Our Very Own Before & Afters! Reno #1

Renovation #1 Before and After Pictures!

We bought this nasty NASTY house in October of 2012, worked our TAILS off and turned around and sold it in June of 2014. We bought and renovated it thinking we would live here forever, or at least for 5+ years. Life has other plans and when Rich got a new job in Illinois we could not stand the commute and missing him any longer, so we put it up for sale! It sold in THREE DAYS! Oh how we miss our house that we made our own with lots of blood, sweat, and tears! After the pictures are a couple of assignments I had for school during and after the reno. I had to write a love letter to an inanimate object for one and the other was a personal essay. If you want details about our crazy reno, these papers will definitely do the trick and probably give you a good laugh at my writing skills.

Even the kiddos chipped in. Kenzie loved tearing out carpet, Braxton liked painting, and Bug was my design assistant spending countless hours in Home Depot and Lowes. The design process was stressful but I LOVED it! Picking out tile, paint, cabinets, and finishes... I was in HEAVEN!

Without further ado... The before and afters!!!...

Love Letter

Dear Kitchen of My Dreams,

Do you remember what life was like only a year and a half ago? Your burnt orange walls and badly damaged floors were yearning for something more. There was a piece of you missing- actually, a lot of pieces. You felt closed in, isolated, and terribly neglected. This vacant sadness dragged on for years. All you needed was for someone to see your true potential. You could be the kitchen of someone’s dreams! You could be whole again! You could be loved!

I first laid eyes on you on a dreary day in September of 2012. Our hunt for a home for our family lead us to your door. I was deeply saddened by your awful state. The rest of the house did not fare any better from the mistreatment of the previous owners who left you alone and useless three years ago. Through your filth and disheveled appearance, I saw a glimpse of what you could be. I could close my eyes and see my sweet family gathered together, cooking, eating, and making beautiful memories together inside your walls. I saw hope. I saw a future for you, for us!

Our road to recovery was long and difficult, as I knew it would be. We worked together. We worked hard. We had a plan to create new beauty and significant importance. In time you opened up to a whole new room, the dining room. We tore down walls, literally. The two of you became one; a new space was born. Open and free, you were ready for a grand transformation. My despondent little caterpillar was about to become a stunning butterfly, full of life and purpose!

Now as I sit writing this letter at your beautiful custom island covered in stunning Quartz, I gaze at your ceiling-height, dark espresso cabinets where bare wall used to be. Your brushed nickel hardware matches seamlessly with your stainless steel appliances and pull-down faucet. The light of your new, modern fixtures dances glamorously across your glass mosaic tile backsplash and stunning Silver Lake countertops. I am filled with pride and joy at the room you have become and the memories we have already created with you. Today, however, these feelings are tinged with sorrow as our journey is drawing to a close.

It is time. It is time for you to belong to someone else who will cherish and love you as we have. We must move on. Every new home we consider leaves me feeling incomplete. No kitchen compares to you, to your beauty and warmth. Perhaps we need to find another four walls, desolate and neglected as you once were, and breathe new life into them. Time will tell. I do know that no kitchen will ever be you, my first, my creation, my love!

Yours Always,

Shelly Bowman         

We Know He Knows Best

            Really? How can my husband expect me to even entertain the thought of buying this disgusting mess of what he calls a home? “It’s a great deal! We can fix it up,” he says, with an excited hopefulness. We know nothing about renovating. I know we need to buy a home. We have prayed about it and we both feel it is time. We have been searching for months. We have looked at so many homes for sale that they have all melded into one giant clump of kitchens and bedrooms, bathrooms and dens, none of which felt right for us.  I understand that we will never find a home if we stop looking, but this?

I have only seen pictures online of 1700 River Court: pictures of carpets stained so immensely they must have played a part in a crime scene in the recent past, pictures of a heavy, old, wooden garage door, royal blue paint flaking off with the slightest puff of wind, pictures of what used to be a kitchen with broken, missing, and mismatched tile, and empty, hole-filled, orange walls where cabinets used to hang. How could he think these pictures would ever entice me to walk through those wretched, blue front doors to experience this debacle in person?

I am grateful my husband does more than just think. He feels. He listens to the spirit. He knows that I will follow him anywhere, as long as he is following Heavenly Father. All he has to say is, “I have a really good feeling about this house. I think you should go look at it.” That is all it takes. Now I have to see it. Begrudgingly, I call the realtor. I cringe as she warns me about the despicable state of the property. Apparently the pictures are only the tip of the disheveled iceberg. The house has been vacant for nearly four years. It is an abused, government-owned foreclosure. She cautions me about a mold infestation in the basement, on top of a laundry list of issues that have to be fixed before we can even move in. Remind me again why I am still going to go see this house? Oh yes, because I trust my husband and I trust my Heavenly Father.            

It is a dreary day in the end of August. The clouds are dark and ominous. A storm brews in the distance as I turn on to River Court. At the end of the cul-de-sac sits a sad, old, neglected house with a For Sale sign stuck in an overgrown tangle of weeds. “Here goes nothing,” I think to myself. I walk across the badly cracked and sunken front porch, wondering what horrors I will find inside. I open the broken front doors and pass over the threshold. I stop dead in my tracks. I am immediately overcome with the spirit. I am shocked, to say the least, at the feelings of peace and comfort that flow through me; feelings of home! Home? How?

A logic versus spirit battle begins to rage inside of me. How can this be the place? We don’t know how to fix any of this. We don’t have the money to do it, even if we did know how. Each negative thought is immediately combated with feelings of warmth and encouragement. Overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused, yet grateful and full of hope, I make a mental list of everything that needs to be repaired, which is literally almost everything. As I inventory the negatives, I simultaneously hear the reassuring whispering of the Spirit, “This is it! This is your home! Everything will be okay!” My lungs fill with thick, moldy, stagnant air as I notice busted door jambs, sticky, coke explosion-covered walls, crime scene carpets, eggplant purple, and broccoli green paint, apparently applied by toddlers. Ironically, the more problems I see, the more clear the decision becomes; this is our new home! I know it sounds crazy, but I cannot deny the feelings I am receiving. These feelings come from one who knows, far better than I, the path our family needs to take. I hear the call. I have to listen. We need to buy this house!

Flash forward eighteen months. We completely transform 1700 River Court. We knock down walls, paint everything, replace nearly all of the flooring, install new doors, create an incredible new kitchen, and a spa-like master bath. We craft a home that we are proud of and could be happy living in the rest of our lives. The whisperings soon come again, however. The Lord has another adventure in store for our little family.

Again we place our future in the hands of the Lord. We listen as the promptings come full force to list our house for sale as soon as possible and move closer to my husband’s new job.  Our For Sale sign goes up on a Friday. Over the next three days, we have ten showings and three offers to buy our home, two of which are for more than asking price. We are beyond shocked! Heavenly Father is making sure we know we are doing the right thing by blessing us so immensely. Our home sells in record time, with a lightning fast closing date, resulting in an amount of money in our bank account that we still cannot fathom!

Our home went on the market only thirty three days ago. My husband, our three kids, our dog, two frogs, and I are now residents of a two hundred and fifty square foot hotel room, fully equipped with mini fridge, two queen beds, and the tiniest microwave ever created. School starts in five short weeks for my kids and we are essentially homeless. We should be worried, we should be stressed beyond belief. The feelings we have are quite the opposite. We are calm and at peace. We know that we will continue to be blessed and protected, if we are steadfast in our faith and follow His plan for us. For now, we wait. We patiently search for a home until God reveals His will for our family. We will settle down, serve Him, and wait for the next whisperings of the Spirit. Again we will listen. We will go and do the things God asks of us, for we know He knows best.