Amazing Industrial Changes to our Home

When your husband goes bam!

The Home of the Rodriguez Family

So, I have to start this post with a little explanation.  

My husband, Raul, and I have been married for 26 years.  This December will be 27 years!  When we got married ages ago, we were both in the Navy.  Even with a career of my own, I settled into a traditional role of a wife, a role I witnessed growing up.  I did most of the cleaning and cooking.  It was about 7 years into my married that I experienced the amazing cooking abilities of my husband. 

While he did prepare a wonderful meal on the day of our nuptials following our shotgun wedding at the local Justice of the Peace with the approval of the United States Government (seriously, we had to send a written request up our chain of command to get married and it had to be approved before we could say I Do), I had not idea it was a skill he had spent a good deal of time mastering instead of a one time wonder.

Anyway, I made the majority of the meals...morning, day, and night for the first 7 years and then this heavenly experience of seeing angels descend from the clouds onto my dining room table in the form of edible delights!  My husband can cook and he is really, really good at it!

Hold onto your shorts, I have experienced this again!  

Not in the same way however.  We are in the process of upgrading and improving our home.  Raul and I had the floors refinished.  We went from a light oak and light carpet to a dark greige on a wall to wall red oak floor and stairs.  When the flooring was complete we put all of our furniture back in their original places.  To our surprise, the dark floors did not lend itself to our old decor.  The house looked too crowded and heavy.  This sent us on a decluttering and downsizing of our furniture pieces. 

Here are a few older photos of our home at Christmas:

Well, we painted the walls and I designed a coat rack that I wanted to place in the foyer.  And Raul created it with the skill of another type of master!

That is not were the magic stopped!  Again, I asked for a shiplap fireplace with a rustic mantle...and boom:

Not only did I get a shiplap wall, but Raul had a metal plate created from scrap metal to encase the fireplace...beautiful!

...and metal accents!

The mantel was an old ceder fence post that I spotted in the back of visitor's truck!  Lucky for us, the old fencing had not made it to the garbage heap!

The last impressive project that is nearly complete is the new look of our staircase:

I am pretty lucky to have a husband with the skills of a master...I cannot wait to see what else he has up his sleeve! 

💗 Vally