Sometimes it seems like yesterday that our hallways and bedrooms were filled with boxes, but Sunday marked three years that we’ve been in our house. I get frustrated sometimes, thinking that everything should have been done in the house by now. The laundry list of things that have yet to be fixed or painted or decorated seems to grow exponentially as the months go by.
The frustration is compounded by the fact that we found out we have to gut the bathroom. Yes, dear readers, gut. And this is a bathroom that I didn’t plan on touching until the very end. The center hall, the music room, our two guest rooms, the attic, refinishing the hardwood on the entire second floor, fixing our leaning garage, and some new light fixtures were all ahead of this bathroom. but, as leaks go, we are screwed because the offending pipes are IN THE FLOOR. Can’t access them from underneath. LOVELY.
I don’t necessarily want to use the phrase “failure” to describe how I feel about myself with regards to the house projects, but sometimes that’s the only word I can think of. It’s borderline embarrassing to have someone walk in the house and see the gaping hole we opened up to try to solve the leak issue. And as my friend Julie joked, every time I fix one part of the house or room, the adjoining areas that aren’t done look shabbier. It’s true.
But when it comes down to it, it’s not a failure. Even though I haven’t finished any major projects since before the fall, there are so many little things that have been done that I should feel proud about. A new print in the living room, a new rug in the one guest room, organizing my yarn stash so it doesn’t look like it exploded in the “kitty/crafting/New York/chocolate milk” room. And when it comes down to it, there’s still one major thing to be proud of: we have a house, and we have a loving home.
I think the biggest thing to date that we have done is the new addition of Abby, our puppy. And that has certainly come with its own host of challenges and redecorating and being very grateful I own a lot of kitchen towels to clean slobber up off the floor when she freaks when we leave the house. And we have done some decorating for her, mainly in the form of a bright purple octopus toy that is usually right in the middle of the living room, and a prairie dog antler that is typically in the worst possible location (ie not fun to step on).
So you know what? I may not have sanded or painted anything in the past few months, but I am so happy with the home we have continued to create for ourselves.
Restoring Life 