Life lesson: live in the house first

I remember when we were looking at houses.
It wasn't so long ago, we've just been in ours a year in April. There were some really amazing ones out there, but the conditions to actually get into them weren't always favorable. We had a time limit that we had in mind that we wanted (wait, no, make that needed) to purchase by, so we had to let go of the ideas of some of those homes. Some were in short sale status, some were in foreclosure, some needed a TON of work, some were ready to move into and decorate.
I remember thoughts I had from each home we toured. What I would do differently with the paint. What color I would change the carpet to. How I much prefered hardwoods to tile, and if "this" were my house, I most certainly wouldn't put that HUGE sectional over "there". I can almost recount the number of homes we walked through, and in each of these I had different ideas of how I would do things. Funny thing is I even remember doing that with the home we were renting at the time, also.
Hell, now that we actually own our home, I can't even decide on paint colors (no, really, I've painted both my son and my daughter's room twice now, before coming to a color I'm happy with.) It's not important to me that I took weekends of my time to do this, what's important to me is that I put in the elbow grease to do it, and to go through the trial and error to find just the right one. Both those rooms look beautiful, by the way. In fact, sometimes I go to the hallway just outside both rooms and I stand there and glance back and forth between the two and smile to myself. When people come over, I almost skip the entire rest of the house and bee line straight for those two rooms. "No, really, don't look at the rest of the house....that's not an exact representation of how "our" house really looks. Now these two rooms...these are "our" house." It's going to take some time. But with dedicated, time consuming, sore elbows and nearly empty wallets involved...our house will one day be our version of perfect.
When we first moved into our home I had that overwhelming feeling that there was so much to do. I was excited and elated. Yet, terrified to death of the investment we just made, and were going to be continuing to make to get things just right.... and O MY GOD! what would happen if something went wrong? Would we really be able to do all the things we envisioned in this home, and turn it into "ours"? Of course we would. We've slowly been doing that...even if we had to start over with a few projects to get things the way we want them to be.
I'm becoming more happy with my home as the days go by. But still so much to do.
Of course it just wouldn't be right if SOME things didn't derail our original plans...because that's just the way life goes, now isn't it?
Adam awoke one morning to our kitchen tiles being buckled and broken in two places down the center of our very large kitchen/dining area. That's going to be fun (and rather expensive) to fix. We actually have to rip up the entire floor, because it's happening all over the kitchen and is slowly starting to work it's way into every area that we have tile on the main floor of the home ( ahhhh....so that's why the laundry room, and the small cut out in the dining room has different tile laid). The previous owners knew something we didn't! Damn them for not telling us! Really, o well...we hated the tile anyway. One of those things when we walked through our house that we decided we'd change. Now we've been collecting estimates and trying to decide how much we want to carpet and how much we want to do in stained concrete (imagine that...didn't I say something earlier in this post about hardwoods?) Funny how that happens, isn't it. I always have ideas of grandeur until I start living it. Hmmmm...we have two bulldogs, soon three kids, live in a climate that isn't real accomodating to wood surfaces, it IS the kitchen and there WILL be water somewhere at any given point in time, every day. AND what if that buckles? Seeing that type of money bulging below my feet just may upset me a little more than the ugly tile did. OY....hardwood is a big no no for us. Stained concrete makes more sense.
Ya see, it was really easy to walk through those houses, and see ourselves living there. It was even easier to do the final walk through when we purchased OUR home and make quick decisions and snap judgements on all the things we would do differently when the keys were in our hands. We even told people before we had moved in what we were going to do to this house. I don't know where we thought the money to do all of those things was going to come from, and I honestly think we both envisioned the changes happening overnight because it would be ours and we would never live in a house with ugly white oak cabinets!(Still haven't figured out how to wiggle my nose to make that happen, ala Bewitched).
Now that this is OUR house. Now that I know that all the tile on the first floor needs to be replaced. I know the sound the air conditioning makes before it is going to turn on. The fear of one of the two units that power the home during the sweltering summers here burning out almost makes me want to convulse!I can walk you to the places where the floors creak, and I can dance around on them and I know the tune their going to make. I know that at least twice a week I'm going to hear someone screaming in pain when they walk out of their bathroom (this would be the kids) and step on the area where the carpet is starting to wear and the tack strip is poking through. I know I wouldn't live anywhere differently because we have the greatest neighbors on the planet, and our community is growing and thriving with young families just like us, who are investing in themselves and in their homes, so our property values (once they finally start to recover a bit) as well as the family friendly, beautiful neighborhood is going to remain fairly stable. I know that we need to replace the kitchen faucet, and I'd really like new counters, refinished cabinets and brand new shiny black appliances to go with it. I've also wisened up to the fact that I'm not going to walk downstairs tomorrow morning and see that dream as a reality...but I know soon...soon it will be. We just have to keep working hard, and making smart choices and taking this house, room by room, project by project to where we want it to be. And when we finally get there...there will be more changes that we will want to make. That's the nature of progress. :)
So my thought for today is this....it's easy to keep a mental check list, or even verbally spout about what you would do differently before you live in the house. Once it becomes yours, the reality sets in that there are some things that you had originally planned that didn't make so much sense after all. There's some things that are still a really fantastic idea....but it may take you longer than what you thought it would to get them finished...and to your liking. There are lots of ideals, and should be's. But we didn't cultivate the plot our home sits on. We didn't pour the foundation, and build the walls around the ugly tile in our kitchen, we very much came into those circumstances with hopes and dreams and fears and our own set of experiences and taste and choices, and those will guide what we do from here on out. But at the end of the day, it's our home, and we're putting our hearts and souls into it, and nobody else should look in our windows and be justified in saying what they would do differently...well...that is...until they live here.
Life lesson....don't covet the house, and start making changes to it before you have lived there.
(This post isn't at all about houses. Although everything I wrote is true, this has nothing to do with the homes we saw, or the one we live in) and with that I say "good night".