The Work that Makes a House a Home

Putting a For Sale sign in front of a home you love is sad. We've come such a long way with our beautiful old home with the perfect address. So much progress has happened since a year ago when we "Gave a Boy a Hammer."

New bathroom subfloor, new living room ceiling, new toilet, improved plumbing, improved electrical, patched hole in Annie's ceiling--you get the idea.  Jason has worked so hard!

Remember that strange cavity we opened up and hoped to make a future linen closet?

Check!  Jason built shelves that go way back and even ran electrical so we can have light.  (Plus now it even looks organized.)

Even though the plywood floor of our attic storage space has been back for a long while, one Saturday in March I decided it would be great to throw sheetrock over the insulation since it was falling down everywhere.  An afternoon project, right?

Of course not.  It turned out that all of the rafters needed to be sistered in the process.

On the bright side, these deeper rafters allowed us to put in thicker insulation as well.  Good thing our minivans can transport a lot!


Bad news is I had a nasty run-in with the staple hammer.  I thought I'd be all awesome and independent and put up some insulation on my own, which was going great until all of a sudden it wasn't.  The bruising has gone away, but my fingernail is still black and may yet fall off.

Totally worth it for the final product, though.

Jason shows off his amazing skills.

By the way, this is what the girls' room looked like in the meantime.  Yikes!  They slept in the guestroom downstairs.

For the finishing touch, Callie and I  added some carpet that we found rolled up in the storage area.  Here's Callie hard at work--beware coming to our house for a "vacation."

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Lounging on our new creation--a bit patchwork, but a definite improvement all the same.

Look at how adorably the girls decorated their new space.

 I kid you not, I think this detail may have sold the home.

Other projects: we had to relocate some decorations in Eli's room. 

The Death Star got to stay--it was just too cute to take down.

We also decided to restain our back deck.


What an improvement!


I tackled this one by myself--but not without major mishap--again.  I guess we can all see why I usually leave this stuff to Jason.

Talia helped me clean the walls in their bedroom.  Unfortunately, the growth chart for their baby dolls had to go.  Fortunately, Magic Erasers work wonders.

I ran around town like crazy looking for some new art.  Why do I never decorate until we're leaving?

In the end, I think the house looked pretty great.

Of course, I'm hoping this five-leaf clover I will bring extra good luck. One lucky leaf to get our old home completely sold, plus another lucky leaf to help us find a new one in Salt Lake.

Good news is that luck often goes hand in hand with hard work--and that we can handle.