When we bought our home, we knew it was a fixer upper and were excited about the prospect of fixing it up. The house had so much potential but was also live-able in the meantime. As we've been living in it we have come up with some AWESOME ideas of how we can change things. Some changes I have known will have to wait for several years but there were a few changes I wanted right away. We haven't been able to do them, other things kept being more important, and now that I've had an awakening {finally} about money again I have realized that all the BIG changes can't happen for several years or until I can become a financially contributing member in our household, which also seems several years away which I'll talk about at the bottom of this post.
So anyway all that being said we can still make little updates and changes here and there which bring a smile to my face and make living in this fixer upper more comfortable. Most recent one that I've been loving is the shower-head Brent just installed this weekend. In our guest bathroom the old shower head shot out an amazing stream of water... so powerful, so delightful... if you were 5 ft tall. Brent and I are both nearly 6 feet tall so you can see how this was frustrating for us. Brent was pretty sure doing this update would be a lot more expensive but he found an awesome deal on Amazon on this shower head. I was nervous that switching the shower heads would take away the amazing water pressure. I was wrong. The new shower head was the perfect change and now we have a delightful showering experience finally! No more squatting/slouching/( and even sometimes kneeling when I was pregnant and couldn't move that way) in the shower to rinse out my hair. I can stand straight and tall and it's something I totally appreciate and I'm so grateful to Brent for making that update! It makes me so happy! And he even made it look so nice and with some extra ingenuity added a piece to the wall to attach it to so it was plum. He is awesome.
I forgot to take a before picture. But you can tell where it used to come out, down where the hose attaches.
And while I'm at it I'll add a few more pictures of some of the awesome updates that Brent has done over the last year:
He tore out the disgusting orange shag:
And we had a guy install some boring gray carpet. It looks so nice and we all loved playing on it the day after.
The next three pictures are all "before pictures"
This pic is from before we moved in, (just so you know the beer cans weren't ours) it shows the old bar that was in the kitchen that Brent took out.
He also re-painted the kitchen because he had to re-sheetrock that white area on the wall that he had to tear out to figure out the electrical for the dishwasher he had installed.
And he had to tear out this old sliding glass door because it stopped working. Like literally. It was weird. But luckily our neighbor had a used one we could have that fit the spot pretty well.
We also bought a shoe cubby which doesn't get used perfectly yet [I had to put a bunch of the shoes off the rug and into their cubbies for this pictures] but here is the final product of all of the above updates:
Some of these updates were outside projects too...
He built this massive chicken coup which we still need to take detailed pictures of the finished product, this picture is from before he got the roof put on.
Some of the first things he did was tear out this old mobile home that was sitting on our property:
Tore out the weird inefficient ugly fireplace
And installed a fabulous wood burning stove
Tore out the weird stone "planter box"
and installed a wood box for our fire wood specially made by our neighbor
The very first update was that he removed some drawers
So I could have a dishwasher
(For this next one I can't believe I forgot to take a before picture!!! I tend to not think of it until he's starting the project or in the middle of it)
Another update Brent did fairly early on was pulling out shag carpet in the master bathroom, putting down some linoleum and pulling out both bathrooms old toilets and putting in new ones:
(he was so sweet letting Sanna help out. And she is so cute in her overalls.)
Here is the new linoleum and toilet:
We haven't replaced the linoleum or countertop in the other bathroom yet. So if you have a flash from the past when you see it you're not alone. My mom said we had the same linoleum and countertop in our bathroom which I vaguely remember.
Anyway these pictures show the new toilet and faucet he put in.
And that's not even to mention all the trees he's had to cut down and clear, all the junk he had to clear out of the shop that the previous owners left behind, all the burning he's had to do of junk and the mobile home and branches.
Plus he takes care of the chickens, chops the wood for our wood burning stove, makes the fires, and tries to teach the kids all these things.
He's such a good daddy.
All of that on top of a full time demanding job that he has to study for after work.
Wow, when you put it all in one spot it makes me realize how much Brent has already done in the house. These projects feel like they barely scratch the surface of what needs to do be done but he's plugging away at it. And someday when we've saved up for it, we can do the huge remodels. And we can get our house to look cool like this...
This has been fun reviewing the last year of projects. I'm going to do this again in a year. This is my prediction of what I'll be updating about:
*Shop closed in and converted into a "second dwelling"
*New Water System
*planter boxes
*windows installed into living room
*more trees cleared
*some hiking trails cleared
*and then a few little things that I will do like painting/decorating the girls room to make it look a bit nicer and maybe repainting the bathrooms, they look pretty bad.
That's quite a bit... not sure we will be able to do it all. I guess the year will tell!
And as I referenced it earlier about me contributing financially to the household...I honestly don't know how yet, if I'll go get a job when Izzy starts school or if by the time Izzy is in school if I'll be able to have my art/photography become a full time paying job. That's my dream and I feel like these next 5 years will be my time to prepare for that dream. I have to remember that if I don't, I'll probably be working for the school probably as a teachers aide or a substitute teacher, or as a lifeguard/swim teacher at the pool, or something like that. Which there is nothing wrong with those jobs, it's just not my dream.
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