Renovation Realities

Little by little Coy and I are making necessary updates to our home. Last year we focused on smaller projects - replacing/updating the light fixtures, painting, landscaping, etc. This year we started some larger (which in this case larger means more elaborate and more expensive).

 

In the past month we had our house repainted. Although our house is only trimmed with wood it was still a pretty extensive project. 

We attempted to pick out a color slightly darker than the original color on the left (sorry for the poor quality, I forgot to get an actual 'before' pic and this was the best I could do); however, as you can see it turned out not only darker, but a little blue. I've heard that grey either ends up looking slightly purple or slightly blue so I'm glad it was latter. It look a minute to grow on me since the change was pretty drastic, even though it doesn't show in this picture, but we ended up loving it! Makes our house looks years younger!

We are pretty pleased with the finished project.

 

Next, we moved onto the countertops. Although our original countertops weren't awful, several of the end caps were missing portions and despite our attempts to find a piece just to replace the end this ended up being more difficult than we originally anticipated.

A huge shout out to Coy's Uncle Mike who really is a handyman genius. Coy's dad was also a huge help and we couldn't have done it without their help!

 

Once we got started on the project we realized that our new countertops were slightly shorter than our old countertops...meaning that we had a slight gap of unfinished drywall above the edge of the countertop. We debated between caulking and painting this section and adding backsplash. We ended up choosing backsplash because neither of us could bear the headache of all the tedious work the painting option would have led to. Well that and we have wanted some sort of backsplash since we moved in and got rid of the old/ugly backsplash.

This led to another debate of what kind of backsplash. Something not too time consuming to add nor too expensive. Thanks to the helpful guy at Home Depot we ended up doing a stainless steel tile option. He sold me with 'this stainless steel option will be twice the price but will take 1/4 of the time to complete.' For once, a home project went better than expected and this was SUPER easy.

 

 

We both love the final result and can't stop staring at it whenever we are at home!

 We are already compiling our upgrades for 2015 so stay tuned!

 

see ya satan.

Recently, when processing through some tough things going on at work I finally came to realization that Satan was trying to get the best of me. For the first time, in what feels like a long time, Coy and I have been in a place of contentment. Not contentment in a bad, "don't change me God" kind of way, but a peaceful contentment encircling our lives...For the first time in our marriage and probably his entire adult life, Coy is finally doing work that he enjoys. In addition to playing with kids all day, he has been blessed with an amazing opportunity to serve the students at our church. Speaking of church, we are finally feeling at home after a long journey following a hard 'break-up' with our previous church. And the good times have kept rolling...we haven't been strapped financially every 5 minutes. We have been able to make some upgrades to our home that we have long been seeking. We haven't been constantly consumed with thoughts of never having children and when that thought has crossed our minds it hasn't been as devastating as it has been in the past. We've enjoyed vacations, laughter and sunshine in abundance these past few months. The list could go on and on and Satan has hated every second of it.
While life had seemed to finally be throwing us some peace Satan attacked me where I was most vulnerable. That place doesn't necessarily happen to be my workplace but in this occasion my workplace was used to start making me question my capabilities, my work abilities, my competence, and most importantly the respect that others had for me. I pride myself on my skills and my leadership and when some of the things I value most about myself seemed to be questioned it rocked me to my core. It left me unhinged, hurt, confused, and just pretty low. Satan has battled and lost in so many other areas of my life that he struck a stable place that had never been struck before. While it was a hard few days and weeks I was reminded that my honor and my value is not found in where or how I work or anywhere else for that matter...my honor only comes from the Lord. No matter what happens in my career, God will remain my mighty rock. If Coy and I never have children God will remain my refuge. If life continues to toss and turn me, as life always does, I will keep my eyes focused on God and I will trust in him at all times because he has never let me down and I don't think he will start to now.

 

Psalm 62: 7,8