Projects for the New Year

This blog has always been a mixture of my faith, family, ministry and life in general. Lately it's been heavy on the moving and personal as we are in the middle of chaos. And today will be no different! It's been a great way for me to chronicle our lives and something that I hope our children will look back fondly on. 

We had a wonderful and quiet Christmas at home with our favorite foods and traditions. We opened gifts, had a nice dinner and played a board game. I buy a board game each Christmas and some year's games are better than others. 

I found one this year called, Stupid Deaths, and it seemed like it would be humorous. Half the family finds it hilarious and the other half finds it, well.....stupid! 🤣 It really takes no skill except guessing if the incredibly stupid way someone dies is true or false. About 1/2 way through it Emily said, "Could we play something else that requires some intelligence!" You can guess which camp she falls in. 

Dan and I made the 4 hour trip to our new home yesterday to bring two car loads of items as well as drop off Emily's car. Since she's never driven on the Interstate nor driven that far, we figured it would be better to take her car ourselves so next week we won't have to worry about her driving it alone while we make the move.

I was going to put away some things but there is a thin layer of dust over everything. The main bathroom has been gutted and we are getting a whole new bathroom. Plus the wall oven has been removed and we are getting a new oven and range top (one unit). So needless to say, until the work is done, there is no point in unpacking because the dust will get on everything. I'm not complaining because I so appreciate the church doing all it can to update some things in the house for our arrival. I did ask if it was going to all be done by our arrival early next week and was assured it would be! lol

When you take a church that has a parsonage you get what you get. I'm fairly easy going and just try my best to make it work and deal with the inconveniences. One thing that I am going to love in the new place is the storage! Lots of closets and built-in storage space as well as a clean concrete-poured floor basement.

One thing that was stressing me a bit is the eat-in kitchen is not big enough for our dining room table. We have a big farmhouse style oak table with chairs. It has two leaves and will seat 12. We don't have money to buy a new table nor do I really want to give it up because it's great for company. 

There is an upstairs formal living room with a fireplace and then there is a room downstairs that the previous pastor and his family used as a t.v. room. I have no furniture for the upstairs living room. Dan and I went to a furniture store to check out living room sets and could not believe the prices. 

Love, love, love the built in shelving units!

There is no washer and dryer in the house so we already know we have to lay out the money for those. We really don't want to go into debt buying furniture so I've been in a quandry as to what to do. We can get hand-me-down stuff but sometimes that isn't always the best option with pet allergies, etc..

However, I came up with a good solution for now. I have decided that since entertaining is important to us and we have a perfectly good table for it, we really don't want to forgo the set we have. I'm going to turn the formal living room into a dining room/multipurpose room. I can get a couple of arm chairs for the area by the fireplace but use the rest of the room as a dining area. 

I'll turn the eat-in part of the kitchen as another little sitting area. We can put a bench or chair or two there where people can sit and visit with me while I'm in the kitchen. Will need to lift up that chandelier so it's not so low.

It's still in the planning stages and will probably take some time but that's my thoughts on that right now.

Downstairs there are two finished rooms in the basement which at the moment are dark brown paneling and orangish-brown carpet. It's very 70s style. The church is painting the paneling for me which I'm hoping will brighten the whole space. I chose a cottage white which does have some honey undertones so it's not stark white. I will have an entire room for me to create in and I'm very happy about that! But the brown has to go or I will feel like I'm in a dungeon.

The one thing that makes me very happy are these shelving units in the unfinished part of the basement. I unloaded 4 bins of canning jars and there is another set of 5 shelves for the filled jars I have. It's a perfect place to store my canned items!

Well, I always say I look a challenge and a project and I have enough projects to keep me busy for a quite a while! Looking forward to seeing what the new year will bring.