Before and After Home Improvement Projects

We have decided that we need to sell the house.  Glen still doesn't know where his job may or may not take us, but it's undeniable that this is the course of action we feel we are being led to do.    After living in a house for eighteen years though, this is a big to-do.

I don't like house projects.  They stress me out.  I have anxiety when it comes to making decisions.  I dread calling and dealing with workers.   I hate feeling like our house is being invaded.   It's just not my favorite thing in the world. 

  My life has been completely immersed in house stuff lately, and  weirdly I have not felt anywhere near the stress and anxiety that I normally feel with even one project.  I can only explain it that I feel like Heavenly Father is giving me strength to do what we feel like is the right thing to do right now.    I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm enjoying the process, however I definitely am not hating / dreading / avoiding it near as much as usual...so that's a good thing. 

Do you want to see a glimpse of what we've been working on? 

I thought so!   

Here's the "before" of our HALL BATHROOM.  I had already taken down the medicine cabinet, so it wasn't a true "before", but it's close.  

Here's the after....

We put in a new vanity, a big new mirror, new light fixture, a new towel rack, painted the walls, and switched out the shower curtain for a nice neutral white.   It feels fresh and nice! 

*************************************************************

Here's the "before" of our BASEMENT BATHROOM: 

And the "after"...

We did a new vanity, mirror, paint, and vinyl plank flooring over the old tile.   It looks great! 

*************************************************************

Here's the "before" of our MASTER BATH:  

Here's phase one with a new vanity, recessed medicine cabinet, paint, and vinyl plank flooring

Here it is after we glazed over the tile with white.  The shower door is still to come.

I have mixed feelings about the white tile, however it does make our bathroom seem a little bigger, so I guess it's a good thing.   I can't wait to get the new shower door installed. 

*************************************************************

Here's my pride and joy project--the one I was most excited about doing, even before we decided to sell the house.  I've hated this fireplace from the moment we moved in....

And now it's finally beautiful!   And I tiled over the brick myself (with Adam as my assistant)!

*************************************************************

We also got new railings to replace the ugly wrought iron we had before...

BEFORE 

AFTER (before staining)

*************************************************************

We got new windows.

BEFORE 

AFTER

I love how much easier they are to open and close now!

 *************************************************************

We retiled the entry way.

BEFORE

AFTER

 ************************************************************

We got new light fixtures....

  ************************************************************

We put vinyl plank flooring over the concrete in our laundry room and added some beadboard to the unfinished walls.  It looks soooooooo different, but I weirdly never took a before picture of that ugly part of my house.

  ************************************************************

WE've also gotten rid of a TON of stuff and have been packing up most of the rest and moving it to this storage unit.

  ************************************************************

We are feeling like we've accomplished a lot and that we are on a good path to get it on the market in a few weeks, but we still have a few big things to go. 

PROJECTS STILL TO COME:

new roof

painting

new carpet in basement

refinish wood floors in bedroom

take care of the yard

taking care of water drainage on one side of the house

In the meantime, don't mind me if I look a little bleary eyed and seem a bit distracted.  This hasn't been quite as painful as I expected, but let's just say that we won't be rushing to buy another house anytime soon.  

  ************************************************************

Celebrating in NYC

Ellie turned 14 last week.   

Yeah, she's our baby, so this is pretty much craziness.

Several months ago (right after Glen got his new job) we decided we wanted to see a show in NYC.  When we were looking at the available dates, we were immediately drawn to Ellie's birthday weekend!   It would be so fun to celebrate her birthday in NYC...so that's what we did.   

We saw two shows: 

The first was "Dear Evan Hansen," which was the show we planned this trip around. 

It was a powerful performance, albeit a little edgier than we expected.  WE'd been listening to the soundtrack for it for the last year or two, so we thought we knew the story, but there's so much more power to it when you see it performed in real life.     It was amazing. 

The next show we watched was in the evening...."Frozen!"  We added this show to our schedule later and didn't get as good a seats for it.   Still, it was high energy and so fun!

 Ellie and I threw keto eating out the window for the weekend and let her choose her birthday food.  We had real deal pizza for lunch, burgers and fries for dinner (no picture!)....

 and doughnut ice cream sandwiches for dessert!   We don't mind keto eating for the most part, but it was fun to be able to enjoy some fun foods that we didn't cook ourselves!    YUM!  

In case you're wondering...yes, going off keto affected her seizure control for the worse.  We got right back to it when we got home again. 

 WE literally only spent about 24-hours in NYC, so we didn't have a lot of time outside of the shows and the eating, but big city life is always entertaining too.   

The flashy billboards and glittering lights are sensory overload themselves, but then there are just the random full-size airplane parked on the side of the road...   

 And the oddball assortment of people that make people-watching an entertaining activity on its own accord.    I don't know what it is about big cities, but they seem to attract the oddest and most colorful personalities!  

We laughed a lot and just enjoyed being together...

 which is something that is all too fleeting these days. 

We are grateful for Ellie and a good excuse to celebrate!   

We love you, Ellie!  

Running--then and now

Once upon a time there was a young teen who got talked into running on the high school cross country team.   She had never really run before.  Actually for that matter, she had never really participated in any sport before, but she decided to give it a try.     She pretty much hated it at first, but kept with it through all four years of high school.  She never did get to be very competitive, but she grew to love running and love the camaraderie of the cross country team.  It is still of my opinion that cross country runners are the smartest, nicest people around.  

Over the years, running has stayed important in my life and running and walking are still my preferred ways to exercise.   But I don't really like racing anymore.  I've done a few races over the years--

A couple half-marathons, a Ragnar, a bunch of 5k's, but for the most part I like to run slow and only a couple times a week. Any more than that and I tend to get injured.   So for the last couple of years I've had the routine of walking most days of the week and running on Mondays/Thursdays only.   It's a routine that keeps me challenged, fit, and uninjured.  And I like being uninjured.   

Fast forward a bunch of years and Cami chose to run cross country in high school too.  Watching her run always made me feel so nostalgic and I was proud of her for sticking with it all four years of high school too.  She also did lacrosse in high school and at BYU. 

Then she married into a crazy running family.  The kind of family where her mother-in-law has run like 20 marathons.  Her father-in-law has run 50 mile trail races.  Even Garrett is hoping to qualify for Boston.  You know that kind of crazy.   

So it shouldn't have surprised us too much when just a few months after she was married, she announced that she was training for a marathon.  And she actually did it.   She trained hard for several months, fighting off a couple of injuries along the way, but this past weekend she did it!   

Cami ran an entire marathon!   

And Garrett did it too.   It wasn't his first one though, so I'm mostly bragging about Cami this time!   

Neither one of them quite met their time goals, but Cami was within a couple of minutes, so she's already talking about trying it again!    And Garrett still wants to qualify for Boston, so I foresee many more long runs in their future.

Meanwhile...this runner here is still quite content with her 10-minute-mile pace treadmill runs twice a week and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.