Fixer upper

I guess I thought our home in Missouri would have sold by now, but alas, we are doomed blessed to have this little rental house to live in until it does.   I have not been overly fond of this house thus far.  Let's be real, I have experienced real feelings of true hatred towards it.  And it all started in this kitchen.  At first it was a dream compared to the condo we were living in because it had counters.  You read that right.  Counters!

 I soon didn't care about those counters when I realized that every inch of that kitchen was full of grease and dirt, even the inside of the cupboards.  The range hood was black. I thought it was burnt.  NOPE!  Grease and dirt.  My dear Mr. Finn bought me a big bottle of industrial degreaser/cleaner and I went to work.  For four days.  It was miserable and I felt gross afterwards.  But... I won.  Still didn't love that kitchen.

 This window was begging for something to make me happy.  It had tons of old hardware from various other tenants and well, it was ugly.  So I found the local Goodwill store in search of vintage pillow cases.  I went up and down those aisles three times and just when I was feeling completed defeated, these popped out at me.  Like a sign from heaven.  The fact that I found two in very different spots made me oh, so happy.  A quick trip over to Walmart (sadly, this is the only place to shop here besides Goodwill) to find some cafe hooks and a tension rod and we were in business.  No cutting or sewing.  They were perfect and they make me smile every time I look at them.

My next thing was to cover the awful floors here.  So stained and yucky.  Anyone that knows me well, knows that I can't walk on something I can't identify.  So I wanted to cover it.  You can see the carpet in the left top corner.  It is supposed to be gray.

 I found this interesting antique store while I was yard saling one day.  It is in three houses.  Craziest thing I ever saw.  I had seen it while driving around and wondered if they had a metal bed frame for the queen mattress we were going to be picking up that week.  I found out quickly that the old woman that owns the store is interesting to say the least.  If I offered her a lesser price for anything, she would say no, but if I asked her what the price was or told her what I wanted to spend on something,  She would offere me something for that.

I had seen the price tag on some of her rugs and they were all over $100 for 3 x 5's.  I knew it was a long shot, but I asked her if she had large ones.  She sent me over to the second house to look at some that she had.  I found this one but it didn't have a price tag on it.  I knew it would be too much because everything else was marked higher for much smaller.  She asked me if I found anything and I said I had found a big one that didn't have a price on it.  Before I knew it we were dragging it out to the lawn and unrolling it. I couldn't believe my eyes, it was perfect, no snags, fades or anything.  I knew I couldn't even hope for a good price.  I got up the courage to ask her what she wanted for it and she looked at me real close and said, "$75.00.  Yup, you read that right.  I was in shock. I asked her if she was sure.  She said she was and I paid her without any further ado.

Love, love the rug.  From this store I also got a $125.00 antique dresser for $30.00 and a bed frame for $30 less than I could find one anywhere.  It was a blessing to find this store and her.  I am so grateful that Heavenly Father knew the things I would need to warm up to this house.  We have had so many things happen like this that I know it is tender mercies.

Not that it has stopped or even slowed down the struggles.  I will talk about them in the next post.