An Iowa Garage

As I've started to expect every year, the day before Thanksgiving Jason started puttering around the house like a retired man with nothing to do- the "busy" season at work is finally over!  It starts on the 4th of July and I have learned not to see much of Jason again until Thanksgiving.  He's pretty adorably pathetic when he's at a loss for what to do, which makes for a great time to conquer a home improvement project.  His vote was for finishing the basement (the final frontier!) and my vote was for adding shiplap to the laundry room.  We compromised with painting the garage. 

It has always cracked me up to see how "fancy" people make their garages here in Iowa- finished floors and painted walls are wonderful, but flat screen TVs, recliners and popcorn machines just make me scratch my head. Still, a painted garage has been on my list pretty much from the day we declined our painter's $1500 bid the day before we closed on the house.

Spoiler alert- this was quite possibly my least favorite home project to date.   

First off, it was really cold over Thanksgiving break, so we had to bring all of the things into the house rather than drag them out to the driveway.  There is nothing more thankful-inducing than surrounding yourself with all of the bikes, camping gear, tools, garden hoses and dust you own (not really). 

 It was a very good thing we weren't hosting Thanksgiving dinner!

Emma was especially helpful with telling us exactly where to put everything, and it didn't surprise me one bit that the kids had a blast pretending to be homeless orphans all day long.  The kerosene heater and a crust of bread was all they needed to make their Boxcar Children dreams come true.

We started the project on Wednesday morning amidst baking pies and shaping rolls, were able to move everything back out on Thursday morning, and finally finished the painting this week.  The best part of the job was watching the kids help- really help!  They were energetic and eager and actually got a good bit of paint on the walls!

But the more painful lesson learned was that jobs like this take twice as much money and three times as much time as you think they will.  And with this particular project the impact is minimal.  But it's still beautiful. 

And checked off the list for good.

And it was quite nice to have a tangible project to show for time off from work and school.  We've been talking a lot about "sticking to our tasks" lately, and this was a big task to stick to.  But there is nothing that bonds a family like warming up around a kerosene heater and arguing whether the work bench or bike gear should be put back together first, right? 

A little before and after side by side.  From dingy and striped tan to sparkling white.

A glimpse of the unfinished, and also unsoiled garaged before we moved in.

There is still plenty of not-so-pretty stuff on the third car side of the garage, but this is the lovely new view I get when I pull in. 

Welcome home indeed!