After all of the real-estate drama that this past year has brought to us, we finally have the house!

It’s been quite the journey: first our house didn’t sell, then we renovated over Christmas (not always the best idea, friends), then we sold in a heartbeat… only to find a house we loved, with an extreeeemely long closing date. 

We are still living with my extremely generous and patient sister-and-brother-in-law. Their basement is our crash pad. We have filled every nook and cranny with our stuff. I’d show you pictures, but I know that the internet lives forever. 

I don’t want that kind of incriminating evidence to have a permanent home anywhere.

And now we have the house. We have keys, a front door, and lot of projects. 

This is the evidence of one of those projects. And it’s my handiwork.

You can tell this is my worksite by the disaster surrounding this orange bucket. The way I demolish is one part chaos, one part swear words. 

I am a big fan of this crow bar after this past week. He and I have done a lot of taking-apart-of-things. 

And it’s left me in that weird post-demolition haze where I am constantly asking myself, “What have I done!?!? And can this be put back together?”

Tell me that you have had those thoughts too, guys. Tell me that you’ve ripped something off the wall or up from the subfloor and you’ve instantly had the wave of, “What am I DOING!!??!”

There are so many projects to showcase for you guys, but I want to take my time. I want to really get my feet planted and my ideas sorted before I start showing off every room in the house. 

But first, I have to show you this:  

This is Lila’s room-to-be. It has a beach mural on every single wall. 

Lila loves it. She calls it “paradise”. Grandpa Golfer is trying to convince me to let her keep it. 

But I have other plans. 

Of course I do. 

And  I don’t want to be cold about it. I appreciate every brushstroke that went into the mural. I have been sanding them down… and each line of paint was very serious about its job. The once-little-girl who lived in this room probably adored her walls. 

But that little girl grew up and doesn’t live here any more. 

So we have to say goodbye to the palm trees and the sandy beaches. If I can ever sand them off. 

It’s exciting and terrifying, this renovating thing. Our last house was a series of small renovations; oftentimes, the jobs were put together with bubblegum and shoestring. This time, we’re taking off a big chunk. We want to make some large and meaningful changes, and that means sucking up your courage and just tearing apart fireplaces and ripping up carpets. 

It’s all very exciting and terrifying and…. real. 

I love me a good renovation. But I won’t lie. There are so many times where I want to put my hand to my head in a Hayley Mills pose and sigh.