A Home of Serenity and Security; a Sanctuary of Faith

Our home is anything but a sanctuary right now. Everything is torn apart, all of our belongings are scattered in various different storage areas, and we are living in a rental home, while some serious layers of materials are being removed from our old house. 

We are currently scrapping moments of history right off the walls. History is stubborn to remove. It comes in the form of lath and plaster; our house is like a lath and plaster museum. 

The process of renovating and remodeling our 108 year old home is nerve-racking and tedious. This is not a cookie-cutter style home with simple materials. Everything is more complicated, more expensive, and more time consuming to address properly. Stress flows through our veins like a powerful river carving layers out of a mountain. We are learning to make stress our new best friend. Stress and power tools, that is. They are a great combination of friends to have. (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.) 

Having our home peeled back to its bones is like nothing I have ever experienced before. This home is different. It is so much more... more? Layer upon layer, upon lath, and upon plaster, this house is being torn to shreds and thrown in a huge dumpster. It feels only slightly insane to take the home we just purchased less than a year ago, and now we are sledgehammering it into something completely different. What was once beautiful, is now a total bomb debris pile. 

It started with the tree. 

Oh what a tree... what a ridiculously massive tree. 

Some of the repairs and renovation to our home was forced upon us by nature, and by God. But over time, it has turned into something so much more. There will not be a room in the house that is untouched and each room will be repaired or remodeled in some way. 

It is an effort of epic proportions, for us. Even the exterior will be painted, the roof will be replaced, we have gone over every inch of the home extensively and David has made very detailed plans. This home could easily be featured in a fixer upper show. 

This project is a BIG deal! 

At least it sure is for us! 

The process of home renovating has been highly emotional. 

This is our home. 

Our home has currently been demolished by a demo crew. It feels like my heart has a hole in it while watching this demo process unfold, with more and more demolition happening daily. I having mixed feelings of elation and excitement, along with heart-throbbing horror and dread. 

I have always found it interesting how often fear and excitement play so closely together, like best friends that can't live without each other. My emotions teeter-totter between the two friends, with a bit of hardcore numb somewhere in the middle, to balance things out in my head and heart. I am currently feeling a little home remodeling motion sickness, especially as I look around our house in its current crunchy bones-exposed state. 

There are so many details, so many things to manage during this process. There are fun things to do, like picking colors, cabinets, countertops, and considering backsplash ideas. And there are horrible things to do, like removing asbestos pipes, chiseling through layers and layers of kitchen flooring, and lath and plaster blasting. 

We are still in the beginning stages of demolition work. We did some of our own, but there is so much, we had to hire a crew to come in and help gut it down to where it needs to be. As we peel back the layers, it has been so interesting to see what was hidden behind years of rebuilding and changes. 

This old house has stories to tell, I am sure. I sure wish I could find out more about its history. 

Is there a way to do that? 

Oh, I would just love to know more about who has lived here over the years! 

Let's move on to the pictures... 

Here we have a plumber turning off our water, so pipes can be removed. We are relocating our boiler and water heater and updating our plumbing, which will free up another great room for us to remodel and use downstairs. All of that pipe mess will be out of there! 

David, being the superhero that he is, put on a full body suit and began the hellish process of removing asbestos pipes. You have to do it so carefully, and protect everything and create all sorts of barriers. He did everything he was supposed to, he painstakingly cut through the nasty pipes and properly disposed of them, and he got the thumbs up from the Air Tech crew, for clean air. 

David has an "Asbestos Friend" who he consulted with to do things right. We will have the professionals in next week to finish the rest of the pipe removal in the crawlspace. I still cannot believe how willing David was to do such nasty, nasty work. His day job involves sitting at a computer using his brain intensely, but he is super skilled at manual labor tasks, and getting hard things done. 

Our goal is to "get rid of the scary" in this home. Anything that was on our inspection report that we questioned, we want it removed, repaired, replaced and updated. 

What a massive chore it was for him! 

Some of the pipes gone. We will gain so much ceiling in that room. It could be anything... a workout room, an art studio, another family room... it is a really cool space. You can't tell from the picture, but it will be awesome, I am sure. :) We will remove the pipes and add a new ceiling. 

As the walls of the kitchen area have been opened up, we have found remnants of the old kitchen that was built into the walls, behind our old cabinets. There are old cabinets that go up to the height of the ceiling (over 9 feet), and it would seem that the kitchen area was once much more grand than it became over the years. We are also going to take our new cabinets all the way to the ceiling, and so it is was cool to be able to have a little sneak peek at what that that would feel like. This picture shows the dividing wall between kitchen and dining... before it was knocked down all the way. 

The dining room walls have been ripped down. 

The wall has been removed! And the kitchen is being peeled back... there are SO many layers of life to rip through! 108 years is a lot of layered material and changes! 

Look how open it will be! There will be a wall built at the back of the kitchen, to create a hallway, and a place to put up cabinets. Instead of having 3 doorways in the back area of the kitchen to the laundry room, back room, and stairs, there will only be one door going into the new hallway. It will reduce the door clutter by a LOT! Where the wood is on the floor and where the wall was taken out, there will be a large island connecting the kitchen and dining room, so the two rooms can flow together into one very large space, that also continues on into the archway that leads to the living room. 

Just a reminder pic of what was once there... that first arch will stay and divide the living and dining/kitchen area... the red wall behind it is GONE! 

 RIP red wall. It was fun while it lasted. 

A closer look at the cabinets behind the archway on the other side This is from the kitchen view. There is also a laundry chute that was closed up. Interesting! 

More wallpaper uncovered... I don't think we will try and recreate that look. :) 

I think the kitchen area used to have a lot more space back in the day. 

It was quite the massive wall that was removed! 

The laundry chute. 

We found some old inactive knob and tube wiring in the wall, it appears they once had sconces on the sides of the archways. That sounds like a pretty sweet idea! 

I cannot believe the current state of our home! It is SO scary! Eek! It really does take GUTS to do a renovation like this one! But I believe we are doing right by this beautiful home. The home wants it, it is begging for a cleansing and rejuvenation. It is such a beautiful home, I absolutely love it, and I am so happy we can do this. But still... SCARY STUFF!!!!!! 

Our poor roof is FINALLY being fixed after all these many months. That trees busted right through. It was SO incredibly scary at the time. 

We have filled the dumpster twice so far. Don't ask how much that costs. 

The master bathroom is in demolition mode too. 

We keep finding such interesting wallpaper... 

One day, this will be a beautiful master bathroom, I just know it. ;) Eek! 

Even the downstairs bathroom has been hammered, to remove the old pipes. It is hard to see the good recently updated areas of the home become messed up too. Ugh. I am grateful to know that it will all be better for it, in the end. 

Saving wood. 

There was an old chimney in the kitchen too, that will need to be carefully removed. 

I love our home. I really, really, do. 

There is currently a beautiful pink flower tree in the front yard. I did not know that the tree had such glorious flowers, this is the first Spring we have been here. It felt like a personal gift from Heavenly Father, because I have always wanted a pink flower tree in my front yard. I had one in my last home in Boise, but wouldn't you know it, the large pink flower tree was blown over in a windstorm. (I guess I don't have much luck with wind and trees?) 

Anyway, God is the giver of all good things, and I feel truly blessed to have this home, as insanely crazy as it has been to live under such crazy home-demolition circumstance. 

I can just feel it in my bones that it is all meant to be. The lessons we are learning are just too good. The experience we are gaining is priceless. 

 

Recently in General Conference President Nelson declared: 

"You may feel that there is still more you need to do to make your home truly a sanctuary of faith. If so, please do it! If you are married, counsel with your wife as your equal partner in this crucial work. There are few pursuits more important than this. Between now and the time the Lord comes again, we all need our homes to be places of serenity and security.

Have you ever wondered why the Lord wants us to make our homes the center of gospel learning and gospel living? It is not just to prepare us for, and help us through, a pandemic. Present restrictions on gathering will eventually end. However, your commitment to make your home your primary sanctuary of faith should never end. As faith and holiness decrease in this fallen world, your need for holy places will increase. I urge you to continue to make your home a truly holy place “and be not moved” from that essential goal.

We are currently moving mountains to follow the counsel from the prophet, to "be not moved," in this great home endeavor. 

This has been so much more than a manual labor of love, it has been a much needed spiritual journey together. 

This project is not about the house structure we are building, it is about the home we are creating. 

We humans need to create. 

It is an innate desire we all have, and part of our divine identity. As we fulfill this part of our innate needs, we are more fulfilled in life. And even though this home-creating is crazy stressful, it still feels good, and it feels so much better than being idle, and numb. 

There is no place like home -- except for maybe heaven -- our true home. 

I hope we can create a little bit of heaven on earth.

 That is the goal!