The Transformative Power of Sweat Equity... AKA My Before And After House Pictures

Don't you love a good transformation?

My favorite is when a lost soul finds peace in God and therein transforms from selfish ambitions to focus on others.

I also like when the sun transforms nuclear energy into ultraviolet, infrared, and gamma energy. Just kidding. I don't even understand energy transformation. Plus, I live in the Northwest and haven't seen much of this thing called the sun in like 6 months.

Falling ever so slightly short of the transformative power of Jesus Christ, or electromagetnic energy, house make-overs are pretty cool too.

Mine has keep me from writing to you fine people for the last two years. We've been working A LOT on the deferred maintenance, late 80's home we purchased as first-time home-buyers.

The brass was a-shinin and the honey-oak was a-plenty when we arrived in 2014. 

But I loved it right from the beginning.

People say, "You'll know The One when you see it" about wedding dresses and houses. I could have worn any of the half dozen wedding dresses I liked best, but I literally walked in the front door of this house and knew it was right. 

We bought it via long-distance. I had seen it once; my husband saw it for the first time two months later when we moved in. So... it's a pretty good thing it worked out for us as well as it has.

The number of hours we spent sanding, painting, digging, trimming, sanding and painting more, spakling and skim coating, cutting and building, and sanding and painting some more is almost painful to recall. My hands are aching at the mere memory.

There were many, many weekends and late nights of work, and probably just as many trips to Home Depot. 

Some of it was fun.

Master bedroom

Master bathroom

Tile and electrical work was hired out, as was the composite deck in the backyard. We did everything else, sometimes with help from handy family members.

A pretty careful budget was maintained over all. Hard work and creativity are excellent money-savers.

Guest Room                                                                                         Office

Kids' Bedrooms

I could easily write a post on each room. 

...But that sounds like a lot of work. And I'm not a home blogger.

Finished basement: from dark man-cave to kid-friendly game space

I'm super bias but I think it's a pretty great house in a really great city. I have felt overwhelmingly privileged to live here the last 23 months.

Oh, but now we're moving. 

It's a story for another day, but in short, we're moving to a new state to be with family. 

I guess you could say: we're making a transformation from a truly lovely place to live -- to a life with truly lovely people.

Maybe in 2 years I'll have another house of photos to share. But I kind of hope not.

LovelyLife: Ballerina Darth

 

"Luke, I am your Ballerina Mother."

 

 

The unification of girly propensities with aspirations to mimic a big brother create some comical composites.

LovelyLife: Umbrellas and Rainbows

“Teach me, O Lord, to glory in my cross. Teach me the value of my thorns.

Show me how I have climbed to You through my path of pain.

Show me that it is through my tears that I have seen rainbows.”  

- George Matteson

 

 

I've been staring at this picture for a long time now, not sure what I want to say about it. The thing is, I'm afraid I'm stuck in an arc of cliche. 

 

Last night, in the middle of dinner, this beautiful rainbow appeared over our house. I nearly pushed my family out the door to go enjoy it, while dinner sat on the table getting cold.

 

The picture is bursting with rainbows for me. My children playing in the rain, the home they stand in front of... my cup runneth over. My overwhelming gratitude for this life brings me back to where I've come from, what I've come through. And so, when I look at this, as much joy and beauty as it holds for me, I can't help but offer to anyone currently feeling like you are on a path of pain: may the hope of something beyond that help you through. Hang on for the rainbow.

 

And pain or no pain, it doesn't hurt to go play in the rain. 

(Sorry, I warned you it was going to be cliche.)

 

 

LovelyLife: Butter-no-fly

 

Okay, I just kind of got lucky with this. I think it looks like an early 90's inspirational poster. I need a kitschy saying for the bottom to complete the look. Actually, I think the poor butterfly was sickly or really, really tired because I've never seen a butterfly stay put for as long as this one did. I had time to fish my scratched-up old camera out of my purse, turn it on, focus, and take a couple of pictures before it even flapped a wing. Hmm, maybe something like this:

 

 

LovelyLife: Ballet Class

 

 

Cherish.

Cherish your gifts and take joy in them.

 

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."  

 -- Epicurus

 

I spent years hoping and dreaming of a daughter. In my younger years (sheesh, how old am I now if I start saying that?), she was more of an expectation for the future. In my later/sicker years, she was a painful yearning that seemed unlikely. But God brought her to me. Today, I can look down at a circle of toddling, pink-tutu-ed beauties and be filled with gratitude that I am in that place, there with her, whom I cherish.

 

(And later, at that terrible hour before dinner when everyone is tired and cranky, and my children seem to be incapable of refraining from bickering, I will remind myself to cherish.)

LovelyLife Photo Series #5: Welcoming Committee

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 

 I didn't have to search far in looking for the lovely this morning; this one comes to you from my front doorstep. My 6 year old son left Iron Man in the entry window. He's keeping an eye on things for us.

 

Happy September all. May you feel blessed by your safety today.

LovelyLife #4: Little Explorer

 

 

“Explore often. Only then you will know how small you are and how big the world is.” 

-  Pradeepa Pandiyan

 

LovelyLife #3: Tomatoes

Growing Tomatoes

Don't you just love the smell of tomato plants in the summer time?



“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

LovelyLife #2: Farmer's Market

Farmers Market

Lovely Life Photo Series Begins

The road we walk upon is sometimes so smooth and beautiful and sometimes so treacherous and painful. And don't we all know it.

I find one of life's great challenges is to be able to feast upon flecks of good amidst the terrible that is bound to come, or even amidst the quasi-terrible, or from the monotony of the everyday. To choose joy. Choose hope. Choose to have a good attitude.

In my ever-present quest to not overlook the lovely, please allow me to share a few snapshots with you. For the next however long, whilst I seem unable to find the time to blog in words, here are some images of the lovely, as I see and capture them. May they provide at least a fleeting moment of peacefulness in your day.

I don't have a fancy camera. It's about a $75 point-and-shoot Cannon, nicely adorned with some hefty scratches. But I do like to take pictures. And even more, I like when I'm wise enough to see some of the beauty abounding on God's earth.

Looking for the lovely,
Jennifer

- Mossy tree -