the house

"Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great." (St. Luke 6:47-49)

As we work on our earthly house, we pray that we are allowing God to work on our spiritual house. Without a foundation, none of our re-modeling projects would matter at all. Likewise, without a spiritual foundation, God cannot mold us or shape us into His likeness. We are thankful that we have a foundation in Christ, and pray that we would always be open to His changes to make us more perfect!

An update on our physical house...

Lowe's, Home Depot, and Menards are like our homes away from home these days. Grant sent me into Lowe's the other day with a list that said: "stairway ballisters - Aisle 19, go all the way down, and they will be on your right, bottom shelf." I wasn't sure whether to be concerned about how much time we've been spending in that place or thankful that I didn't have to wander around the store at 9:30 p.m. reading signs with a confused look on my face.

Anyway, the most exciting part about this story is that we are working on the stairway, which means we are very close to finishing our "inside projects" list. We are very pleased with how everything turned out and we have learned so much about money, time, work, and trust through this project. Grant says so often that he learned more fixing up our house than he ever learned in school. It has been a good experience (although we wouldn't have told you that at certain points in the project). I've attached some before and after pictures below so you can get an idea of what we've been working on.

View from the front - last summer sometime

Current view from the front - porch is almost complete and there are new shingles. The door is also blue now, and those large bushes are gone... I just haven't taken a picture really recently. 

The living room on move-in day - green carpet, green curtains, and wallpaper! :) The door on the left-hand side led into the kitchen - we actually closed in this door and opened up another larger one further down, as you can see in the picture below:

The same end of the living room, as it currently looks - finished! You can't see the part just before this picture, but there is a large doorway that goes into the kitchen on the left-hand side. The front door is on the right, kind of behind the recliner.

The other end of the living room after carpet had been torn up and curtains replaced.

The same end of the living room after texture paint and carpet! Here you can see the opening into the kitchen.

The kitchen on move-in day. 

The kitchen today! Please ignore the three dish towels on the stove handle. I wish I could say I don't always have that many there... but I do.The microwave and stove is where that doorway used to be. The opening to the living room is now to the right of the fridge. We opened up the part above the cabinets, painted the cabinets, and got new hardware and lighting. We also put up wainscoating behind the cabinets, above the sink, and up to a chair rail all the way along the wall to the left of this picture, where the kitchen table is up against. Heidi G., I don't know if you read this blog, but thanks for the curtain fabric! It's the perfect size and I was so inspired that I planned the whole color scheme for the kitchen around it! :) The curtain still isn't finished (it's actually just pinned up there with safety pins in this picture) but it's one of the first things on my to-do list as soon as I have a free minute. 

So you can see what has been keeping Grant busy! We're so thankful for the flexibility that Country Tradesmen has offered him to get the house ready to pass along. 

Besides painting and decorating, I've been doing a lot of cleaning out. It is amazing how much stuff you acquire in one year. (Well, admittedly, I had a lot of stuff before we got married, too). Anyway, this past weekend, Mahomet had all-area garage sales, so it was a good incentive to get rid of stuff. I made $178.50 - which was pretty exciting! Our recliner didn't sell, unfortunately, so I had to bring that and just a couple other boxes back with me. Grant was a little skeptical when I told him we had gotten it to fit in my Honda Civic (we had transported it to Mahomet in Dad's truck) but it did make it back here and after pulling it out of the car in like the one way it would come out, he said, "Only you could fit that recliner in the back of that car." I wasn't sure if that was a compliment. :)

Please pray for us as we prepare for a July 3 moving date. We do have a buyer for our house, which we are so thankful for and send all the glory to God for His marvelous plan. Pray that God's will would be done and that we will be ready, in terms of both mental and material preparation, to leave on His appointed day!