Settling In

Dear Child of Mine,

As previously mentioned, we’ve moved homes 5 times in 6 years of marriage. For this “home body” type, that is far too many times. Even though, by some stroke of God, we’ve ended up back in the same house we lived in before, we’re different and it feels different. Our mentality has changed. “This is our home. Let’s settle in and make it our own and care for it with hard work and dedication.”

Your dad has been working on removing the overgrown plants and weeds from around the house and he’s making great progress on clearing the cement pad we’ve claimed for our patio/fire pit. I’ve cleaned crevices I only ever wanted to ignore and mopped the kitchen floor more times than I can count. (In two months of living here, the mopping must number at least 8 or 10 times…a record for me, given that mopping used to be lowest on my chore priority list.) Having a wonderful washer and dryer on the first floor, connected to our bedroom, is housekeeping heaven. No more laborious trips to the laundromat – I am so thankful.

And last week we finally began the daunting task of repainting. We’ve only completed one room, but given the continual stream of overnight guests, I think that’s forgivable. Painting makes a BIG statement of our intention: we plan to be here a while. I’ve never painted any other home we lived in because I always had this gut feeling of, “What’s the point? We won’t be here long enough to enjoy it.” So yeah, painting is pretty symbolic.

Originally, I wanted everysingleroom in the house repainted in the first week we moved in. I quickly realized that was completely unrealistic. But I refused to allow the faded wall colors and the wallpaper borders become routine and ignored – like that pile of papers on the desk that’s been there for five weeks. When I learned that a local hardware store was liquidating its products at 60-80% off, I headed over right away. I purchased 4 gallons of Dutch Boy paint-primer-in-one, each for around $11 (compared to the $35 retail price). Score! Color selections were limited because of the store closing, but after about an hour of deliberating, I finally made up my mind. (God bless the patience of the paint department employee.)

That very night I started edging and fell in the love with the color for the living room. I was so thankful for Kevin’s participation in the process. He diligently scraped the wallpaper border as I followed him with the paint. I hate wallpaper, he hates painting and neither of us was stoked about the project. But each afternoon Tuesday through Thursday we can home and worked for about 2 hours. Being together and listening to episodes of The West Wing on Netflix made the process much more enjoyable. Thanks, husband! Now we must move on to the dining room and kitchen…yay?) Looking forward to just being done. I surely love the finished product.

BEFORE (cream/neutral walls, window treatments, floors):