There is a saying, often attributed to John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Isn’t that the truth?!
As you are reading this column, my husband Bart, daughter Clare and I are packing up our household and preparing to move to Omaha, Neb., which is two-hours west of our current home. Bart was presented with a job opportunity that was entirely unexpected and just too good to pass up. He has been an ag lender—loaning money to farmers and small businesses while assisting them with making their operations successful—his entire 20-plus-year career. The new job will be overseeing the credit department for a farmer cooperative that provides livestock order buying, selling, marketing and related services of commodities brokerage. Bart was born and bred for this job; he grew up around livestock and can tell you more about a cow than you’d ever care to know (trust me!). And his banking experience made him the “unicorn candidate”, per the firm’s CEO.
As Bart and I began telling friends and family about our decision to move, the first comment out of almost everyone has been, “But you just remodeled your entire house!” To say this move was unexpected is the understatement of the year—heck, the decade!
From the moment, we said, “I do,” Bart and I have made his self-proclaimed “bachelor pad” our family home. (Feel free to take a stroll down “remodeling memory lane” via “My Home Remodel” blog posts.)
A house may never truly be “complete” but ours was nearly so. We waterproofed and finished our basement, creating a bedroom, my home office, a spa-like bathroom and plenty of storage space in our lower-level. We refinished original hardwood floors on the main floor of our 1960 ranch-style home. We put in a new patio and reconstructed our deck with real wood that has gone through a heat and steam process for longevity. The deck and its cable rail are the envy of the neighborhood, and I love taking my laptop outside and working on it, protected from the hot summer sun by the roof structure that extends from our house. We insulated and re-sided with fiber cement and surrounded our entire house in perennials—lilacs, magnolia, phlox of every color, azaleas, hibiscus, lilies, hydrangea, irises, peonies, daffodils, I could go on.
But the cherry on top of it all was the gut remodel of our kitchen. What once was a dark and tight space now is light, bright, airy and pure perfection. I had just over two years of cooking in my dream kitchen, and I absolutely loved every second. My custom kitchen will be difficult to walk away from.
But I have been reminding myself—and Bart—that all the remodeling will help us sell our house for top dollar and place us in a great position to buy a new home in Omaha. And, who knows? Maybe I’ll have a story or two to share about renovations in our new house!
