My Thoughtful Mother's Day Gift

Our kids were really excited for Mother's Day this year. I loved listening to their little voices as they excitedly gave away little secrets about the card they bought me when they were with daddy at the store. :) And each day the week of Mother's Day they told me that I only had ___ days left until Mother's Day. They also wrapped many "I don't use this anymore" toys as early gifts. ;)

The Saturday before Mother's Day I spent a lovely afternoon in Portland, meeting with a bride and groom, and having lunch with a dear friend. When I got home that evening I saw the kids' cute little faces peeking out the front door window and excitedly bobbing up and down saying, "she's here!" When I got in the house Josh said they had an early gift for me and it was in the dining room. When I walked into the room I didn't even notice my gift and I looked at Josh confused. He told me to look up and once I saw my new light fixture I started squealing with joy... and maybe jumping up and down. ;) The kids also gave me the sweetest card that I will seriously keep forever. These years are so special. Ah, I love them so much. <3

I thought I'd share the story behind their gift: I found this dining room light several months ago at a rehab store. I instantly loved it and knew it was the light I'd been looking for. I loved the lines, it was a solid, heavy fixture, and the glass was lovely. And I couldn't believe the price tag when it said $25!! It was a nice looking matte gold/brass (which is actually in trend at the moment) but I wanted to paint the metal with metalic spray to match the metal in the built-in dining cabinets that I love. So I bought my paint, taped it and off waited for a non-rainy day to paint it. But the poor light fixture ended up sitting in the laundry room for months and just became a "someday" project. 

While I was gone, Josh painted it and called my dad to ask if he would help him install it. They worked together that afternoon and got it done just before I got home. I was so giddy that they did all that for me! And I loved the end result - just as I'd hoped!

Just for fun, tonight I pulled up pictures of the farm house that I snapped the day we moved in, almost a year ago! (Can you believe it's almost been a year??!) I'm amazed at how far we've come in sooo many parts of the house, turning it into a home, these past 11 months. (It will be fun to share the entry and bathrooms sometime in the near future.)

Here's what it looked like when we moved in:

Sadly, even though the carpet wasn't very old and it had been professionally cleaned before we moved in, there was a foul smell in it that we could tell wasn't going to go away. So, unfortunately, we knew we had to rip it out.

(Note to white self: don't stand with just your white legs in the bright window light when taking photos...) 

But thankfully when we started ripping that carpet out we discovered the 135 year old fir floors underneath and we loved them!! Yay!! They looked like what you might expect 135 year old fir floors to look like... lots of lovely character. We talked about refinishing them, but we loved the current state of them too much because they showed their history.

After removing a thousand staples from the wood floors (from the carpet pad), we scrubbed and mopped the floors many times. And oh thank you Jesus, the smell was officially gone!!

I'm so grateful to be able to enjoy this space with my family. It always brings back memories of Christmas and Thanksgiving with my grandparents, cousins, and aunts/uncles.<3

And I just have to share one quick story about this room that I love. When the Allworth family came to look at this house in 1932, for the first time, they came in the original front door (which is to the left of wreath in this photo). And they looked right here into the dining room where the owner of the house was standing over a wood stove in front of the fireplace (on the right, look in above photos), shaving his face over a bowl of warm water. The house didn't have plumbing or electricity at the time, so the man had heated his water on the wood stove, to be able to shave his face. The Allworths walked through the somewhat dark house and saw all of it's potential and bought it for $15,000. They installed electric wiring and plumbing, and so much more. Isn't that neat? I always feel like I can see that moment when I read that story. It's just so charming to me. :)

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all of you precious moms out there. I'm so thankful to walk this journey with you! <3