumpy brick floor or new carpet -- as is there is NO WAY you’d be able to lay a hard floor on top of it. I don’t know how plausible leveling it is.
My kids have allergies and Jasmine wheezes at times. So we surely don’t want to risk mold and mildew.

Blake told me to just go to the thrift store at this point -- he wanted me to chill out -- and we couldn’t do much yet.

Good old thrift store did help a bit. I did find 3 pairs of jeans (one I cut into shorts, one that fits awesome, and one to use as soft cozy boyfriend jeans), an H&M army green adirondack jacket and another sweatshirt-jacket-cardigan all for $17 -- so that did cheer me up a bit.



(P.S. I also had to try this on! 

AWESOMELY horrible. Honestly -- I had been hoping it would be retro chic -- I’ve suddenly fallen in love with rompers and jumpsuits because if it’s good it’s awesome -- but ,like in this case, if it’s bad, it’s very,very bad!)

When I got home I went back into panic.

Then we looked in the crawlspace. There was 6 inches of water in there! Good thing we got a pump!

Blake got that set up and going. It took about two days to pump it out.

That night Blake ran to the store to get a dehumidifier -- got there 2 mins before close and bought the last one on the shelf! Phew!!

Saturday night I was losing it. I literally almost hyperventilated before we put the girls to bed. (I’ve never had that experience before -- I got myself back just before I lost it --but it was very very real  -- I was very overwhelmed.) Bedtime this week has been SO stressful in and of itself. Add in the stress of the day I was just not up for it. Blake was great and got the girls to bed, while I went into our bedroom and just laid down. I tried to get up to go help him once I calmed down but once I stood up, I literally almost threw up. I had to lay back down.
Even I was surprised at how upset I was. But I’ve never had my house full of water. I kept thinking of people who’s home actually flood and how horrible that is. (It does nothing to improve my situation, and it makes me feel guilty for getting so stressed, but I can’t stop thinking of the news scenes I’ve seen of houses half underwater.)

So far we’ve been vacuuming up water over and over again. 

Our friend who was gonna help with the yard, came instead to help with the water!

And non stop running the dehumidifier. (That thing can gather a shocking amount of water -- I’m VERY impressed!) And have a box fan and ceiling fan going nonstop. (The room is VERY loud!)

The carpet is feeling pretty much dry.
The room smells weird.
Next we need to shampoo the carpet and go from there.

We have our insurance coming out soon to see if we are covered, but likely we aren’t -- this isn’t a flood plain/zone.

After Saturday I’ve calmed down a lot.
I’m no where near as stressed out.

It’s rained more since then, but nothing crazy. Our house has been fine.
A women at church told us that in 24 years of living here this is the first time they’ve had to pump out their crawlspace -- so that’s been a comforting thought -- I wasn’t sure what kinda of house we bought! But it seems like a crazy freak thing that’s not normal -- I hope!

SO that’s our current now.

In other news, I’m feeling really apathetic towards doing any more painting in our house -- or more accurately doing the prep work to get to painting -- the wall washing (get rid of wallpaper paste) and the mudding and sanding. I’m just feeling BURNT OUT on it.
What I want to do right now is organize and decorate. Like it was a normal place to live. I want to hang pictures and shelves, and set closets up just so.
I can’t tell if I should indulge that now, or just force myself to prep and paint (which would be what this house needs more.) But I often try to do the things that will keep my soul afloat instead of the predictable thing in life.

So we’ll see what this week holds -- I’ve learned it’s not always what we plan!