Making a House a Home

We have lived in our house for 8 years now. It's the longest we've ever lived in a place (besides where each of us grew up). We moved around a lot in the beginning of our marriage. By the time we graduated from BYU and moved to Meridian to our first home, we had moved 5 times. We spent a year and a half in that first house, before moving in with Scott's parents for a year. Then we moved to our house in Middleton. It was my dream house at the time, because it was ours. We lived there not quite three years, and I was so sad to leave. It was home. I had so many good memories with my first three little kids there.

And then we came here. It wasn't under the circumstances I would have liked, we kind of got forced into moving on. This house was so big. With only three little kids, I didn't feel like we needed this much space, and felt so frivolous living here. And this house was so expensive.  I knew we weren't living within our means, and that completely stressed me out.  I have to be honest, I hated this house for the first two years that we lived here, because I didn't feel like we should be in it.

And then, finally money started to not be such a stress, and we added a few more kids to our family, and I began to be so grateful for this house.  I loved how much room we had here, and loved that it enabled us to fill it with kids.  I went from feeling like the house was too big, to feeling like it was so perfect for us.  It became home.

And then we had a few more kids, and things started to feel just a bit crowded.  This house is big, but it isn't configured well for a big family.  There were things I wished I could change.  Scott and I began to talk about the need to move on to a house more suited to our large family.  We didn't want to uproot our kids, though, so we started looking within a square mile from where we currently are.  We didn't find anything that seemed to match all of the things on our wish list.  So, we talked about building.  We could build our dream house, and have it be perfect for us to live in forever.  But, in order to stay near friends, we needed to find an empty lot close by, and there weren't any.

But then, a new neighborhood right next to ours was announced.  It would be in our ward, and would be connected by sidewalks to ours.  Our kids would be able to ride their bikes over to our cul-de-sac and play with all their friends.  It was going to be perfect.  And so we went into savings mode.  We knew we needed to have 20% down for the lot, and that was going to be a lot of money.  So we saved, and we saved, and we saved.

And then the new lots in that neighborhood came on the market, and they were very expensive.  They were $150,000 to $180,000 for just under an acre of land.  And while we had enough to put 20% down, the thought of spending that much on land, caused our stomachs to churn.  We spent a week talking about it and praying that we'd make the right choice.  At one point, Scott suggested, "Why don't we take the money we have saved up for this lot, and use it to fix this house.  That way we get a house we want to stay in, without increasing our debt".  It instantly felt right.  We could remodel here, and not have to start over on a new and larger mortgage. It would be the safe financial move, and the best emotional move.  This is home, and if we could find a way to stay, it could continue to be home for a long time still.

So, we called up our friend that is a contractor, and had him come over and started showing him what needed to change.  First up - the laundry room.  I can't keep up with laundry around here.  I really wanted to be able to have double washers and dryers.  And we also have no good place to keep kids' shoes/coats/backpacks.  Ideally we'd have a big laundry room AND a mud room, but when you are working with what you have, you make do.  So, we decided to turn our laundry room into the ultimate laundry room/mud room.  In order to do that, we had to gut the entire thing.  We had the washer on one wall, and the dryer on another wall, and everything else was cabinets.  Here is the before pictures...

Looking in through the door at the washing machine and the sink in the corner.

Standing on the back wall and looking at the dryer and sink.

Looking at the back wall.

 The weekend we blessed Kate, we started demolition on the laundry room.  We chose to do the demolition ourselves, to save on money.  Mike and Shauna were here that weekend to help with the work.

The guys tearing out the sink.

Me with a sledge hammer.

After we did the demolition, the rebuilding began.  I had a steady stream of subs coming in and out of my house for a week. 

Laying down the tile.

  And the finished product.  I absolutely love how it turned out.  It's beautiful and it's completely functional.  Each kid has their own open locker (Owen and Kate share one), and I can do two loads of laundry at the same time!

The double washers and dryers are on the wall that the dryer used to be on.  We took out the corner sink, and put a counter to the side to store my laundry basket on.  It's perfect for tucking it back out of sight.

Looking in through the door.

The wall that the washing machine used to be on.  (Savannah, Josh, and Sara's cubbies)

The other side of the room - three more cubbies just opposite of the other three.  (Aaron, Nate, and Owen/Kate's cubbies)

And my beautiful white marble tile floor.  I love how bright and open the room is now.  It used to be so dark, and now everything is white and bright.

The laundry room isn't the only room we've changed.  The same weekend that we started on the laundry room (Kate's blessing weekend), we did a remodel on our piano room.  My sister Shauna is so talented at home decorating, so she volunteered to help me with a project of my choosing while she was here for the blessing.  I chose to do board and batten in my piano room.  We got most of it done while she was here, and then my dad finished it up during the following week (my parents stayed a week when they came for the blessing).  And then since we had redecorated the room, I decided I wanted it to be more useful.  It used to have a big book shelf along one wall, and the piano was against the other wall, with a chair in the corner by the windows.  We took the bookshelf out, and moved the piano to where it used to be.  That opened up the room to more furniture.  We bought a new couch to go in there, and got one that is a sofa sleeper.  With only 4 bedrooms in our house, we could no longer have one be a guest room.  We figured with a sofa sleeper, we'd be able to accommodate guests better.  Here are pictures of the new piano room.

The wall that the piano used to on.  And showing off my beautiful new white board and batten that we added to our already blue wall.

The piano moved to where the bookshelf used to be.

My new couch.

My cherished hand and foot molds of all my babies.

And I have one more project to brag about.  This one was actually done before we made the decision to stay.  All three of our bathrooms have the same tile counter tops.  The guest bathroom counter started falling off the instant we moved in.  The tile just wouldn't stay glued on the edge of the counter.  We had our builder friend look at it, and he said the reason it wouldn't stay on, was because it was just glued onto a strip of wood that had been tacked on.  The only way to fix it was to rip it all out and start over.  So we lived with it... for 8 years.  And then when we started talking about getting our house ready to sell, we knew we needed to fix that counter top.  So I spent a week (while I was pregnant) chipping off the tile  from the counter top.  And then we found a scrap piece of granite on Craigslist, and had a granite guy cut it to size and install it.  And then we installed the tile back splash.  It turned out great, and I find myself wishing I could do it to all of our bathrooms.

This is the counter top in our master (to show what the guest bathroom used to be).

The new bathroom counter top and back splash.

And so we are slowly turning this house into the house of our dreams.  Next up is going to be a complete kitchen remodel and possible second story additional bedroom add on.  It's exciting and scary all at the same time.  In the end we will have a house that works for us, in a place that we love, and keeping us in a position that we are financially comfortable.  And that really makes me happy.