Fact #1: Moving your family to another state is stressful.

Fact #2: Remodeling a house is stressful.

Fact #3: Trying to do those two things while keeping the budget as low as possible is stressful.

I feel like Andy Bernard in The Office when he declared, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. I haven’t had a very hard life.”

As of today, Labor Day 2024, we have now lived in Alabama for 100 days; which is how long it took living here for our home renovations to finally be considered “complete”.

I can feel it. I feel the relief, as well as the amazing sense of accomplishment, that as a family, we collectively remodeled the 28 year-old house we bought, and just as my wife aspired it to be:

“Like a cute farmhouse”.

Right now I’m thinking of a certain scene from the movie, “Meet the Parents”…

Well that’s how I feel about shiplap.

It is official:

Anything in our home that could be “shiplapped”, has been now been shiplapped.

Our kitchen ceiling. Our master bathroom ceiling. The kids’ bathroom wall.

I’m also now in on a home renovation secret: Not only does nailing up boards make them look “like a cute farmhouse”, but they also are probably covering up something not so cute and farmhousey behind them.

There is no question: This entire process has been a complete family effort. And when I say “family”, I mean my parents, as well as my sister’s family.

It took all took of us working and sacrificing most of this year to get where we are now.

We spent spring break this year basically gutting the house; taking out the cabinets and the ripping up the floors ourselves, to prepare the contractors to install the new ones.

Once all that was completed, then we had to build new door frames and baseboards.

Even as I’m describing it, I feel a little guilty using the word “we”, when I was simply the assistant. Without my family, I would have no idea what to do!

So yeah, I guess it’s important to realize that this entire process had indeed been stressful. However, I am now living inside the reward.

For me, it’s much more that my wife’s vision of making this home beautiful.

What has been my inspiration has been to set up a warm and welcoming home environment to raise my family and to welcome guests.

I love that our home is one story and has an open lay-out. I feel like our family is closer because of it.

While there while always be some kind of upcoming renovation on our home, our family can now live in the reality that a new level has been unlocked:

Cute farmhouse.