Keepin' it Real

           This post is completely un-house related, but it's something that has been on my heart for a number of months that I feel I need to share, and I can hold my tongue fingers no longer! It's an issue that's errrm....girl related...WAIT WAIT WAIT! Before you frantically start clicking at that "X" symbol in the top right hand corner of your screen you need to know that it's not like THAT! This is NOT "A Girl's Journey Into Womanhood: When Hormones and Periods Attack" kind of post! (That being said, I will not be offended if any all male readers just hit the "X" button upon reading "periods" either...) ;) For any male still reading, you may continue if you'd like, but know that this post is meant for us girls. (However, you have my word you will not encounter any mentally scarring information or imagery during the remainder of this post. In fact, you might actually gain some insight into the way we think, and better understand why we act the crazy way that we do sometimes) Anyways, ladies, here it is:

            About a year and a bit ago, I was at a point in my life where I was letting Satan's lies get to me. Maybe he's whispered them in your ear too at one point or another? "You're not good enough" "You're not smart enough" You're not pretty enough" "No one likes you" "What a poor excuse for a Christian you are, what have you done for Him lately?" "Why do you even bother?" "You can't do it" and on and on he goes, smiling as you fall deeper into his trap. He's no dummy. He knows our weaknesses, and he knows just when to push the right buttons. It's most often when we think we're safe, and we lose sight of the One who made us, and died for us. That's how it happened for me anyway. It started out as one missed devotional, that turned into a few missed devotionals, to "not having time" for devotionals. And suddenly, my most important relationship had taken a back seat to work, and renovations, and other friends, and, in all honesty...ME.  It's funny sad how I can fall prey to believing I don't need a close relationship with God when my life is doing great "on its own". That's when the lies really started to HIT HARD. Thankfully for me, I didn't STAY there, trapped by the lies. I did something about it.

           I ended up going to a local Christian bookstore to pick up a new devotional, something just for me, and I was led to this book, "Princess Unaware" by Brenda Garrison.  It's directed at women, and it speaks to our struggles and it completely opened my eyes to the power of Satan's lies over me, and how I can overcome them with God's help. This being said, over the last few months I've witnessed these struggles creeping into some friends at times, and causing problems, and I was reminded of this book by Brenda Garrison. So I want to share some of this book with any lady reading, and hopefully, you'll find it helpful when Satan tries attacking you. Because let's face it, we all know he'll keep trying, and he know's exactly the right buttons to push.   From the book:

"The Comparison Mud Hole

Ooh, we women get sucked into this quicksand, and we barely put up a struggle to get out. We compare every area of our lives to the lives of other women:

Our appearance. Who has the best color on her hair? Who has the most desired body type- not too short, not too chubby, not too short waisted, not too flat, not too chesty? Who has the most stylish clothes? We are never pretty enough, stylish enough, or in good enough physical shape.

Our friendships. Who is better friends with whom? Who calls whom more often? Why doesn't she ever call me? She is closer to her than to me. Ugh. 


Our kids. Oh yeah, this is a gem. Either our kids are superior or they never quite measure up to someone else's. Why did her child make the team (or get a part in the play) and mine didn't?

Our husbands. Why can't my husband be as spiritual as the pastor? Why doesn't he bring me flowers for no particular reason? Why doesn't he feel my emotions and understand me deeply? Why isn't he the life of the party? (We want our husbands to be a combination of Billy Graham, Dr.Phil, Jerry Seinfeld, Brad Pitt, and our best girlfriend-and to know exactly when we want them to play each role!)

 Are you feeling silly? Do you see the pointlessness of comparing our lives to others'? The comparison game leads to self-absorbed introspection-thinking too often about ourselves. The trendy cliché 'It's all about me!' manifests when we waste time comparing ourselves to others.
 My friend Theresa says, 'Comparison is death to friendships.' The minute we start comparing, we build a barrier between us and the other person. Being a prisoner of this trap often tempts us to make a grocery list of our friend's perceived shortcomings and faults, or a list of every area in which we feel she surpasses us (and in our minds, looks down on us). As the list grows, so does our pity party-and with it, our dislike of our friend. Do you see how easily Satan uses these lists to put up barriers of inferiority, distrust, pride, and lies? We don't see the real person any longer-only our distorted perception of her. Not only do we distance ourselves from a good friend, we also fall for Satan's plan to isolate us from our sister in Christ."


      When I first read those words I thought..."Wow! That's SO true.......and SO stupid!" Why do we do this? Well the answer I found out, is very simple...and very complex...it's one of our biggest struggles (if not THE biggest), and it's a little thing called...wait for it...insecurity.  Have you ever experienced it? I know I have, and still do to be quite honest. But there are a few things I know to be true, and I constantly need to remind myself of them when my insecurity creeps in.

1) I was created unique be God (Psalm 139:13-14 "For You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.")

2) God died for me, to make me perfect in His sight if I accept Him. (Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.")

3) God has a plan specifically for my life. (Jeremiah 29:11 "'For I know the plans I have for you', declares the Lord, 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future'")

Who am I to argue with God? Who am I to compare myself (created uniquely by God), or my life (the one God has planned specifically for me), to anyone else?!? And who am I to worry about what anyone else thinks of me besides Christ? Let's celebrate each other in our accomplishments, and uphold each other in our struggles. Let's keep our friendships REAL! Praise the Lord He made us each unique and gave us each a role to play out in His big plan! And praise the Lord He's with us each step of the way!! 

The Plan

            In congruence with the previous post, I figured I would give you all an idea of the house layout. (Since it’s hard to visualize the floor plan atrocity from a few individual room shots)

I mapped out a rough and dirty “before” floor plan of the basement and the main floor, as well as a proposed “after” floor plan.  Some of the “after” changes have already been made to the upstairs, but the basement still remains design-challenged, for the time being. Too bad money doesn’t grow on trees right?

So here it is, La Casa De Unger, la Maison D’Unger, or perhaps more appropriately, Das Haus Von Unger ;) in ALL it’s layout-challenged glory!

MAIN FLOOR PLAN BEFORE:

MAIN FLOOR PLAN AFTER (PROPOSED):

BASEMENT FLOOR PLAN BEFORE:

BASEMENT FLOOR PLAN AFTER (PROPOSED):



              So far, we’ve tackled the removal of the walls in the main living area (replaced with timber-frame beams to open up the space), as well as installed the new fireplace and most of the windows on the main floor, and re-framed a new stairwell. The kitchen is still in the design stage as we figure out where we want our cupboards, drawers, pantry, island, etc to go, and calculate costs. As best we can that is…our renovation motto so far has been to change the design around sweet deals. So we never can pick all our definite colors or materials until the major ticket items are bought, and even then sometimes it changes if we find a smoking deal on something we’ve already purchased! Hey, that’s what receipts and refunds are for right?!

             As for the basement all we’ve done is purchase a new high-efficiency washer and dryer set (thank you previous owners for leaving us broken ones!) and moved them together, to the future location.  The previous dryer was gas, so it was located next to the furnace (where there was access to the gas line, but not enough room for both machines, or access to plumbing), and the washer was in the adjacent room, about 15.5 Gen-sized steps away from the dryer. We decided it was too cruel to keep the couple separated in different rooms (AND make me walk laundry 15.5 steps back and forth!) so we bought a pair of electric machines and re-fit them to their new home together.

Acknowledgments: Thanks goes to MS Paint, for finally allowing me to finish the floor plans after glitching out on me a bazillion times! (Anyone feel like donating AutoCAD to a worthy cause?! ;) ) To the previous owners, who left such a glorious hot mess for us to transform (as well as broken appliances to replace!) (We’re happy about the hot mess by the way!) And to Brad, my Duracel-Husband who keeps going and going, renovating and fixing like nobody’s business! Who always knows how to turn my tears into a smile when our plans don't go at all as planned. :)

The Befores

We all can appreciate a beautiful thing, but there’s something really fascinating about a beautiful thing that has become beautiful, and not always existed as such. There’s something mesmerizing about transformations. We’re hooked on them. They give us that WOW factor.

Many of us can recall sick days home from school, tuning in to Jenny Jones to watch the latest “you bullied me in highschool, well look at me now” drama. (Well, at least I can, maybe you were better than that ;) ) Even if you were more of a Price-is-Right junkie though, there are countless other popular shows and stories I could list in which transformations from “ugly” to beautiful are the main plotline. Think about it, maybe you’ve succumb to the temptations of some of these titles: Extreme Makeover, What Not To Wear, The Biggest Loser, Bulging Brides, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Restaurant Makeover, My Fair Lady, The Ugly Duckling, Cinderella? You get the idea. It’s everywhere! We’re makeover addicts consumed with “Before and Afters”; inspired by the beauty that can be found in even the most unpromising things. 

I’ll be the first to admit it. I LOVE being shown the potential in something seemingly hopeless. Even more, I LOVE being the one to discover it. Maybe that’s why Brad and I were so excited to buy this: our first house.

It’s funny sometimes how things work out.  Both Brad and I probably drove by this house hundreds of times throughout the last 12 years, and neither of us ever remembers seeing it.  It’s located only a couple blocks away from my family, and just a few further from Brad’s, and yet, none of us had ever given it so much as a glance.

In all fairness, it’s not much to look at, even if you did catch a glimpse of it beyond the 10 foot fence and bank in front, or the forest of trees enveloping it. Nevertheless, something about this dated, baby blue shark house (AKA the “house with the teeth” or, the “house with the moustache”) caught our attention upon that first walk-through, and there was no turning back.

            This house had been on and off the market a couple of times before the listing we viewed, and had also been listed for quite a few days before we even considered it; 73 to be exact.  We had been given prior warning from others who braved its orange laminate and stucco interior that it “must have been a drug house” and “it’s not worth looking at”.  However, not to be swayed by those scared of unpainted baseboards, we decided to have a looksee for ourselves. Here is what we saw…

            Aside from the unsightly shade of yellow paint in combination with the bright orange laminate and textured stucco walls, it wasn’t a terrible first impression. (something about it made me want to throw a Mexican fiesta...)
           Some of its other offensive cosmetic features were the brass ceiling fan and plastic accordion-style closet door. (which I’m convinced was a shower curtain at one point in its former life)

Upon closer inspection we noticed sloppy workmanship in the tile and laminate flooring; an amateur’s quick fix “updating” the house.

Here’s a view of the original living room taken from the dining room:

Notice the classy window valences and curtain hooks. I can just picture the lace curtains that used to hang there…

Further in, we found the kitchen:

Don’t let the picture fool you, take a look down the hallway at the height of the doorways (which are not your typical height by today’s standards either) and then look at the height of the fridge. Yes, it was a tiny fridge. Even though it was barely apartment sized, it probably would have worked for us, that is, if it would have worked at all…I was under the impression that fridges were designed to keep things cold, you know, to prevent food from going bad sooner…I guess the previous owners used this fridge as additional cupboard space, since it couldn’t even chill a can of pop any colder than room temperature.  We later found out that the fridge was not the only appliance that didn’t work in the house. The washing machine and the dryer were both past their expiry dates as well.

Other tasty tidbits found in the kitchen were the infamous sunshine ceiling, metallic gold fleck vinyl countertops, matching gold hardware, soy sauce bottles in almost every cabinet, a giant bag of used chopsticks, and the unyielding scent of cigarettes every time you opened a cupboard or drawer. (it’s safe to assume one of the first things we did was seal and paint the cabinet interiors, a task I would not wish upon anyone who values the use of their hands and back!)

          Moving down the narrow hallway,

          We get to the first door on the left, the office.

           Unfortunately this is the office after we painted over the baby blue walls and moved some of our stuff in. (I never did get a true “before” shot…) It was quite a small room, not big enough to be anything more than a small office or maybe nursery.

           Moving down the hallway to the first door on the right, we see; the hot mess.

Aside from the overall barf-inducing, bacteria-infested splendour, I suppose it wasn’t a complete right-off…I mean, it definitely could have been worse…the toilet, tub and sink could have been the color of a banana slug…

It was just dirty and dated, a dirty date, like Courtney Love on a good day. In our minds, this would have to be project numero uno.

Down at the end of the hall on the right, we found the “master bedroom”:

           I use the term “master bedroom” lightly because by today’s standards, there was nothing master about any bedroom in the 60’s, just that one was slightly bigger than the rest. The “master” in this house was actually a decent size (compared to other ranchers we’d seen). And by this I mean you could fit a king sized bed in there, with side tables, and a large dresser, and still have quite a bit of room to walk around. Which in our books, was as good as we could hope for.

The last door down the hallway leads to the second bedroom on the main floor. (AKA our renovation storage room as of right now)

This is the baby blue color that used to be in the office as well. The whole house was yellow and baby blue, as if babies and clowns were in charge of the painting…

This picture was taken after the great room renovation, so as you can see, it’s FULL of all the stuff we needed moved out of the way during demolition: kitchen stuff in need of a finished kitchen, boxen of books in need of a bookcase in the new office nook, shoes and coats in need of a closet organizer in the entryway closet...the list is endless... 

I mentioned my personality thrives on order and organization right? Well, needless to say this room drives me crazy every time I look at it.  Plus, the door and frame were removed to straighten the wall during the great room renovation, and since it’s directly across from our bedroom, I have no choice but to look at the mess all the time! I’ve come to the point where I now run past it with my eyes closed like a child runs past an open closet in the dark. Thankfully it won’t be like this much longer!

                                                    
 This completes our tour of the upstairs…continuing on to the basement...

           Pictured above (in this mid-demolition photo), is the access door to the basement (the door on the right)…and the infamous staircase. You might be thinking…“hey, that framed in area looks pretty small to fit an entire staircase”…and you’d be right.

          Unfortunately this might come off pretty anti-climactic since we never got a shot of the staircase from the top. (we're kicking ourselves for not documenting these stairs properly)

But I'll do my best to explain the descent into the basement for those of you who never personally experienced it.

         The first step down happens immediately after you open the door from the upstairs, so if you aren't expecting stairs when you open the door, you're in for a surprise! (as my 3 year old cousin unfortunately found out...) The first 6 or 7 stairs descend much like a ladder from there, with no railing, and the stairs are too narrow to fit your whole foot onto (unless you're under the age of 5 or have freakishly small feet) and the rise of each stair varies (so you're brain never knows what to expect). Then, you reach the tiny landing in the middle, and realize you need to somehow contort your body sideways and duck 2 feet to get down the remaining 3 stairs without bashing your face against the ceiling. (compare the height of the door to the distance between the middle landing and the ceiling.)

         Finally, the basement door is half obstructed by this freak-of-nature staircase. Honestly, what would Mike Holmes say?!

           Anyways...

          Congratulations, you've now successfully completed the mental descent of our old staircase!

          If you managed to look up away from your feet during the descent, here is what you would have seen of the basement:

           Unfortunately, the previous owners “finished” the basement to get more money from the sale…which didn’t work out to anyone’s benefit since the layout doesn’t make any sense and it was finished so poorly. The wall’s are visibly not square, the electrical plan is questionable, the flooring is wavy, and the bathroom is comical to say the least. See what I mean?

           It’s hardly bigger than the bathroom you’d find in a trailer. Also, they didn’t even bother to put the plumbing into the concrete. They just built the drainage above the floor and framed it in. (oh people…you clearly should have been watching more HGTV…) Anyways, we already established that whoever did the “renovating” was motivated by speed and not quality (or the building code). 

          As for the rest of the basement, there’s not much to see…the picture below shows the 4th bedroom entrance off the foot of the stairs:

            This one shows the long narrow room at the front of the house:

          And this one shows the other “bedroom” on the far side of the house:

           The door leads to the hallway where the chimney, furnace and hot water tank reside. I'm not sure who wants an exposed pipe in their bedroom, but the listing seemed to think this was a "bedroom".

 So that's it for the house tour before renovations ensued. Other miscellaneous "before" shots are as follows:

                        The rear exterior:

                         Complete with party deck:

                  One half-acre of relatively private property: (it's split level, the bottom fence is the property line)

                               And the workshop:

Now, to clear up the “drug house” comment from the beginning of this post, here’s the full story.  Everyone who viewed this property was told “the workshop is off limits, you aren’t allowed to look inside it.” For most people, red flags go up at this statement…and we were no different.

Upon first impression, the house does give you a sense of unwelcome. The fortress of a fence out front, as well as the large rolling gate in back help fan the flame of any drug house theory. These people clearly wanted privacy. However, no evidence was found within the house to support such a theory. Wiring checked out, moisture levels checked out, check, check, check. We breathed easier knowing the house was safe. There was however, this foreboding feeling when it came to the “forbidden workshop”. We had to know.

Being the super sleuths that we are, we decided to…break...into…the workshop…cue the cheesy "dun dun dun"

Now before you get your judgemental undies in a bunch, you must realize that these owners were not as smart, nor as cunning as us… they left the door unlocked…so breaking in was as easy as turning the doorknob. I suppose the “forbidden shop” warning was enough to sway other potential buyers from turning the door knob. Not us. We don’t heed warnings. Good thing to, because the shop was new inside! It still smelled of framing! Even if it had been used for illegal activity at one point, there was no evidence of it now. It had no sheathing, so no fishy business could be hidden behind the walls. We could see all the electrical and bare framing all the way up to the roof, and all was good! What a relief!

We’re still unsure what they were hiding in the shop, but our theories are as follows: A) they were thieves storing stolen goods B) they were murderers storing dead victims C) they were secret agents storing classified government information Or D) they were dishonest salmon farmers selling illegal fish to unsuspecting sushi restaurants?

They were Asian and they did have a more-than-humanly-possible supply of soy sauce and chopsticks in the kitchen, so I’m ruling option D as most plausible.

Anyways, after we had a thorough inspector confirm the safety and structure of the house, we spared no time making it official. It was such a relief to know that the place we wanted to live was not only a solid house we can improve upon and make our own, but a safe environment we can raise our future children. (Without fear of them growing a third arm or second bellybutton)

         And there you have it; our 45 year old first baby. We plan on nurturing this house into our home, one room at a time. We’ve already tackled some areas with great pride and enjoyment (I’ll post on those later) and are looking forward to tackling the rest in the years to come, slowly unveiling the potential we saw back in June 2009. Some of you may agree with the changes we’re making, and some of you may not. Regardless of our choices in style and layout, we hope you will at least appreciate the transformation. We hope you’ll find some sort of enjoyment watching us turn our dirty date into a thing of beauty. And maybe, it will inspire you to search out the beauty in other seemingly “ugly” things as well.

Lord knows, there’s beauty in even the most hopeless things, sometimes it just takes the right people to bring it out. And I’m not just talking about houses here. ;)

Hello 2011

Or as I will now refer to it..."twent-e-leven"! (as there is no other cool way to pronounce the year without getting tongue-tied...I said it for the first time yesterday and thought, "wow! what a mouthful!" Think about it...twen-ty-e-lev-en, that's alot of syllables! twenty-eleven, twenty-eleven, twenty-eleven, say that five times fast! Those of you who liked saying "oh-ten" last year can sleep easy, I've thought of a shortened version for this year as well...enter "oh-leven". You can thank me later! ;)

For serious though...2010 was a pretty good year in the younger Unger household. We didn't do anything crazy like go on a fancy vacation on a whim, or buy another house, or donate our bodies to scientific research when we pass on...but 2010 definitely didn't leave us without its memorable highlights. To name a few...

1. Finding out someone attempted to kick down our shop door (thankfully without luck, however unthankfully weakening our deadbolt and doorframe so that we Brad had to build reinforcement for the door and ponder the idea of an alarm)
2. The startling realisation that we had a squatter living next door in the charred carcass of a drug house that unsuccessfully burnt down on Halloween, 2009. (possibly the culprit of highlight #1?)
3. Vacationing in Kelowna and starring in a Doc Walker live video concert special on the beach! And by starring, I mean watching from the mob of people in the audience. However I did catch the special on TV and you can spot Brad and I in the crowd once...so pretty much a starring role...I'm thinking of including it in my resume anyhow...;)
4. And the one that took up most of our free time: Renovating almost our entire main floor in true Brad and Gen fashion...you know what that means, rip out and redo everything!! I'll post about that once I get all the pictures organized (and we install the baseboard/window casings maybe...)

Now to look forward to the many adventures that twentyleven will bring! And what would a new years post be without a list of my resolutions:

1. Take more pictures. We bought an amazing digital SLR camera when we got married to document our new life together, and so far, it hasn't been used to its full potential by either of us. This is a very sad fact. I think back to all the crazy random things we've done, or just the great times spent with friends or family, and that's all I have...the memories in my head. I hope to glue the camera to my hand this year and learn how to use it properly, as well as test my skills at photo editing. If you'd like to help me with this resolution, feel free to yell "hey where's your camera!" if you see me with my hands empty of said camera. You can't miss it, it's black, and big, and has a lens cover.

2. Learn to cook, and enjoy it. This might come as a shock to some of you, but I consider myself to be an oh-so, so-so cook, mostly because I do not enjoy cooking. I absolutely love to bake, but thinking up meal plans and making meals has never been a thrill for me. Quite often, after spending a couple hours preparing dinner, the constant smells of cooking make me so sick I don't even want to eat what I've made after all is said and done, even if it does taste good. (Maybe I have food aversion?!) In any case, I would be perfectly content to eat cereal for every meal if given the option.(namely Froot Loops, however I have been known to succumb to the temptations of plain Rice Krispies or Honey Nut Cheerios from time to time. PS you did read right, I said plain Rice Krispies, as in, no sugar. I also enjoy warm pop, but that's another story)
Thankfully Brad is not picky when it comes to food. None the less, I wouldn't feel right about feeding him a bowl of cereal after a long day at work, nor would our bodies rejoice at the level of nutrition received from a diet of pure sugar...And finally, our parenting abilities might be questioned when our future children bring baggies of cereal to school everyday for lunch, rather than sandwiches made from PB&J and a mothers love. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm a terrible cook, (I can make PB&J for those wondering) and I can follow recipes just fine. My problem lies in picking recipes that will taste good, and then fixing the epic fail that sometimes results, I don't cook well on the fly.
So my plan of action around this problem: Form a collection of good recipes (as in, previously tasted by moi or coming from a highly reliable source, or at the very least containing a pretty delicious looking picture) and have at 'er. Maybe I'll even blog about my successes and "wah,wah wah"s.
Hopefully the result will be a slightly less boring version of Julie and Julia. (sorry if you enjoyed that movie...I for one, was not a fan...)

3. DRINK MORE WATER! I'm terrible for this.

These are my three main goals for the year. I have about a million more, but every year I think about resolutions and set goals I always set too many and the perfectionist inside me implodes a little when I can't accomplish them. So as to avoid that same disaster this year, I'll limit myself to three main ones. Hopefully having told other people about them will help keep me motivated. :) Let's see how this goes!

Christmas 2010

Hopefully everyone had an amazing Christmas! I don't think I've ever been more excited about Christmas decorating than this year, now that we finally have a fireplace and semi-finished living room! *insert happy dance!*  Of course, we weren't about to go crazy with decorating this year, or spend too much money on said decorations. I mean, we just renovated the great room, sans kitchen for now, and even though we got killer deals on just about everything we bought for the renovation AND did all the work ourselves, it was still a HUGE undertaking and cost quite a pretty penny. (you'd be amazed how quickly all the little things add up! I can't imagine spending full price for everything and/or hiring all the work out! yikes!!) So with my limited budget in mind I was all gung-ho to get my craft on and make a bunch of Christmas decorations this year! I brainstormed a bunch of my own decorating ideas, as well as got some nifty ideas from other blogs on the web. However, before I really got going on making any of them I ended up getting called for full time work all through September-December (which was a complete blessing!) but didn't allow me any extra time to finish many of the DIY ideas I wanted to try, plus do all my Christmas gift shopping, baking, wrapping, card sending, etc. Oh well, here's looking at next year, I'll have to remember to start early, like maybe now, so it will all be done in time for Christmas NEXT year! haha.
Anyways, if you have a crafty bone like me and like DIY decorating projects, here are some ideas I found that I really wanted to try my hand at making for next year!

Christmas Tree Ornament Advent Calendar

(you count down the days by putting a new ornament on the tree every night! how cute is that?! A new Unger household tradition in the making me thinks)

Christmas Card Holder

Christmas "Tree" Centerpiece

Christmas Cloth Wreath

Decorative Mini Christmas Trees

Artwork

Christmas Tree Ornaments

Pretty neat huh?! I can't wait to start making some of them!

The extent of my craftiness this year was a glass bowl full of cinnamon scented pinecones mixed with a variety of gold and red ornaments, and the wrapping job we did on all the gifts we handed out. In all honestly, we're pretty thrilled with the creativity and thriftiness we exercised wrapping our gifts this year, so of course I need to share it with you. ;)

Now by itself it may not look so great to you, but I tell ya, underneath our tree all piled together with brown and cream ribbons, they looked pretty awesome. AND you can actually RECYCLE this wrapping paper! (your welcome earth!) I've always hated the fact that conventional wrapping paper is non-recyclable...take a minute to think of how many garbage bags FULL of it make their way into our landfills every year! I'm no tree hugger, (we made pretty short work of cutting down the one on display in our house...:S) but hey, I was up to the task of saving at least some landfill room! (Don't worry, we plan on using our live Christmas tree as firewood so it won't go to the dump!) So after I scrounged up enough old newspapers throughout the week, I tied them up in some brown and cream ribbons I bought on clearance at Walmart, made some cute scrapbook nametags, and busted out the sharpie to add the personal touches! Brad and I have always LOVED drawing faces on the pictures in newpapers and magazines, so this made for quite the entertaining evening of wrapping gifts and laughing away at all the random pictures and comic strips we made. (Let's just say Mindy McPherson never looked so good!) And wrapping presents never was SO fun!

As for the rest of our Christmas decor, since we were so incredibly busy this season the decorating we did was pretty minimal, and simple, but hey, I think it worked! Here are a few pictures of our blinged out crib. ;)

The garland and lights were all left over from Christmas' past, as was the star on top of the tree and a few of the opaque ivory ornaments. I went with a new color scheme of soft opaque gold, ivory, red and browns. I got all the ornaments at Superstore for $10 bucks (a container of about 120!) as well as the stockings for $10 each. I had thought of sewing my own stockings, or crocheting my own, but the cost of fabric or yarn would have come close if not been right up there, so to save time this year, I went with the easy buy.

The wreath on the mantel I bought on clearance at Michaels for $3, fully intending to add my own greenery and decorations and hang it on the front door. But as I was prepping for Brad's surprise birthday party at the end of November I needed it moved off my table, so I stuck it up on the mantel to get it out of the way. Later, while in the midst of cleaning and cooking, I took a look over at the fireplace and rather liked the look of the "naked" wreath, sitting there in all it's nude glory...and it kinda reminded me of the real reason for Christmas, the reason Jesus was born in the first place...I'm not sure if it reminds you of a crown of thorns at first glance...but it did to me at that moment, and still does. So there it stayed, up on the mantel, bare, providing me with a constant reminder of Christ's sacrifice for us. A reminder that this baby Jesus was not only born for me, but that He was born to die for me. It made me cry almost every time I looked at it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Inspiration

So, here's my dilemma...I didn't marry myself...no,no, no I'm not getting all Sue Sylvester up in here, what I meant was, I didn't marry someone exactly like myself...and as much as it is a dilemma in some ways (more on that in a sec), it truly is a blessing in ALL other ways. I'm very glad Brad isn't exactly like me, I think we'd drive each other ca-razy if he was! But anyways, what I'm referring to right now is the difference between us, design-wise.

You see, when we first got married, we started off renting a basement suite, as most newly married couples do. (I'd like to know who in this wonderfully inflated lower mainland can afford their own place right away. I mean right?!) We did have a good chunk of money saved away for our future down payment, but at the time, we were earlobes-deep in school payments for the next couple years while Brad finished his Bachelor of Education. Thanks to our down payment, the government deemed Brad "not eligible" for a student loan, making it impossible for him to apply for any bursaries either, since having a student loan was a necessary prerequisite. So here we sat on a down payment, which we didn't want to use for school, while unable to get a student loan, of which over half would have been forgiven due to the nature of Brad's schooling, and no bursaries available. Oh, and I was making about $13/hr at the time. enter stress. We weren't about to take out a bank loan and pay interest on money we technically didn't need. (We just stubbornly didn't want to give up our down payment to pay for school) So....what did we do?! We prayed, and decided to trust God with our money, paying for school, and our future house. In the end, we chose to see how far we could get paying for school semester by semester out-of-pocket, and if we had to dip into our "house money", we would. And guess what? ...we got through all those school payments, rent payments, and bills, without touching our downpayment, and with no debt to our name. Lord, you are SO cool!

Anyways, rewind back to the real reason for this post, design. (insert exaggerated eyeroll to my ability to ramble in a sideways direction)

So while we were renting and living, quite literally, on a prayer (not to mention a really tight budget!), it's safe to assume we had NO spare cash to even think about decorating our basement suite. We lived on donated EVERYTHING. To give you a better picture of what that meant, we had to risk electrostatic shock everytime we turned our TV on because the buttons were broken off and we had no remote. Yah, we stuck a bobby pin into the "power" button hole and turned it just right so it would turn on, all the while sporting a perma-cringe in anticipation of "the shock". The couches we recieved were not only old, and uncomfortable, and upholstered in a permanently dirty green flower pattern, but to my surprise, came complete with what we now refer to as, "the unidentifiable brown substance of 2006", which was discovered between its back cushions during its "initiation cleansing". *shudder* But hey, at least we had a TV and couches right?!

So needless to say, we didn't even think about decorating or our "style" until we bought our house back in 2009 and starting the renovation process. When we first moved in, my naive brain subconsciously thought IT was going to be in charge of decorating and the overall design of our house, since #1: I'm a girl, and #2: That's what I'm into.  Clearly my subconscious was experiencing amnesia because although Brad is a guy,  he has an eye for design as much as I do. (and I mean that in the most manly, un-metro way) He's a craftsman through and through, with a LOT of good ideas to contribute. Funny thing is, I knew these things about him, I just somehow didn't attach them to our house renovation until we started discussing our own ideas and trying to put them together under one roof.

On the one hand, we have Brad. His dream home is a classic timber frame constructed from his bare hands and the trees he fell from the property it's built on. It's rustic and grand, with a huge wood-burning fireplace covered in stone, which may or may not have his hunting trophy hanging above the mantel. (I'm never 100% sure if he's joking or not when he mentions this, he likes to tease me with his "hunting lodge" ideas...)

It looks something like this:

Gorgeous right? Totally. But financially we're not there yet for starters, and even though I love this style too, it's not my personal favorite.
I'm in love with the cozy, country meets beachy, cottage feel. A smaller home with a softer color palette.

Something like this:

Gorgeous right? Totally. Hence, my dilemma.
There are certain feminine aspects to my preferred design style that would stifle Brad's manliness if he were forced to live in them 24/7. Whereas, equally, there are certain masculine qualities of his preferred design style that would stifle my femininity if I were forced to live in them 24/7. So, we're working on a balance. It's not easy and it might be a design disaster in the end,but we'll see. So far I think it's working fairly well. (I'll let you guys be the judge) We both are pretty good at compromising, and surprisingly our two design styles do share a number of things in common, making some decisions easier. We haven't fully got into the decorating aspect yet though...so stay tuned. ;) All in all, we're having a lot of fun with our first house. And that's what it is, our first house. We don't plan on being in it forever, but we're making it our own. This is our first home, the place we'll be spending the next 10-15 years of our lives, (maybe longer, who knows) and we want to spend those years living and building memories in something we like, something that feels like home to both of us.

Finally, if you're like me, and like to be inspired by pretty design pictures...here are some that I googled and oogled tonight....gorgeous right? totally... :)

Welcome

Welcome to our blog! (and by "our" I really mean me, Gen.)  I finally caved to the family and friend requests to start one...but in all honesty, I had been thinking about it for a while anyways, so it wasn't complete peer pressure that spurred this on. :)   This is the place I will keep you updated on our house progress and fill you in on the everyday adventures Brad and I make for ourselves.