THESE DAYS: MORE HOUSE STUFF

"I'm never doing this again!" I keep vowing to myself- 'this' being doing updating the house that you are currently living in with two small kids while working full time...it's madness. It's not the many projects I mind, or the kids, or the daily chores, or the working. It's when it's happening all at once that it feels like only a completely deluded person would sign up for this. That's me!

It's a rollercoaster of highs (I can't believe we got this house! This place has so much potential!...) and lows (What have we gotten ourselves into? This is totally overwhelming...), but we are floating along, with the help of friends, lots of planning and lots of patience. Adorable little girls and daydreaming about finished kitchens also help.

These girls are getting real familiar with the inside of a hardware store. Also, it's the stage where I'm still tickled to see the wee little potato seeing upright in the front of a shopping cart. 

Thank goodness for friends like Ian who have handy house building/fixing skills, and was able to get Ken started and the seemingly daunting task of tiling our future mudroom. And for friends like Robert who pitch in to help. We are learning so much...and we are grateful for that. 

You can't see his face behind the gargantuan light fixture, but this is Garrett, electrician extraordinaire. Electrical work seems a little like magic to me - that's how little I understand it - so it's amazing to me what he is able to do. 

I went back and forth for a while about whether to paint the upper cabinets in the kitchen or to take them down altogether - the latter being a totally intimidating prospect seeing that the cabinets were extremely heavy, sturdy and built into the wall. Enter our friend, Nic, who apparently has plenty of cabinetry experience and did a marvelous job taking them down. 

There was also this brick facade that had to be scraped off - all without damaging the walls. Look at their faces ! They love it.

MVP goes out to my mother in law, who has come up several weekends to help us around the house. She is spectacular. 

I am so grateful we moved into the Blair in the spring so that we get to see all the plants and trees flowering and blooming around us. It feels truly like a sign of new beginnings and it helps to behold these beautiful blooms for respite during the chaos. I have taken so many photos of this tree!

Sloane has wanting to help around the house and we have been trying to let her, as much as she is able. This is the board that went up as a floating desk in the playroom. I was impressed with how meticulously she helped paint it, without tiring... or getting paint on her clothes. That's one of the upsides of doing these projects - I love that she gets to see how things are built and put together.

You know what helps remind me what is important in life? Hanging out with these girls. 

We are taking things one day at a time and in the meanwhile, and I am leaning into all of it. The busy schedules, the new routines, the late nights and sweet moments- all of it.