This Old House

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No disrespect to Norm or anything, but renovating an old house isn't nearly as glamorous as it looks. I always thought that I would love to buy a cool old house in a fun neighborhood, and restore it its former glory in an artistic, modern way. Our house isn't anything spectacular architecturally, but it is cute, and it's definately old. And I really do enjoy working on it - it's just that I would enjoy it a lot more if I didn't also have a full time job.

I've always been a person who tends to see the potential in everything. This is great when it comes to people - I tend to take someone for who they could be, not just for who they are right now. When it comes to home renovations, however, this has proved to be a shortcoming. I stand in my house, look around, and I see tons of potential - but no time, or adequate funding, to get it there. And once I start one project (say, sewing curtains for the living room) it makes me notice 20 other things that need to be done (those windows need cleaning - no, replacing!).

All this to say, it's slowly dawning on me that maybe, just maybe, fixing up our house isn't the be-all-end-all that it's become for me. That, while it's a good thing to want to create a comfortable place to live, maybe I need to take a step back and have a priority check. That maybe somewhere I stopped wanting to create something livable and homey, and started wanting to create a showpiece for the Home and Garden channel. That maybe I need to do some more talking with God about the idols in my life, and less thinking about color schemes and finding the perfect guest bed on Craigslist.

Just maybe.