A New Porch for My Birthday

 

Last week we celebrated my birthday with our normal family dinner, except this time we had an additional little bundle with us. Our 1-week-old grandson, Calem, finally joined us. As you can see, his sisters are in love with him already. I'm holding Asa, who is 5 months old today, and seems so big now, compared to Calem. It's so fun to have two boys added to the all-girl crew. Our future is going to be busy, for sure!

Speaking of busy...this is/was our back porch. I've never shown a picture of the house because it's so ugly, but last week it started getting a facelift, so I had to show the "before" photo. 

Since we bought this place, 4 months ago, we've had 9 trees cut, a new roof, landscaping done, a patio built, the house pressure washed and now the back porch is getting screened in and the windows and trim are being painted white. We are so excited!

Oh, and my husband has also gutted, repaired and is now renovating our master bathroom. Whew! We've been busy!

Here's what we have, so far. The porch now has a roof and this week will bring a beadboard ceiling, screened in sides and two swinging screen doors at the steps. This is my favorite improvement, out of everything we've done up to this point. 

There is very often a breeze out here in the evenings and it's going to be so nice to sit and enjoy the lake, without all the bugs! Plus, I'll have another space to decorate and that's always a good thing!

We are really starting to love this place and feel at home here. It's taken awhile. Renting is always interesting because you have to really work at feeling "at home" in something that isn't yours. But, once we bought it (after 2 years of renting), it instantly had a new feel; like it was finally ours and we were at home again. 

I've wondered over the past few months, if we made a mistake taking on another fixer-upper. Although David and I both thrive when we have projects to work on, I was also enjoying having the weekends free and not being tied down to house projects all the time. But, there's something about making a place completely your own that's so satisfying. Plus, every other house we looked at over the past year, needed updating, but at much higher price points than this one. And, none of them sat on a private lake and none had friends right next door. 

So, here we are! Fixing up another house. We aren't strangers to doing this. We've only owned one new house our entire marriage and we still found things to add to that one, to make it fit our style.

 I firmly believe that we each have a style, and once you find that style and can manage to live in it, your home becomes so much more than just a place to sleep. Your home becomes a part of you and kind of wraps its arms around you, every time you come home. As a person who loves to be at home, I find this to be so important to having joy in my life. I've lived in places that never felt like home and you know what? I moved! Life's too short to come home to a place that doesn't feel like home. The older I get, the more I believe it. 

So, on that note, it's time to get myself ready for another day of builders being right outside my windows all day, having to walk the dog on a leash, which we haven't had to do in years, and catching up on bills and emails. It's going to be a great day!

Until Next Time...

Blessings!