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Remodeling House and Heart

~ Small moments. Revolutionary insights. Finding hope amidst the mundane.

Remodeling House and Heart

Tag Archives: home improvement

Who Am I and Why Am I Here?

03 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in A Leap of Faith, Blogging 101

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Blogging 101, Faith, home improvement, Hope, renovating an old home

Avila Art Photography

Photography By Tony Avila

“Who I AM and Why I AM Here” is a writing topic that I have been assigned from the blogging world but lately I am constantly asking myself, “Who AM I and Why AM I Here?”  The first is a statement.  The second is a question.  Right now, I prefer the question.

So, who am I?

I have always been drawn to the idea of taking a leap of faith.  Even the statement, “taking a leap of faith” appeals to who I am at the very core of me.  A dancer since preschool, leaping through the air is a great passion of mine and faith… well… faith is my language.  I am the most content when I am alone in prayer with Jesus.  Not trying to be a weirdo; I just have to be honest.

Lately hope has  become my new obsession.  Maybe it is because we live in a world that seems to be inundated with the doom of impending apocalyptic scenarios that I have become infatuated with the idea of hope.  Or maybe it’s because I am living way out of my comfort zone in a small country town just clinging onto a thread of hope that I will witness a miracle coming to fruition.  Or maybe it’s because I am a work from home mom just trying to survive through the daily grind while simultaneously attempting to renovate a 118 year old Victorian era house and supporting my husband in the start of his law practice.  Breathe.  Sigh.  Hope.

So, why am I here?

I wake up every day wondering how I got here.  How did I end up in a small town living in a 118 year old house with flower speckled wallpaper?  This is so not me.  I am not that kind of girl who likes renovating houses and country living.  No.  I am a city girl.  I thrive on the energy of traffic and diversity and progressive thinking and anonymity and amenities galore.  Don’t get me wrong, small town living definitely has its charm and there are plenty of wonderful people around these parts.  Nonetheless, it has been quite the adjustment for me.

Again, why am I here?

Faith.

Hope.

I am here because I feel in my bones that me and my family belong in this house.  Even if the only reason why we moved to this town and into this house is so that I could have plenty of stories to write about, that is fine with me because I just know that I belong here.   I am in the right place.  Why is this the right place?  I don’t know but I am willing to get to the bottom of the great mystery that is God’s sense of humor to move our little family to a small town (something we swore that we would never do).

In the almost 2 years that we have lived in this house, I have discovered that there is an amazing beauty that is lurking around the mundane and trivial pursuits of life.  In a way, this house has revived me.  While I feel like we are constantly renovating the house, I think it’s actually the house that is piecing me back together through the labor of love. I guess that’s  why I decided to start a blog about the quirky stories behind renovating and living in this old house.  It was something that I felt just needed to be done.

I don’t know where this is going but I couldn’t keep running from the fiery urge to share some of the beauty that surrounds this house even though the house sometimes feels like it is falling apart.  But that’s exactly it: WE are beautiful even when we feel we are falling apart. This little project is my great leap of faith into the vast unknown that is the internet. I hope that you will visit and dance with me a little.

For more of the story check out my first post “The Renovation of My Heart”

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The Life and Death of a Wallflower

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in For the Love of People, Personal Growth, Uncategorized, Wallpaper

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Tags

home improvement, mission work, renovation of an old home, taking a leap of faith, the unknown, wallflowers, wallpaper removal

Cotton candy flora

Cotton candy flora

Are you brave enough? Because I am not.

I like to hang back in the background and comfortably blend in like the big, fluffy, pastel flowers that adorn the walls of my house. Fitting in is just too important to me. It always has been.

But I just can’t sit still anymore. I’m restless. There is a big bad world out there with so much heartache and pain. People are hurting day in and day out. People have lost hope. And here I sit pretty in pink all nice and cozy on my wall. Don’t make a sound. Don’t move or someone might notice. Blend in. Wear the right clothes and hairstyle. Take your kids to the right functions. Say the right things on social media. Be on time.

But I am always late. And the right clothes and hairstyle never look right on me like they do on her. And my kids are usually the ones who make a scene at all of those functions. My place on the wall is getting old and dusty.

I have been living amongst the floral wallpaper for so long that it is starting to grow on me. Sometimes I actually think it looks pretty. Gasp! Then I come to my senses and realize that while it may look feminine and pleasant, the wallpaper really is outdated and just has no business in this 21st century world.

Denial. Been living in it for some time now concerning my wallflower status and people pleasing tendencies.

It’s hard to go against the grain; take a stance; stand out; be brave; journey into the unknown; step out of your comfort zone; try something new; chase that wild dream.

I fear that everyone will laugh at me. Perhaps everyone is already laughing at me just for dreaming about the dream and sharing it with the world.

But I am learning.

You have to get to that point in which you don’t care if anyone is laughing at you. You just have to get over that hump and expect that you will be ridiculed and make peace with it and move on.

At the end of the day I want to teach my children to be brave and to not be held back by the fear of fitting into society. How can I do that when I am so often crippled by fear? I have to get them a wallpaper scraper too and teach by example. They need to see mommy and daddy scraping off the old and trying something different to change our little corner of the world. If I want my kids to be brave enough to fight the good fight then I have to be brave enough to fight the good fight.

I’m tired of being the wallflower that watches as others claim and conquer their dreams. I want to have a fabulous story too. I don’t want to be held back by my shoe collection and social media profile. I need to get off this wall and into the light.

There is this dream, this passion that is burning bright red. It’s not my dream. It doesn’t belong to me. I don’t own it. It is bigger than that. This dream cannot be contained by four flower speckled walls and a roof. Well, at least that is how it feels when it is thumping and pounding in my chest and squeezing my heart.
Impossible. Echoes in my head. And it is true. It will be impossible to ever even coming close to the dream realized if I continue to be content with the status quo.

Daily, I waiver between painting over the walls of wallpaper in our house and just scraping it all off and starting over from scratch. I don’t know the answer to that question yet but I do know that I am tired of looking at the cotton candy flora. We have already scraped a significant amount of wallflowers off the wall but we are nowhere near being done. Those pearly rose and teal colored peonies are a constant reminder to get out of the past and into the present. I hear those flowers crying out to me, warning me that if I don’t act soon my fate will end up like theirs. I will be doomed to live a life of pretty stillness: complacent and stagnant like the images of women from decades past. Not me, nuh uh!

For too many years I have listened to countless stories of brave people doing amazing things and all the while I am thinking, “oh that is nice, thank God for people like that who are willing to take risks for humanity. People like that are so inspiring but not everyone is made for that kind of greatness.”

People. Like. That. Where does that idea come from anyway? Those “people like that” are really just normal, every-day people who made a choice to step out of their comfort zone and think creatively and live bravely towards a life uncommon. They got off their wall, took a deep breath, and while holding their dream in their hands plunged into the great unknown.

They were brave.

We don’t have to wait for “people like that ” to change the world. We can all have a part of a greater story if we are willing to let go of some of the lesser things in life. What are we waiting for?

Seriously though, what are you waiting for? What is holding you back from that dream bubbling inside of you?
What are your thoughts? Comment below, we are not meant to do life alone.

Living on the edge because it just has to go.  No place for complacency.

Living on the edge because it just has to go. No place for complacency.

Nowhere to go but up

Nowhere to go but up

Enter into our house of flowers

Enter into our house of flowers

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Tilling the Earth

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Backyard, Personal Growth, Uncategorized

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Tags

backyard, cultivate, getting dirty, home improvement, nostalgia, personal crisis, relics, tilling soil

Cultivate-  to till and prepare (land or soil) for the growth of crops: 2. to plant, tend, harvest, or improve (plants) by labour and skill;  to prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops; also : to loosen or break up the soil about

Cultivate- to till and prepare (land or soil) for the growth of crops: 2. to plant, tend, harvest, or improve (plants) by labour and skill; to prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops; also : to loosen or break up the soil about

The sound of the razor blades tore through the air running shivers down my spine. The buzzing held my disturbed thoughts suspended in air enveloped by clouds of dust. A great dissonance had moved into my soul. There was something cruel about watching all of that lush green grass being ripped out of its comfortable earth.

Our backyard was a mess- uneven and hazardous for our two small children to play in. My husband, Emmanuel, got a hold of a tiller and our friend, Richard, volunteered to help with the labor. For two days we could hear that tiller ripping up the grass and smoothing out the plateaus that were often the cause of so many scraped knees .

Just a few days after we finished the tilling project we made a trip to my hometown. We have made the pilgrimage across the great state of Texas to visit my folks many times but this time was different. This time there was the looming reality that this just might be my last trek across the desert. My mom and grandma were both preparing to move out of their homes and my siblings were scattering across the world living out their lives. It seemed that no longer would we have our home base. Everywhere I turned my loved ones were moving on into a new chapter of their lives. To me, all of this moving and shifting was getting out of hand. It felt like the tectonic plates were rumbling in anticipation. An earthquake seemed inevitable.

Because my mom and grandma were moving out of their houses, there was a lot of purging going on. Boxes and boxes of mementos, keepsakes, and junk lined the hallways of both houses. Pretty much everything had to go. My mom had piles of stuff already ready for me to take back home with me but there were other things that, unless I rescued them, would become garage sale fodder. Our library of children’s books and the bookshelf that they sat in were amongst the items ready for the chopping block. Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I walked into my mom’s garage and amidst clouds of dust I began packing up the books. It made me think of my husband and Richard tilling our backyard. As the blades of the tiller loosened up the soil little puffs of dust littered the sky and their clothes. At the end of the day, they each looked like Charles Schultz’s character “Pig Pen.” And now here I sat as “Pig Pen” with a dusting clothe wiping off Snoopy, Cinderella, Spot, The Cat in the Hat, Angelina Ballerina, and all the rest of my childhood friends. Each book unearthed a swirling of memories. I saw myself reading certain books at my grandma’s house. I saw my mom reading my favorite books at bedtime. I saw my dad assembling and painting the bookshelf. I saw myself buying books for my sisters as souvenirs. I read inscriptions to me, to my sisters, to random people I had never even heard of. I found my sisters’ names in the Dr. Seuss books. My name was in a few books as well as the names of my mom, my aunts, and my step-brother. My childhood unfolded before my very eyes as I flipped through the pages. It made me laugh inside to think that at one time these books were such a precious part of the fabric of my daily life until I grew up and moved out and on with my life.

How long had these books sat here in the land of forgotten items, otherwise known as our garage? About four layers of dust- that’s how long. I really had forgotten all about these books and really didn’t even care about them and now here I was reclaiming them, saving them for my sweet children. They would once again become a precious part of the fabric of my daily life as my children would rediscover them.

As I sat in my mom’s garage, my head was a dusty fog of melancholy nostalgia. It was an end of an era. Things would never be the same. Even the garage was evidence of this fact. I could always count on the garage to be this never-ending pile of random junk and now it was nearly cleared out except for books and the ghosts of Christmases past.

The truth was that the earthquake had already hit my family. We were going through a painful and personal family crisis. Perhaps I was holding onto those books so tightly because I was really trying to cling onto my siblings, my parents, and my childhood. Perhaps we were all just trying to hold onto each other.

While digging through the dusty books I was really digging into my past. The Great Tiller of My Life was ripping through my memories like the tiller had ripped through the grass. What was once buried was brought to the surface. Oh there were so very many happy memories of a girl who had an idyllic, blessed, and even blissfully sheltered childhood. The good times were so plentiful that they far outnumbered the difficult times. But I could not ignore the painful memories of early adulthood that were uprooted as well. Through the great purging of our family’s junk I could see evidence of the conduits of magma that eventually erupted into the volcano of pain and suffering that my family was now experiencing. So much emotion was buried in our garage and now out of necessity we were all forced to reconcile with certain truths that had gone unnoticed for so long. It brought my family closer together as we braced ourselves for the aftershocks.

“Why was God allowing us to go through this?” I wondered angrily. Why would God reveal all this ugliness and beauty simultaneously? Why would he force us to deal with such horrible and painful truths that we had all buried deep inside of us? Through prayer, I was instantly drawn back to the image of our backyard that lay waiting for fresh pallets of grass. That pretty yet uneven grass that had been hashed through and ripped up was now a soft pillow of rich soil just waiting in hopeful anticipation to grow new life.

God was cultivating us.

He was preparing us for something new and fresh. All this digging would not be in vain. All of these things were unearthed to bring truth to light and healing in preparation for the next chapter in our lives. I could acknowledge the hurtful parts of my past, learn from them, heal, and move on. You can’t stay buried in the past- it’s much too dirty there.

A couple days after we returned back home, Emmanuel and Richard were at it again. This time they were ambitiously laying pallets of grass in the few hours that exist between dinner and nightfall. When the job was completed, I sat on our new, leveled grass watching the kids run through the sprinkler. I thought about how so much of the backyard had to be pulled out, rearranged, and redesigned just to make this yard a safe space for my children to play. That is the thing about gardening that has always turned me off to it- work. It takes some labor and skill to grow something.

The kids were thoroughly enjoying their “summer chore” of watering the grass meanwhile the volcano that was our family crisis was still fresh. It was time to take a closer look at those conduits buried deep within. Flipping through those books stirred something up in me; it reminded me that perception is reality. Mixed emotions about the past puffed up when thumbing through old books. But why was this all important? Because it was necessary. Just like it is necessary to pull out the weeds in your yard on a regular basis, its necessary to reflect on the good ‘ole days and those not so great times as well. It’s just something that you have to do.

When you allow The Great Tiller to rake through your soul, you will inevitably pull up some weeds. But fear not, you come from good soil too. Those dusty old books helped me to come to grips with some bad habits that I learned back in the days when Dr. Seuss and Angelina Ballerina were a part of my everyday life. But they also reminded me of a million little details of how God had planted me in rich soil. Sometimes when your life has been abundantly blessed it is easy to ignore the bad habits and character flaws that date back to childhood.

If I didn’t evaluate the habits picked up in my youth, both good and bad, then I could not be the rich, healthy soil in which to plant a new life with my husband and children. Tilling the soil is the best way to insure proper cultivation. I must heal and allow God to prepare my soul for a lush crop of new life and focus my energies on creating new memories in this house. My part in the cultivating process would be to release the bad memories and bad habits learned to make room for new ones. Not necessarily to forget them, but release them like puffs of dirt that evaporate into the sky. Eventually, the dust settles and the earth is like new.

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When Your House Floats Away

15 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Foundation, Personal Growth

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

broken pipe, flooded crawl space, home improvement, renovation of an old home

Stay Clear;  Random woman just floating through life

Stay Clear: Random woman just bobbing through life

I watched my house float away on the small river that had overtaken our street. There she was in all her glory slowly being torn apart by the cruel force of nature that was our plumbing. From under the house the flood had corroded the floor boards and unhinged it so that the house was now sailing away. Bobbing further and further down the street. Floating and falling apart. Floating and falling apart. Eventually the house would completely crumble and cease to exist and all I could do was watch.

I know how she feels. I lost myself there for a while. For almost ten years I bobbed around through my life like a wave crashing buoy anchored in one place. I don’t regret it for a second. That is not a popular thing to say in this day in age but I know now that I had to put pieces of myself away for a while so that I could focus on a bigger picture. I needed time to figure out how to be a smaller part of a larger whole so I collected some of my smaller parts and put them in a shoe box to deal with at a later time.

Most of those small collectibles needed to be put away. Like forever. In fact, they needed to be buried at the bottom of the ocean and never seen again. Selfishness, discontentment, disillusionment…. Who needs those things anyways?

Other parts, however, were sweet and beautiful and reminders of a girl who used to dream and twirl around in tutus. Those parts, while very dear to me, just needed to be put to sleep for a while. They just took up too much of my brain space and I needed every ounce of my mind, body, and soul to figure out my place in this new “larger whole” that I now belonged to. The music, art, and poetry of my life were packed up and saved for a later date.

The later date came this past summer. It was time for those sleepy parts to wake up. The awakening was a slow and subtle process that rolled in waves over the long and hot summer. As June and July sizzled by we noticed that the house was shifting as old houses do. The ceramic tiles in the hallway were popping up and doors were no longer closing properly. The house in her restless unsettling was trying to warn me that the foundation was shifting. The flood would soon follow.

The warning signs were all there but I was distracted by my own restless unsettling. Years of suppressing the little nuances and quirks that assembled my personality were now bursting at my seams just ready to explode. I had reached a time in my life where I no longer felt like I had to put myself away to concentrate on that larger whole. The “larger whole” was now, well, whole. It was good and pretty strong actually. I had worked so hard for so long and now I saw that the foundation had been laid solid and sturdy. Because I put in the time to focus all of my energies on this one huge idea I was free now to open up that box of mementos that used to be me. It took ten years to get there but I had arrived at a place where I could take some time and breathe. The hard work had finally paid off.

Over the summer, tidal waves of memories rolled in gently reminding me of the person that I used to be, the person that I had always been. A favorite song, an encounter with a long lost friend, readings of journals from days gone by, and rediscovering old photos crashed like waves along the surf and there I was riding my boogie board trying to stay afloat and navigate my way through the ocean of memories that were flooding my head.

It all came together and made sense on the day that we discovered the flood under our house. A pipe from the upstairs bathroom had broken in half (a complete fluke and not at all a result of having an old house) and water had flooded the crawl space under the house. Since the foundation of the house sits above ground it took a while for the water to seep out of the crawl space and into our backyard and our neighbor’s backyard. Nevertheless, hundreds of gallons of water were rolling around under our house. A tiny ocean. Had we not noticed the leaky pipe when we did, the water would have begun to corrode the foundation of the house.

The foundation was in jeopardy of completely falling apart and the house we built could have been lost forever.

Okay, that is slightly over dramatic. Our house certainly did not float down a river of despair (welcome back little nuances of my personality known as over dramatization and romanticizing of the mundane). But that is what it felt like.

I imagined what that would have looked like- the water busting through the floor boards and the through the cracks in the bricks until the house began to crumble. Thankfully that was all in my imagination and all it took was a pump and three days to get all of that water out from under our house.

But that silly little over dramatic image spoke to me. It was the whispered message that I needed to hear; the kiss from the prince that woke up this tulle wearing princess.

A broken pipe caused a flood which caused the house’s foundation to shift which gave me this image of our house floating away which then turned into an image of me floating away.

My personal foundation was waiting for me to save the day. The flood of yearning for the long lost me had finally bust through the box that I had hidden myself in for such a long time.

It was perfect timing.

Like I said, I really believe that it was necessary to put some things to sleep temporarily while I figured things out. We all go through seasons in which we just have to cut back on some areas of our lives. But there comes a time that we have to open up that box and pull out those old pieces because if not they could get lost forever. At least that is how I felt. The timing was right. I was primed and ready to break free. After focusing so long on the foundation that I had help to build, now I had the freedom of focusing on me without compromising the foundation.

In fact, the foundation needed me to put those missing tiles of my life back in place. When I began to unpack some of those sweet, little parts of me I noticed that my husband and my children seemed to like me more! Well, of course they did. Who really likes to be around a person who is trying too hard to be something that she is not? When I was reintroduced to myself I felt this peace and contentment roll over me. Freedom. Completeness. After all I was created to be this person; this dreamy tutu wearing girl that my husband fell in love with and who my children feel more comfortable around. I had woken up from a deep, deep sleep and it felt good! I was refreshed and free to be a part of this beautiful larger whole that God had created for me to be a part of.

Again, like I said, I do not regret for one second that I spent the last 10 years without these little pieces of me. Temporary sacrifices are sometimes necessary for personal growth. These last 10 years have been so fruitful for me as a human being. Lessons have been learned (many times the hard way); growing up has happened. I think that if I had not put some things away for a while my spirit might be stuck in the same 23 year old place. That frightens me. Have you ever been around someone in their 30’s who still acts like an early 20 something or worse- a teenager? Yikes! When you look at the grand scheme of things ten years really isn’t that long after all.

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The Renovation of My Heart

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

historic district, home improvement, Queen Anne Victorian house, renovation of an old home

house and heart avil'art

We bought a house that was built in 1896. Let me make one thing clear, I am not one of those people who watches HGTV or “Flip this House” or some other kind of home improvement show like that. I am not into renovating houses and neither is my husband. I’m the kind of girl who wants to move into a brand new, custom home and do absolutely no work on it except for hanging pictures. We are not even really big on the do it yourself thing. However, even though it goes against everything that you ever hoped for, when God gifts you with a classic beauty how can you say no? Continue reading →

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