Remodeling

For some reason, the day after Christmas, my bonus son & hubs decided they were going to renovate the boy’s bathroom.

It kinda looked like this…

In concept, the renovation had been on the list for a while.  I mean, basically the whole house has been on the renovation list for a while. And by “a while” I mean since we were married.  Ok.  So, maybe 10 months isn’t all that long, but this bathroom has been screaming for a renovation since 1992.  At least.

I painted the 1980s walnut cabinets an alabaster white and installed new hardware months ago.

But the $400 quote for putting in a granite countertop and sink were out of my “I-feel-OK” price range.

So, we perused the aisles at Home Depot and Lowe’s and priced out some countertops.

Like every good DIY-er, the hubs watched some YouTube videos and confirmed it was do-able.

Soon, we had a solid white cultured marble countertop sitting in our garage waiting for inspiration.

Fast forward to Christmas when G (bonus son) received a bunch of tools. They were apparently burning a hole in his pocket, so the day after Christmas, he and the hubs ripped out the countertop.

During this process, they decided to also rip out the built-in ceramic
bar soap & toothbrush holders.

You know the ones I’m talking about.

(I can neither confirm nor deny this wallpaper exists in my house.)

I mean, those things are useless.  After all, very few people use bar soap anymore, but the toothbrush holder is just sad.  They are like us middle-aged folks:  too fat to fit in their stuff from the 80s.

Anyway…

I knew taking those out was necessary, but for some reason, it surprised me when there were HUGE perfectly square holes in the sheet rock.

But…I decided to trust the process, and let it go.

It was fun to watch a dad and now-18-year-old work on a project together.

It made my heart happy.

For the next several days, they slowly, but surely, put the room back together piece-by-piece.

First, the holes were too big to patch. So, they had to merge the two holes together by creating a gigantic rectangular hole.

[Another shocking moment for me.]

Next, they cut some new sheet rock big enough to fit just inside the hole, and used joint compound to graft it onto the wall.

The joint compound created seams, so they had to sand it, reapply, sand it some more, reapply where there were cracks or dents, and sand it some more.

Over and over and over again they repeated this process until finally you couldn’t tell the new sheet rock from the old except one had paint and the other did not.

It was amazing.

Somewhere in between mudding and sanding, they popped the countertop into place and the whole room seemed brighter.

Add to it the new faucet, and I was starting to get giddy at the changes.

Once they completed their final sanding, we painted the walls Requisite Gray by Sherwin Williams.

Then, we hung the mirror, filled the cabinets, and gave it one last cleaning.

At last, it was complete.

It was a team effort, but G did most of the work.

And the hubs, well, he was a very proud father.

During the renovations, I couldn’t help but think of how God renovates us…

day-after-day,
month-after-month,
season-after-season,
year-after-year.

It is a dirty and messy job but…

He takes the ugly parts of us and makes them better.

He takes the old scars and creates something new.

He removes the seams of our old life and grafts us into a new life in His Kingdom.

He sands out the rough spots over and over and over again until they are smooth.

He supervises the renovations done by His Son and the Church stepping in when needed.

And what a proud Father He is when He sees the finished product.

So, proud, in fact, He bring us Home.

Praise Him for taking such care and effort into every work He does as He perfects us and makes us new.