I am writing this next story with tons of excitement and anticipation, because our ordinary house is finally getting some much needed character building!

It all started about ten years ago when my husband and I built our house; six months after moving in I knew I was in trouble, we had sold our 80 year old home filled with all kinds of character oozing out of every corner, and this new house had, well, none! I did manage a nice front porch and shutters, but in the end it was just an ordinary house.  What in the world was I thinking, no white kitchen, no solid wood doors or white tile bathroom, and worst of all no screened in porch! This was not me, how could I ever go on living here without the charm and warmth of  an older home.  I found myself secretly  driving by my old neighborhood, looking up open houses, maybe there would be another house for sale, maybe we could move back to the old neighborhood. But after kids and work, weddings, grandkids, work, cats, dogs, and more work, we are still here, living in the same old ordinary house, looking at the same old boring maple floors and builders grade carpet, and with all the above goings on this house is a bit worse for the wear; frankly I didn’t  know how much longer I could live without crown molding or oak floors!  That cheesy white carpet makes me cringe every time I walk by it.  Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely grateful for our home, it is well built, with good bones, but I need to make our ordinary house not so ordinary – I need to love this house!

So, after much ado about a lot, I finally convinced my husband that the time has come to start putting some of that character that we long for into this house. As time (none) and budget (very small) allow, this character building will be done in phases, so we have decided to start with the floors and work our way up, giving the interior a more graceful transition from room to room, instead of the awkward union of floor and carpet that we have now.  Over the next week, it is with much angst that we will have to tear our whole entire house apart and somehow fit 32 years of stuff into a storage unit sitting in the driveway.