Before and After

When we moved in to the house in May, our living room looked like this:


After some hammering and quite a mess, it now looks like this:

We have officially connected the old house to the new house. It is still odd to look over to the corner of the room and instead of seeing a wall, see an entrance to a whole new room. Our dog, Sadie, doesn't know what to make of this new development. Last night, when the wall first came down, she came right to the edge of where the wall used to be and stopped. She stood there for awhile, before finally deciding it was safe to step over the threshold. I think we have completely turned Sadie's world upside down. First, we moved to a new house. Then, we started changing things in the backyard. She lost her comfy patio first, and then there was a whole obstacle course of concrete forms in order for her to get to the yard. Now we've added extra doors. Last week, when the doors had only been in for a day, we left them open all day. That evening, Garrett closed one of them, and Sadie came running full steam into the house. She crashed head-on into the closed door, creating a very humorous picture for us, but scarring her for life. She now approaches the new doors very carefully, and only walks out after sticking her head slowly out ahead of her. In the final insult, we've taken down the wall that protected her from all the madness outside. I'm not sure she'll ever recover!

The rest of us, however, are extremely excited. I waited all week for "D-Day". I thought it would be so much fun to take a hammer to the wall, knowing I was supposed to be messing it up. The experience didn't disappoint. Of course, cleaning up from all the fun almost made it not worth it. Garrett asked about 300 times yesterday when we were going to FINALLY take down the wall. Even Paige got in on the action, helping pull some paneling off.

Up to this point, our home life has been relatively uninterrupted. All the work was outside, so it didn't figure into our daily living much. Now, however, all the furniture has been squashed into a corner to keep it as far away from the construction as possible. My computer is nearly in the kitchen, the piano is behind the couch, and the TV is blocking the fireplace. And, it will only get worse as we add the new window and start the kitchen. I have pretty much accepted that life will be weird for awhile. Good thing we're flexible! In the end, we will have a beautiful new home that we can take pride in making ourselves. (Or in my case, I can take pride in handing Dave the materials to make it himself!) I continue to feel so blessed that any of this is possible for us. Sometimes I have to stop and ask myself "Are we really doing this?" It proves the Bible verse that God will give you more than you could ever ask or imagine! He is so good!