Our Kitchen Beginnings & Candid Reflections on Roomspiration

I can’t believe this is the last hosting day for Roomspiration Blog Hop & Link Party.  Before you freak out, it’s not the last day to link up for all of the rooms.  The party will continue for another week.  This means you are welcome to link your room post to the appropriate hosts blog until October 14, 2011.  For example, if you have a closet or nook you want to share, you will link your post to The Blooming Hydrangea.

We are finishing Roomspiration with a bang by featuring Kitchens!  One of the most used rooms in the home {depending on your family.}  Roeshel at The DIY Showoff is the perfect host to to “end” our successful Roomspiration Party.  Roeshel is a master at juggling many things in her life.  She has to be because her blog is wonderfully successful, but yet she still stays connected with her readers.  She is a very genuine & friendly person.  I respect her very much.  On top of that, she is extremely talented in design and do-it-yourself projects; so her blog name suits her well.  Roeshel is sharing her amazing kitchen remodel today.  It is something you HAVE to see { after you read the rest of my post, of course 😉  .}

I wasn’t going to share my kitchen today, but I changed my mind.  It was like yesterday.  I didn’t plan on posting anything yesterday until I happened upon that book and was inspired to share the brilliant just say no check list.  I am sure there are some of you who are thinking, “yeah right, you wanted to sell the book.”  But that is not true.  It is complete coincidence and I only share with my readers the things I am passionate about.  Being compensated for my passion is only a bonus for me.

One of my best friends is coming to visit me for the weekend and I was looking for a map to send her and came across the following photos of our kitchen while we were building our home.  So instead of sharing the way my kitchen looks today, I’m going to share a few of the beginnings.  I haven’t had time to work on prepping my kitchen this week for a photo shoot.  I’ve been spending the last 2 weeks trying to get my laundry room done.  I’ll be posting my laundry room tomorrow or Monday.  {Finally! It’s a little difficult trying to keep it clean for me to take photos of while 5 of us are doing laundry at the same time}

Reflections

But before I post the photos of the kitchen, {please don’t scroll down :D} I wanted to do some thought reflecting over the past few weeks of being involved with Roomspiration.  Warning: this is me being transparent and vulnerable.  I realized when I went to the Blissdom blog conference last year that I didn’t really have a niche.  In other words, a genre or particular category that I blogged about.  I basically talked about my interests and family.  I still do this; however, I realized I wanted to focus more on teaching others how to create a strong family.  As a child of divorced parents it has been my goal to do whatever I can to create a strong marriage and family.  I am completely aware there are circumstances beyond our control that sometimes don’t give us a choice.  I’m also aware that it takes both the Father and the Mother who have the same goal.  Anyway, since I redesigned my blog and switched over to wordpress I have strived to share traditions and ideas of what has worked for our family.

As you know, I like to share about other aspects I enjoy in life.  When it came to sharing photos about my home, well… it is awkward for me.  I’m sure my parents taught me it is impolite to brag.  On the other hand, I think it is more my personality and nature that has never wanted to make people feel uncomfortable.  I’m super sensitive.  I know this.  As a little girl, it only took one time to hear someone bragging about what they had, {that I did not} to know I didn’t like the way it made me feel.  I am super conscientious of others feelings.  In one way this is a good quality…to be considerate.  Nonetheless, just like everything, if to the extreme, it can’t be healthy.  The whole time we were building our house I didn’t feel comfortable talking about the house to anyone.  I was worried people would think I was bragging.  But do you know how sad that is?  Do you know how lonely that feels, to not be able to share your excitement of building your dream home?  My husband and I worked very hard to get to the point in our life where we could do this.

We left our home state, {our family & friends} moved to another state {to a small remote city} so we could get our occupational loans paid off and get out of credit card debt.  We set a goal.  If we got out of debt, we could build our dream home.  We did it!  Yet, right after we began building the economy collapsed.  We built our home at the worst time, but for us, it was our time.  It took us a whole year to build our home.  It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  Yet every day I am able to see the fruits of that labor and I am utterly humbled and grateful beyond measure.

Are you beginning to see my dilemma?  Let me tell you something.  If it weren’t for hundreds of blogs with photos, I don’t know how I would have built our home.  I am a visual person.  If I see something I like then I like to copy it or tweak it to meet my needs or tastes.  I realized while building that there are many other people sharing their homes.  They didn’t seem to be ashamed or worried about being considered a bragger at all.  As a matter of fact, these blogs have their own niche.  It’s called by many names: home design, home decor, basically anything about the home.  The funny thing is, they are very successful and popular in the blogging world!

I was shocked when Ange from The Blooming Hydrangea invited me to be a part of Roomspiration.  Look at the names of all the blogs who I have collaborated with in this endeavor.  I stick out like a sore thumb!  I kind of felt like the odd man out amongst such talent in the home blogging sphere.  Fortunately, they welcomed me and have been extremely gracious.  I have to say though, it felt uncomfortable talking about my house and showing photos.  Not because I don’t like my house…but because of who I am.  And because I like to be more balanced.  Roomspiration definitely motivated me to DO things in my home I had planned on doing when we moved in, but never have.  I didn’t have anymore excuses.  About half way through Roomspiration I worried I might begin losing my faithful readers.  The ones who came here to read about family.  I worried they might think I was bragging.  I hate worrying about that because I think if people truly care about me or are my friend, they will be happy for me, not jealous or think I’m bragging.  Right?  Well, yes in a perfect world, maybe.

This week one of my “friends” on Facebook wrote me this, “Why do you have to brag about how organized you are?”  Do you know how painful it was to read that?  He could have just punched me in the stomach and it would have been the same kind of pain.  The very ironic thing is if you opened almost every single drawer or cabinet in my home you would see how unorganized I am.  Why do you think I have so many cabinets?  It is ironic because this person doesn’t know how I have read hundreds of books on organizing and still struggle.  He doesn’t know that having Attention Deficit Disorder makes it increasingly more difficult for me to remain organized.  He hasn’t seen the days where I am so overwhelmed I gave up and cried on the couch with mounds of clutter around me.

I just want you to know…it doesn’t matter where you live, what type of house you live in…as long as you have your family, that’s all that matters.  Furthermore, it doesn’t hurt to make your house beautiful, clean & orderly for your family to thrive in.  Please know that I share my home with you in hopes it will inspire and help families.  I sincerely apologize if it invokes the opposite in any way.

To my new followers I have gained from Roomspiration: I hope you will continue to follow Family Brings Joy after Roomspiration is over.  I am grateful for you new friends and hope together we can share the highs and lows of family life.

Kitchen

My Inspiration Photo for my Kitchen {scanned}

 
I spent too long reflecting that I don’t have time to edit my photos.  There were too many to post so I did a slide show.  Next week some time I will post what it looks like present day.  Gotta get ready for company. 😉  Don’t forget to check out the other Kitchens linked up or link yours up!  See you there!

Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for visiting,