House Projects and answered prayer

Over the holidays we were able to squeeze in some house projects that we are very excited about.  We carpeted and painted the rest of the upstairs, we added in a pantry cabinet in the kitchen/dining area, we painted and replaced the trim around the kitchen window, painted the back door and side door, painted cabinets in the laundry room.  It finally feels like all our work is coming together, a little bit.  That maybe, in a small way, we we are chipping away at the mountain of house projects before us.  We still need to paint the laundry room and bathroom as well as install new trip and flooring, but here is a step in the right direction. I failed to get a good "before" picture so here is a half way picture. Just imagine the side door and the whole cabinet being dark, dingy wood that would give you slivers when you touched it. I still want to improve the home decor and we still have quite a bit to paint, but compared to what we walked into. This is huge for us (especially having a baby in the middle of it all).

Laundry room half way through

Laundry room cabinet and door painted

Back door before (half with the panels, half without)

Back Door after

New kitchen pantry/cabinet

Family room before

Family room after

Office before

Office now

Dining Room Before

Dining and family Room Before

Dining Room After

Family room after

Kids closet before

Kids closet now (doors are still being painted with one last coat in the garage)

Stairs before

Stairs Before

Stairs after with christmas decor

Toy room/hallway before

Hallway after

Toy Room after

We had been saving up to install the carpet we bought the week we moved in, to put in the rest of upstairs. Due to the domino effect of house projects we hadn't been able to put it in until now.  I.e.:  Before you can put in carpet you have to tear out old carpet, have money to pay a carpet layer, and you have to paint the walls. Before you can paint the walls you have to remove furniture, paint the trim and prep the walls.  Before you can prep the walls and re-texture struggle areas you have to tear down the old wallpaper and sand down the struggle ares.  Before you can tear down old wallpaper you have to remove old trim and find time and money to do so.  You get the idea.  Anyhow...Before we had our sisters in town we thought it would be a good chance to put in the carpet.  Jared has been prepping in various ways for this and then hired a carpet layer off of craigslist.  We were now up against a deadline so I hired our neighbor girl to come help with kids and assist with painting so we could paint the hallway and toy room after Jared and I had painted trim the night before.  Jared tore out all the old carpet and padding and put in the new padding late that night.  We were all set up...only to have the carpet layer not show up. He was a couple hours late and we were getting desperate so I got down on my knees and prayed.  "I know this sounds silly, but we really need a carpet layer.  We have all this exposed tack strip with little kids, furniture, etc. all askew and company coming into town tomorrow and a concerned husband who has worked hard to pull this all together.  Please!! Send me a carpet layer"  Well, within the hour Jared felt inspired to call another carpet layer on craigslist who showed up at our door. He was this super christian guy and only listened to christian music and talked about his church.  At the end of the day I told him he was an answer to prayer and he responded that he had been praying for work during this holiday season so we answered each other's prayers! It was pretty amazing to have an experience like that and it is soooo nice to have new carpet everywhere!