We were busy....

Owning a property while living overseas is sometimes a working balance that always needs balancing.

It is hard to put effort into something that feels "home" to everybody, only to leave it until the "next time".

When we found out we were going to Germany, we had two roads to take. Freak out, or freak out with a plan. Luckily, we choose the latter.

Every time we go home, we do a little more to the house.  Every time we go home, it gets harder to leave. But we know that God is planning this journey, and the end result will be a place we can call home forever, which is something us Military really don't get to appreciate much.

The last time we were home we had a massive amount of trees removed....But in normal Brown fashion, a flight popped up and we were out the door the next morning. We didn't get to clean up completely, but we knew it would be OK until we got back in the spring.

When we arrived home this time, we had two goals planned. To burn the area where the leaves and trees were taken down, and to work in Nicky's room.

Our house is a beautiful build, and someone put alot of thought into the design of the house. But the house is the same age as Zachary, and some of that design shows its age.  This would be.......WALLPAPER.

When we first moved in, Nicky's room looked like this.

And Nicky really wasn't loving the cowboy theme.  As a matter of fact, he begged us to paint this room first. 

Here is the thing, Ronda=painting=UNHAPPY ERIC.  I am not a painter. I am not patient enough to appreciate the process of painting and repainting. 

But I did for Nicky. And it was OK.  It was not perfect. Zachary put up the chair rail, bless his heart. He did the best he could while his Dad was deployed.  But Nicky was happy, he had his "space" room, and the cowboys were gone.  

Moving ahead three years, the "quick fix" of this room was really showing. It was on the plans for awhile, but we were not sure what we wanted to do.

When Eric completed the dining room, shown here before and after, I knew exactly what I wanted in the kids rooms. I love wainscoting, I think it adds a depth to plain old drywall, and you can change the top color of paint easily in the future.  

And yes, that is our dining room when we purchased the house. The first thing to go?  The carpet of course. This room was pretty bad, as the previous owner was elderly and didn't realize the toilet above (in Nicky's room) was leaking.  The entire wall and half of the ceiling had to be re-drywalled, luckily not by us, but as a condition to us buying the house.  THANK YOU VA FOR MAKING SURE THIS WAS DONE!

But as you can see, my awesome Eric took at shot at wainscoting.  We both figured it had to look better than this, but Eric did a great job for never doing wainscoting before.  Oh yeah, see the beautiful floors, we all busted our knee caps as soon as we closed on the house, and Eric laid this oak flooring. 

So, we made the decision to do a similar design in Nicky and Avery's room, and eventually Zachary's room.

While we are "home" on vacation, these are the types of things we do.  Because one day, when this crazy Army life comes to end, we know that this is where we will rest our heads. Nothing good comes easy, and we know we can't just look away at what needs done.  Little by little, we will get there, and all of the effort will be worth it.

Back to Nicky's room.....So Eric worked hard, especially because we finally were able to have enough time home to schedule carpet to be installed. We have attempted this twice now, and they can never work it in the time frame we will be back. But finally, they did. So, Eric had about four days to get this completed, but couldn't complete the baseboards fully until the carpet was installed.  Here are few pics of the end work, and Nic just loved it.  Doesn't it mean more when your Daddy does it anyways?  He was so appreciative!  Because Nicky had wallpaper on his walls from the original build, Eric decided to put birch sheets up first and then build the design. In Avery's room, we will only have to build the design, which will be much easier and quicker. 

Nicky loves blue and green, but really wanted the dark blue. We updated the room a bit for his age, and once the carpet got put in, it looked great.

In our normal fashion, a flight popped up, and we had to pack up and hit the road, so Eric didn't get to finish the bottom molding, and we didn't get to get the shade down and curtains up. But we are getting there, and the next visit home, this room will be complete and just waiting for Nicky to enjoy it.

Serious "Daddy" points for Eric on this one!