Clarkson Connection: Making A Memory

This is the first and hopefully last house that B and I will live in. We never had serious discussions about our goal in life being building a house, living on acreage, and having a shop that he could build cars in. We would drive through the acreage developments and think, oh how nice, but we could never afford that; it was never a serious, one day we will live here. When we found the Clarkson house, it was amazing, we were newly married, moving from townhouse living to "big kid" house living. It was perfect, we could see our children running in the backyard, playing with friends in the cul-de-sac; couldn't imagine anything more.

As most families do, we had kids, the house seemed less roomy, the garage was bursting, we did what we could to make the house fit our needs, but our beautiful house just no longer seemed to fit our family or our long term goal needs. We got older, our priorities changed, and our house just didn't seem to be the house that we thought we would live in forever. That was a hard realization for me to come to; we brought our children home to this house, but I knew that we would run out of room at this house, and I didn't want our family to be moving to a house that fit our needs better when the kids had become established in school.

I knew that I wanted to do something in our new house that would be there for life - that when this was no longer our house (long after we are dead, not because we had to move!) there would be some sort of time capsule that gave every homeowner after us a sense of who we were as a family, and that we built this house with love, blood, sweat and tears. That this house was our dream house. A few people suggested the hand prints in the patio concrete, eh, people have been there and done that, and yes, it will be there, but I didn't want it glaring at me, or any other owner. I wanted it to be a surprise for the homeowners when they found it, not an annoyance to them.

Then I got the idea to write a saying on one of the beams in the house. It will be covered by drywall, so it's not glaring in your face everyday, but if for some reason, the drywall needs to be replaced, the next people can see it.

We decided on the beam above the french door in the family room. I found a saying that I felt was appropriate for our family and our life. Then I decided that I wanted to do the kids hand prints next to the saying. I must say, writing above your head on a huge beam is not as easy as it looks to make sure that tings are the same size and centered! Not perfect, but neither is our family, and honestly, I think it turned out great! The kids had a blast painting their hand and then daddy holding them up above his head to put their hand print on the wall.

Sorry there's no "during" pictures, but kids and non-washable glitter paint don't match while being held above daddy's head!