The moment we walked through our house I knew I was home. It was ugly. No, really, it was so ugly that it had just been sitting on the market for months. Even when everything else was selling and despite it’s oversized yard. It just sat.
But I didn’t see the ugly dark brown and navy paint everywhere. I didn’t see the brown laminate counters or the hack job of a zipper-looking backsplash. I saw something entirely different. Something beautiful.
Thank goodness for the large yard, because Mike is so practical, that was what sold him. Otherwise, to Mike this house was a dark (literally) stepping stone to our next home.
I pictured the deck we would build, the lighter paint colours I would choose to highlight the trim and mouldings with, and the personality we would add to the house. But as an Interior Designer (at the time), it was much easier for me to picture this makeover.
Fast-forward almost four years later, and we have accomplished many items on my home-makeover list. In fact, you almost can’t recognize it. It’s bright, it’s happy and it’s home.
After a couple years of living in survival mode and only focusing on our kids’ rooms, but pressing pause on the rest of our home, it was time to put our energy back into the rest of our living space.
I would try my best to describe my vision to Mike, and although most of the time he got it, I could tell he didn’t see the whole picture.
I had a stack of design magazines that I have collected over the years and I would go back to them again and again. Back to my book marked pages to keep my eye on the prize.
Do people even buy magazines anymore? There is something about flipping through a real paper magazine that is heaven to me.
A couple weeks ago I began purging our house and was getting the ball rolling on a few more projects when it hit me… our house needed a vision board, not a design board, a vision board.
Okay, maybe what I made can be considered a design board, but it’s more than that. It is our future. It is the vision I have for our family, where we spend 99% of our time.
I grabbed our under-used bulletin board I keep in our kitchen and my stacks of design magazines and began cutting. By the time I was done I placed what I see as a thing of beauty, back in a prominent space in our kitchen, and just stared at it.
When Mike walked into the room and saw what I had done, he agreed with my vision of our home. We were on the same page.
Guess what? Ever since I created a home vision board, Mike (and I, but that goes without saying), has been super motivated. Plans are being made and materials are being sourced. We are both seeing our long-term future in this home.
A spark has been lit. We each are working a little harder at our careers, (because we have to pay for all of these ideas somehow), and we are getting the not-so-fun jobs, like cleaning and purging done faster.
Our home’s vision board is our carrot. In fact we spend a lot of time just discussing it, and each time being filled with excitement and motivation.
It can be so hard to resurface from the baby-stage, and a lot of the time, you can loose a bit of your identity. I have learned over the years to not look that this phase as a negative period, but as an exciting time to push reset.
I have reinvented myself three times now, after each of my pregnancies, and it has been so exciting evolving over the years to where I am and who I am now.
We are finished having babies. We have closed up shop. I have entered a phase in my life that won’t be halted by pregnancy. I get to keep on moving.
I cannot wait to share this journey with you.
This post is part of a series: Digging Us Out Of Survival Mode. If you missed the first post, you can read it here: This Is What Happens When You Are Surprised With Twins.
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