The vision

Okay so this one photo ... this one photo is our muse ... our vision so to speak for this house of our's. 

People keep asking me "How are the renovations going?"

Here's the truth: They aren't.

Oh, we've started them in our minds and on paper. But we haven't called in the contractor yet.

It's funny. I've been married for twenty years, and while I have had a lot of houses, they have always, for sure, no doubt about it, been stopping places. Sometimes I tried to convince myself that they were more, but that's all they were. 

Ten times we have moved in the nearly twenty years we have been a couple.

(Maybe, actually, this whole world is a big stopping place, right?)

Sorry ... a bit too deep for this blog post. 

Let me back up.

A few months before the flood that took over our house, JB and I sat down and talked about this house we live in. The truth is: we bought a farm that we loved that came with a house that we did not love. It is adequate and beautiful on the outside. But the inside is quirky and cumbersome and just didn't fit us our the type of life we live. 

But we sat and talked. JB basically said: "Either we renovate the house or you stop complaining." 

And after discussion, I agreed to stop complaining. The house worked. It was fine. I didn't love it. But we didn't want to spend a fortune fixing it up when we had 100-acres we could spend more time on. 

So we shelved it. Said that was it. We'd tackle some small projects to make it better. But we'd avoid the really big things.

And then the flood. 

And with the flood came the check from the insurance company.

And with the check came this thought: what do we do? Put the house back in a way that we don't like? Or put it together the way it looks in our dreams?

And so, we aren't renovating right now because we are dreaming. John is measuring and drawing and sketching and planning. 

We aren't sure when, but soon ... soon we'll call in a team and we will get it done. But for now, the house is livable and so we are living in it. This means that the boys room had to sort of be "halfway" put back together and there isn't room for Abigail in it. And this means that both girls are sleeping in our room. Both boys were on the living room couches but we managed to get the upstairs livable as well (thank goodness!)

We are making it work. And we are planning. We have some very cool plans for this house which include:

• Adding a mudroom! (What farmhouse doesn't have a closet on the first floor?!)
• Opening up the whole downstairs and making the kitchen much bigger.
• Having a dining room big enough to seat at least 12 (since that is how many eat here quite often!)
• Swapping the current dining room and current schoolroom completely around.
• Eliminating our vaulted ceiling and instead creating a second living area upstairs (which will be a library/quiet study area!)
• Completely redoing the kids "Jack-n-Jill" bath. It will become two full baths to accommodate four growing kiddos.
• Finishing the reno on the girls' room which is at a stand-still.

So there you have it. This will not be easy. It will not be quick. It won't be cheap. But with the check from the insurance company, we feel it is time.

Onward ... someday we hope to have something that resembles the picture at the top of this page.

Until then ...