This share has been a long time in the making, and I am SO excited to reveal it to you now.
Before I do, however, I am convicted to speak about this first: this is what a journey eight years in the making looks like. TJ and I had big hopes and dreams when we first got married in the mid-summer of 2011, and we are just now beginning to see the fruit of many of those seeds we first sowed. One thing that I believe has helped get us to this chapter of our story is simple: contentment. And what's the opposite of contentment? Comparison.
The last thing that I want this to do is compare your story to ours. Mainly because our stories are different because they are meant to be different. Posts like this don't show all the hard work that got us here, the saying "no" to things that would have held us back, the saying "yes" to other things that were uncomfortable and scary, or the patience that was certainly required. So, while I genuinely hope you're excited for us as you look at the pictures below, I also hope that it inspires you to keep chasing whatever dream God has placed in your heart. Even if it takes you eight years to get there!
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Now, on to our big reveal!
I wrote this nearly two years ago when I shared about our first work days in our new house:
"My first thought when we pulled into the driveway of this particular house after our realtor said we should was, "It's got potential." The yard didn't take my breath away like the inside did, but it did make my eyes light up and channel my creative juices. Potential is exciting, but it is also quite exhausting, to be honest."
That has been our life for the past two and a half years, and we still have work to do. The progress we've made, however, definitely deserves to be celebrated! A big part of getting us to this particular milestone was the major changes we made last year in our family in terms of our finances. I've shared our journey with y'all a lot over the last six months, never so you'll pat us on the back but rather to be a tangible source of encouragement for you as you chase your own dreams. Sure, we had hoped we would be able to make these improvements to our home, but it wasn't until we saw the fruit of being better stewards that it became something we were confident we would accomplish sooner rather than later. True story: we've never been more excited to write one of the biggest checks we've ever written!
It, also, helps having a handy husband who loves to put feet to your dreams. We left the majority of this process to the professionals, but we looked to Home Depot and YouTube to save us about $1,500 by doing the minor things ourselves. Wahoo!
Shall we begin? Here is our house in February 2017, two months after we moved in (note: the bushes were muuuuuch larger once they bloomed later that spring):
This is what our house looked like in February 2019, right before we started our latest project. This is how it looked for about a year and a half, after around two dozen outdoor work days to dig up all the overgrown bushes/brush around the house:
This is after the first phase of our renovation happened in late February 2019. We hired a contractor to 1) remove the small covering over our front door, 2) extend a covering over our porch base (front porch and side porch), and 3) install a new roof. This was Phase One:
This was early March 2019, after Phase Two: the roof was replaced. It changed the entire dynamic of our house, and I am STILL giddy about how amazing the darker shingles made our house look!
And (...drum roll please...) here is Phase Three, aka the finished product as of mid-April 2019. White railings, oh my! Finishing the porch was our (aka TJ's, LOL) big project over spring break, and he did SUCH a great job with everything. We tweaked our plans a few times before we made our final decision, and we are both ECSTATIC with how perfect it turned out!
For all of you who love "Before and After" shots (like me), here is a side-by-side view of what it looked like pre-project and post-project:
I mean, how good did my man do? Yay Teesh!
When we made a list in December of all the things we wanted to accomplish this year, we both agreed that improving our yard and adding more curb appeal to our home was what we most hoped to check off. True story: not once but TWICE last year, people pulled into our driveway because they thought our house was a "rental" and looked "empty." After a gave them both a confused look and rolled my eyes (sorry, not sorry), I confidently told TJ that people need to know that HAPPY PEOPLE LIVE HERE! LOL! Basically, give me alllllllll the curb appeal.
We still have three big things to mark off our list to complete all of our pending outdoor projects, and we've got a tentative plan for all of them. The three major things we have left to accomplish are: 1) fence in the back yard this fall, 2) save for landscaping this year and plant next spring, and 3) begin the process of restoring the old barn/building in our backyard. Our hope is that by the end of next year, we'll have them all done and can kick our feet up for a while to enjoy all of the fruits of our labor! Just in time for our 10th wedding anniversary, Lord willing.
2019 has been a big year for us already, and we are so motivated to replace all of the grey check marks with green ones in our shared note via our iPhones. A couple who dreams together, right? TJ and I are a great team because I am usually the one who believes that we can do amazing things, and he is the one who puts together the best plan for us to attack it. We both love to finish projects, and we're pretty aware of whether or not it's a good time to start something. Our family's motto is simple: team work makes the dream work! And we're definitely living by it.
Stay tuned for what comes next at Home Sweet Bargeron! We are loving every minute of livin' that budget life, y'all. It really is amazing what happens with intentionality and hard work collide!
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