Our First Home (and How All This Penny Pinching Began... )

Note from Laurie: I shared this over in the 2020 Ultimate Home Challenge Group a while back but thought it might be a blessing here too. If you'd like to join us, print your 2020 Home Checklists right over HERE. I *promise* this will be the best $16.95 you will spend in 2020 ~ and I know this home organizing/cleaning/budgeting system will work for you too!) If' you'd like a sample of the NEW 2021 Home Planner coming in September 2020, sign up over here and we'll send that right out to your inbox.

IN CASE YOU FEEL LIKE EVERYONE ELSE'S HOME LOOKS FANCIER THAN YOURS HERE…

Do you see what's missing in almost all of these pictures?

****Furniture.****

I wanted to share this, because this is our first little home starting way back in 1997 when I was just 21 and James was 25.

We had a *ton* of student loan debt and were trying to live on one income (I never made more than minimum wage), and I remember being the happiest girl ever sitting on the back stoop the first day we drove up ~ brown paneled walls, brown carpet, brown linoleum and everything.

WE PAINTED EVERYTHING (EVERYTHING) WE COULD POSSIBLY SLAP PAINT ON WHITE. 🙂 Our next house was worse than this one, so for the first 7 years of our marriage we pretty much lived covered in white paint.

We lived without any furniture for 3 years, and it really wasn't until our current house that we've spent money on furniture at all. (See the ladder in the Christmas tree pic? That's because someone gave us Christmas decorations but we didn't have anything to put it on! The following year for Christmas when I opened my ski coat we had wallpapered the dining room but still couldn't afford furniture ~ until we got the dining room set James's grandparents had. We just sold that a month ago after waiting 23 years to buy our own!)

I'm on the floor with the dog bc the only couch we had was pretty awful, and I refused to let James put it in the family room because I knew then we'd get content and never fight for a decent couch 🙂 (I was seriously the worst wife. Bless that poor boy. We eventually got the plaid couch for $300 and I remember feeling like the richest girl on earth just staring at my beautiful stuff!)

Here's the thing. We LOVED what God had blessed us with. We cared for it. We didn't spend oodles on anything. (Most of the paint was even from the mismatched paint section, and those paneled walls took exactly 7 coats to cover. YIKES!)

And do you know what? That girl back then was no more or less valuable than the girl who sits on real furniture in a little bit nicer home today.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE – take pride in the home you've been given *exactly* the way it is.

Clear off the countertops.

Go to Goodwill and find a new to you piece of decor to fill up a space (you'll be amazed at what you can find if you happen in on the right day!)

Grab some paint in the mismatched bin and fluff up a cabinet with some fresh paint. (Hint: use KILZ PRIMER first – or chalk paint is AWESOME and super cheap at Walmart!)

DO NOT FEEL LIKE ANYONE ELSE IS EVEN ONE SINGLE OUNCE BETTER THAN YOU if their kitchen is cuter than yours. James and I were just as awesome back then as we are now, 🙂 no matter what our home looked like (and honestly, those were the sweetest days!)