Building Friendships
We used to have a closet at the front door. It was a pain to get to, as it was right behind the opened front door. In the winter, as all 7 of us pile in the front door, the first few in would get pushed off of the postage stamp of linoleum reserved for dirty boots. No one could hang up a coat until everyone moved into the living room so the door could be closed, exposing the closet.
This is was not good.
So, we decided to tear the whole thing out. We’d have an open entryway with hooks on the wall and a bench, and we’d expand the linoleum area by at least a factor of 3. In the picture of the demolition, it’s LittlePage3 holding the hammer, but off to the left is MrSnowy. Ash and MrSnowy helped with tearout and the cleanup. We hate cleanup. We love MrSnowy and Ash for helping with the cleanup.
When we drywalled the newly framed hallway area, MrBrad was there with his tools for 3 days, assisting with the drywall installation and doing the mudding. We hate mudding. We hate dust. We love MrBrad for doing the mudding.
The floor was a wreck under the linoleum, and we needed to cut out some of the hardwoods to put the new floor area down. MrMike is a friend of ours who is also a flooring installer. He came over and did an absolutely beautiful job of putting subfloor in and framing it with leftover hardwoods. He’s just waiting for us to decide on a linoleum pattern and he’s going to install that for us too. We love MrMike for doing the floor. Sorry, MrMike, no pictures of the floor yet.
Ash had some time one her hands and decided she wanted to come over. She spent the time she was here painting the new front hall with drywall primer. MrsPages and the kids did school and normal schedule, Ash just came and painted. She was covered in paint specks and she was tired at the end of the day. We love Ash for coming over to paint “just because”.
This is all just great, but looking back on our whole set of house renovations (not just this closet) I see this pattern repeating itself again and again. Our pictures of the projects are full of friends giving up time and sweat (and occasionally blood) to work with us and spend time here. We feel so unworthy. I’m not sure what we did to deserve the friends we have. Heck, we don’t even serve caffeinated coffee.
I can only hope that we can in some way repay the love shown to us by our friends. Not just happy phone calls and handshakes at church (though those are important too). Love that holds the other end of a sheet of drywall or cleans a roller cover or sands a butt-joint on the ceiling for the third time. Love with feet on.
Love that keeps us going.
[edit - See the painted closet area here.]
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