When my husband and I were looking to purchase our first home 8 years ago, I went into our house search with two things on my priority list: a lot of architectural character, and a wrap-around porch. Somehow we settled on a “builder-grade” new construction home, with neither of those wish-list items! I reasoned with myself that it would be a huge benefit to know that the bones of the house were in great shape, and that we could just build the character into it ourselves- right?
Fast forward 6-1/2 years, and even though we had added some character to our daughter’s nursery, we hadn’t really tackled any of the projects inside our home that I had always intended to when we bought it. I felt too guilty about making changes to a new, perfectly functional house; I was afraid to make the “wrong” design decisions; and I lacked confidence in my ability to take on these projects myself. I could draw homes, but actually building them is a different story!
Then the pandemic hit, halfway through my pregnancy with our youngest, and I didn’t want to keep waiting to make this house our own. I let go of the guilt I felt for wanting to make changes to it, and decided to finally take on a project I had been wanting to do for years– replacing all of our MDF window and door trim with more substantial, character-filled wood trim!
I decided on a trim profile, calculated how much we would need for the entire house, and had the pieces custom-milled at a local supplier. My husband spent nearly a day transferring the entire delivery to an area of our basement that he named “Christine’s Lumberyard.” Since then, I’ve been gradually replacing the trim in our home; and while it might not make a difference to everyone, it makes me so happy every time I see it!
If there’s something holding you back from making the changes you want to make in your own home, I hope I can encourage you to take that first step! And I hope you’ll stick around to see what other projects I have planned for our house, because there are a lot of them! I have already started sharing more projects on my Instagram that I’ll be adding to the blog later on- so check those out too if you’re interested, and let me know which ones you’d love to read more about!
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