It took me quite a few years into the marriage before I jumped in and started helping with the renovations for our homes. My poor husband held all of that painting and putting in floors etc, on his shoulders. My mom never did those and had no confidence in herself to learn, and I followed suit. But finally, I hopped in and began to help with the painting and other things.

One thing I did after several projects were done, was, knowing just how long it would be till we could afford doing our kitchen, I sanded the cupboards down and chalk painted them, choosing a sort of chop block for the top. Riley, my husband, was awesome about putting the countertop in, and Grandma and Grandpa, his parents, helped us immensely financially and physically with putting in a new backsplash and an additional counter. And they are the ones who helped us replace our flooring downstairs, which was a sculpted white carpet and a wooden floored kitchen that we had hammered. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

For Christmas, my son, a beautiful welder, put in the pan holder and my husband made this beautiful actual chopping block for the counter.

My in-laws have come to the rescue when something actually became a danger too, and we needed a holding wall rather than a long spindle banister. One day, the spindles all fell out! Mind you, we had an older baby at the time! Riley and I went on a get-a-way, and unbeknownst to us, they were busy busy bees, putting in all this, a holding post, a shorter banister, a new stairwell… and two porches and or stair rails in. I laughed and cried repeatedly. It was the surprise of my life!!! They are incredible people and have helped more than this too, helping us take out a concrete patio from a slanting one, which ran water toward the house, to a nice level one.

These events are all mixed up as far as time frame goes, so let’s go back to the beginning….

As I am sure you are familiar, two married people can have very different ideas for how a thing should be done. We finally got a plan for the destination of our home, and that plan did seem like it would be forever for me. My husband wanted to flatten all the walls of our large home, of orange peel texture. He had an idea for our bedroom to make smaller the huge layout, square the cornered bathroom wall, and combine our old closet with the teeny room next door. Which would add a lot of time to when we could change out the carpet!! Additionally, the main floor had two sets of stairs, one of which he wanted to make into a pantry. Being that I am not an engineer, but an impatient house wife, I have let him wear the pants in these decisions, figuring the results will be worth the wait.

Needless to say, we are both hyper focused into just what is at hand, so renovations have been v-e-r-y slow going. But it has been a beautiful thing when my husband started donating plasma twice a week so we could keep steadily having finances available for each new project.

There was one baby birth approaching, two babies back, where we got the main floor walls done JUST in time and much thanks to the Young Women’s President, Shannon L., who noticed a need when she came by, and came back with her counselor and daughter to help baby from arriving in a world of dangerous dust! A lovely friend and her kids were actually the ones to get all the dust out because it took the third mop for it to disappear. Each layer of cleaning being necessary to this end. Over the years, we began to figure out how to create less dust in this job, and the kids and I did a lot for the basement last year, and we are very close to an entire home of flattened walls.