Sometimes our house smells like crap. Literally. (Not figuratively-literally. Literally-literally.)
And I love it. (Not the smell, the house.)
It’s been two months since we moved in, and I still have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude every 
time I turn onto my cracked, narrow driveway. God gave us this house. I mean, we bought it and everything, but there are some things in life that are clearly gifts from God. This house, with all of its quirks, is one of those things.
And it definitely has some quirks.
Like the crap.
Our basement seriously smells like a poop bomb on occasion. One night I plugged in my Scentsy warmer to mask the stink, and I thought I’d done a pretty good job.
When Carter walked in the house from youth group, I asked him what he smelled.
“Sweet farts,” he said.
Yep. That’s about right. Sweet farts. Is that better than sour farts? I don’t even know…
When that unpleasant smell wafts up the stairs, my first thought is, “Oh gross, here we go again.” And my second thought is. “God gave us this place, so if he wants us to deal with crap, we’ll deal with crap.” (And we are by the way. The plumber is scheduled to come soon 🙂 )
I’ve lived in some nice new houses.
I’ve had granite countertops, hardwood floors, gorgeous 5-panel solid wood doors, cavernous tiled showers, huge mudrooms, stone fireplaces and even a theater room encased in concrete underneath our garage floor (known to us as the zombie apocalypse room.)
Those houses were beautiful.
But here’s the deal. Since we never intended to stay in those homes and chose some design elements for the purpose of making them more appealing to a buyer (stainless steel – oh how I strongly dislike you…), sometimes I felt like I was borrowing the house from a future owner. And because I grew up in a century old house in which my dad was always in the middle of a remodeling project, maybe I felt slightly out of place in the new. I think I’ve been longing for this different kind of housing adventure and didn’t even realize it.
So now I live in this 20-year-old house (which I realize is not very old) that needs some Harms TLC. And I love it. Even though –
- Some crazy person painted all the grout. (Seriously. How many hours did that take? What in the world?)
- A flower garden exploded on the guest bath walls. (I could only stomache that for about 3 weeks before scraping it all off and painting.)
- Light switches were installed on the wrong side of the doors.
- Every single interior door has a keyed lock.
- The laundry room is accessed through a bathroom. (Kudos to me for living here for two months without dropping a sock in the toilet.)
- The mudroom is, oh wait, we don’t have one. 🙁
- The kitchen has this crazy big oddly placed island.
- And the master bath was designed by someone who has never had to pee in the middle of the night.
But this place is still a gift. It’s just a little rough around the edges.
I’m excited to reimagine all the awkward spaces with Corey. I love that I’m married to a guy who gets an idea and then just goes for it.
He can see beyond what is visible and it doesn’t bother him when people give him weird looks or when his brilliant ideas end up acting like second full-time jobs for a season.
He has the end goal in sight from the beginning, and he sacrifices to get to that place. He just does the thing that will get him to where he wants to be. And he doesn’t let the crap stop him. (Though sometimes he lovingly waits patiently while I take my sweet time warming up to his brilliance.)
And I fully expect to see some of that brilliance here at 804 Timberlane…
…after we take care of the crap.
