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With all that I have been finding in the files to blog I found these. It caused its own trip down memory lane. It was post Thanksgiving, mid-Christmas parties, pre-moments of sanity...
[I did have my sanity once....I would get it back, right???].
It truly felt like all was falling to pieces. I certainly thought I was.
Two things can be said of our bathroom/hallway/bedroom remodel...
1) I am glad it is in our past!
2) I am thankful we did it!
For me to remodel I had to take everything apart, go through it piece by piece. No sense in putting anything back together if I didn't know exactly what everything was and WHY! And in my stubborn insecurity I had to do it myself. Washing walls, moving furniture, going through stacks and old clothes, drawers....arrrrrrgggghhhhh!
There was a lot of everythings....from kids school papers and artwork, to clothes from the early 80's [like I will ever fit into that and if I did, would I really wear it???].
So in pieces my room came apart, as did I in the process.
11 bags later....most for the Goodwill, some [ALOT] of paper recycling, a lot of shredding personal information.....and a few odds and ends. I even found a few Christmas Gifts that we had forgotten to give. For a moment I felt like Chevy Chase in the attic of Christmas Vacation; reminiscing on all that is past....with the present so chaotic, and the future out of sight.
Sure, I knew what I wanted. I knew what I was working towards. A place of Peace. Our room always seems to be the hangout. I have felt like it was one BIG closet for too many years now. Yet the kids...they LOVE it. It is their favorite place to chill. They want to be there when they are sick, when they are well, when they want some quiet time, alone time, or mommy time. My room has never been sacred....and the mess was beginning to really canker me. I needed order, so that I wanted to be in there as much as they did....
With the Christmas Social looming I had decided that if we could just make enough space in the Front Room for chairs [for entertaining] and maybe the Christmas Tree [for seasons greetings] that we could pull it off.
If people needed the bathroom, they could
A) use the toilet in the one being remodeled and wash up in the kitchen,
B) go downstairs, or
C) find their way to Clarissas bathroom through her teenage "organization"...
It wouldn't be like I was asking them to use an outhouse and wash up with the hose....
Anyhow, to make a really short story long, as I usually do, last night I was grinning as I found these pictures and realized peacefully that we lived through it. We survived. Unscathed really, in the long run, even by the whole process.
A month later I find myself remembering the way I felt last month, in the middle of it, and LOVING the whole process.
It was cleansing. It was hard work, and great determination, sweat and tears, and every bit of what we went through to create what we have now was worth it. Yeah it is just a room, but the experience is so much like many other aspects of me.
So, why am I blogging this. I know that in 6 months I wont remember what my mind and body went through. I will be a different person because of this experience and I wont have the brain cells to give it credit where credit is due.
Oft times I have experienced something and thought I would have to crawl to the end. This was one of those moments. I was tired, and yet, I never gave up. I never once thought it wouldn't get done, or that we would be at a point of freaking out and lashing out irrationally.
I think you always learn something when things fall to pieces, rhetorically. I think for me I learned that picking up the pieces, deciding which to keep and which to walk away from was one of the greatest remodeling projects I could have taken on. Yes, physically our room is what I worked so hard to have, but me...from the inside out, I was remodeled in a way that no words can really express. The pieces of me that I kept as I muddled through this project, are happier then the ones I left behind.
I would crawl over coals to be where I am today; with knowledge that there will be another opportunity to pick up the pieces of my heart and soul, and hope of grace, put me back together.
And that is okay.
Our room is a vision of me from my insides out, from chaos to control, ....and the final reveal is all I hoped it would be:
[I did have my sanity once....I would get it back, right???].
It truly felt like all was falling to pieces. I certainly thought I was.
Two things can be said of our bathroom/hallway/bedroom remodel...
1) I am glad it is in our past!
2) I am thankful we did it!
For me to remodel I had to take everything apart, go through it piece by piece. No sense in putting anything back together if I didn't know exactly what everything was and WHY! And in my stubborn insecurity I had to do it myself. Washing walls, moving furniture, going through stacks and old clothes, drawers....arrrrrrgggghhhhh!
There was a lot of everythings....from kids school papers and artwork, to clothes from the early 80's [like I will ever fit into that and if I did, would I really wear it???].
So in pieces my room came apart, as did I in the process.
11 bags later....most for the Goodwill, some [ALOT] of paper recycling, a lot of shredding personal information.....and a few odds and ends. I even found a few Christmas Gifts that we had forgotten to give. For a moment I felt like Chevy Chase in the attic of Christmas Vacation; reminiscing on all that is past....with the present so chaotic, and the future out of sight.
Sure, I knew what I wanted. I knew what I was working towards. A place of Peace. Our room always seems to be the hangout. I have felt like it was one BIG closet for too many years now. Yet the kids...they LOVE it. It is their favorite place to chill. They want to be there when they are sick, when they are well, when they want some quiet time, alone time, or mommy time. My room has never been sacred....and the mess was beginning to really canker me. I needed order, so that I wanted to be in there as much as they did....
Hence the PROJECT. Three weeks before Christmas, one week to major entertaining hosted by....me... and we where in the middle of absolute mess and chaos!
With the Christmas Social looming I had decided that if we could just make enough space in the Front Room for chairs [for entertaining] and maybe the Christmas Tree [for seasons greetings] that we could pull it off.
If people needed the bathroom, they could
A) use the toilet in the one being remodeled and wash up in the kitchen,
B) go downstairs, or
C) find their way to Clarissas bathroom through her teenage "organization"...
It wouldn't be like I was asking them to use an outhouse and wash up with the hose....
Anyhow, to make a really short story long, as I usually do, last night I was grinning as I found these pictures and realized peacefully that we lived through it. We survived. Unscathed really, in the long run, even by the whole process.
A month later I find myself remembering the way I felt last month, in the middle of it, and LOVING the whole process.
It was cleansing. It was hard work, and great determination, sweat and tears, and every bit of what we went through to create what we have now was worth it. Yeah it is just a room, but the experience is so much like many other aspects of me.
So, why am I blogging this. I know that in 6 months I wont remember what my mind and body went through. I will be a different person because of this experience and I wont have the brain cells to give it credit where credit is due.
Oft times I have experienced something and thought I would have to crawl to the end. This was one of those moments. I was tired, and yet, I never gave up. I never once thought it wouldn't get done, or that we would be at a point of freaking out and lashing out irrationally.
We just worked together and the work was done.
It was so unlike me to be so positive and calm.
It was so unlike me to be so positive and calm.
I think you always learn something when things fall to pieces, rhetorically. I think for me I learned that picking up the pieces, deciding which to keep and which to walk away from was one of the greatest remodeling projects I could have taken on. Yes, physically our room is what I worked so hard to have, but me...from the inside out, I was remodeled in a way that no words can really express. The pieces of me that I kept as I muddled through this project, are happier then the ones I left behind.
I would crawl over coals to be where I am today; with knowledge that there will be another opportunity to pick up the pieces of my heart and soul, and hope of grace, put me back together.
And that is okay.
Our room is a vision of me from my insides out, from chaos to control, ....and the final reveal is all I hoped it would be:
before...
during...[somewhere i have a picture of the
front room MESS during the process...
i was really nervous that
we wouldn't get our tree up
before Christmas!
...never mind that
I was hosting the Relief Society
Christmas Social at our house in three days...]
alas...
front room MESS during the process...
i was really nervous that
we wouldn't get our tree up
before Christmas!
...never mind that
I was hosting the Relief Society
Christmas Social at our house in three days...]
alas...
My favorite part, undeniably,was finding Jeremy
had set up a temporary bed
for himself.
He was planning on
taking over the new room!
Why not!!!
after...
Yes, many many pieces...to PEACE!
1 comment:
The before was great and I have seen the new and it is even better. It is all still you and it feels wonderful.
♥♥♥♥♥♥
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