These spiritual lessons I keep learning along the way during our renovations have not been the easiest, and most were not pleasant to experience. After all the house projects over the years, we should be spiritual giants by now, yes? Hahahaha. If only it were a linear journey instead of so very spiral-like. We’re still busy at the Georgian (more painting, designing a closet, and shopping for light fixtures today), but we actually did some entertaining this week which means we are starting to have a semblance of a life again!
I independently selected products in this post—if you buy from one of my links, I may earn a commission.
Spiritual Lessons Learned as We Renovate
You Can’t Hurry Love
As I reflect on the lessons that especially resonate this very moment, I’m aware that there are always new lessons emerging since we keep evolving. We’re getting older so all of the labor is more demanding now.
Things we do ourselves often take longer, and rushing is never a good idea in renovation or love.
As far as the spiritual life, it also cannot be hurried. Transformation takes time. In fact, do you ever have days where you feel discouraged and wonder can people REALLY CHANGE?
Because I have those days. I think true transformation is possible, but it happens so slowly it can be difficult to see the changes. Don’t give up on yourself or your people. In fact, if you feel discouraged this very moment, take a leap of faith and experience this musical masterpiece that never fails to move me to tears:
The Role of the Soul in Bringing Beauty to Your Nest
What does soulfulness have to do with home improvement? For me, whether I am invested in home renovation, DIY, or creating art, all of the work is rooted in the soul.
A desire to live with beauty springs from a place of creativity, longing, and passion below the surface.
Home improvement and interior design for me become soulful matters inasmuch as the goal is to create space to dream, grow, learn, love, serve, rest, and BE.
Interiors can reflect interior states to which we aspire, and a more relaxed inner landscape is most often a goal for myself. I’m an overthinker and must be intentional about dropping out of the flurry of thoughts and into my heartspace. My surroundings help me get there.
When design is customized, it can foster harmony of daily rhythms, material needs, and emotional wellness.
Ultimately, home can reflect our deepest held values about beauty, history, connection, and rest.
Things Often Worsen Before the Dust Clears
If you have lived through a house renovation (even if you didn’t do the work yourself), then you know. There are these long stretches of dismantling and chaos where doubt creeps in. Things look far worse than when you started!
For example, you believe you are simply upgrading a floor until you realize the sub-floor is not level which uncovers a separate issue requiring a structural engineer or architect!
Like the spiritual journey toward truth, things often become miserable before they get better.
Trust the Process
Because of the uncertainty and hard work involved in home renovation, the process demands a measure of trust between parties involved in the work. For our whole house DIY renovation, there were hundreds of decisions to be made as a couple. Without a flow of trust between us, we could not keep the progress steadily going.
Patience is another virtue that enters into the equation daily. There are so many invisible tasks to perform (behind walls, electrical, plumbing, subflooring, insulation…) before any decorative finishing touches!
What’s that expression about traveling to the promised land? You can’t get there without moving through the wilderness.
Take the order of operations for a kitchen renovation for example. When an issue arises slowing down kitchen cabinet installation, this interrupts countertop installation and delays the tile backsplash job.
How do you cultivate more patience on the spiritual journey or at home during a reno?
Become Willing to Seek Grace & Stillness
Our kitchen renovation here at the Georgian and in our former fixer came with their fair share of disappointments. There were all sorts of opportunities where we needed to practice patience.
For example, in our former home, we discovered we would not be able to eliminate the wall adjacent to the dining room to expand the kitchen’s square footage and create a more open plan for family to gather. I find such challenges to regroup to be difficult until I become still and reflect on what is truly important. And I often need to seek the grace for a new lens.
In the case of the last reno where we were left with a smaller footprint for the new kitchen, our patience led to a cozier, more intimate space. If you live with a small-ish kitchen, then you get it. Rubbing shoulders with people you love and never having to shout? Not the worst compromise.
Journey & Renovate With a Spirit of Adventure
When we found our last fixer upper, one of the existing features I did not admire were the fan windows.
I wrote about them when I was chronicling our adventures weekly, and a blog reader who admired them sweetly suggested they were ‘churchy or chapel-like.’
That simple comment shifted my perspective! Turns out, there are always going to be opportunities to replace groans of unhappiness with creative solutions or new thinking. If I had approached this whole house makeover with an attitude of “no compromises here,” it would have been anything but joyful.
Staying open in the spiritual life is where the fruit is as well. The reward for openheartedness about Mystery in the spiritual life is an expanded capacity to live, love, and be grateful.
THIS TUB IS SIMILAR: Clawfoot Tub: FIND HERE.
6. Letting Go Creates Space
Our former French country inspired courtyard was one of the easiest yet dramatic projects we tackled. When we bought the house, weeds and dead shrubbery had completely overtaken the front entry area, completely shielding the entire house exterior from the road!
The remedy for all of the overgrowth entailed broad strokes of subtraction and restraint when adding the new.
Since the budget was teeny anyway, we extracted everything except a burning bush then planted boxwood and lavender. Wheelbarrows of pea gravel came to live with cement pavers which cost less than a dollar each. We placed them as stepping stones in the gravel as well as atop eroded stone walls.
With labor and love, we created an airy, French-inspired courtyard canopied by mature trees; just right for meditative mornings with the birds.
Letting go can be tricky on a soulful level where unhealthy habits of being, responding, and judging become firmly rooted. Old ways of coping, analyzing, and behaving don’t easily budge and we tend to cling to them.
I find gardening to be an excellent prescription for spiritual “stuckness.” Digging in the dirt with an open heart seeking the grace to let go is powerfully good soul work.
The thing is, as space in the soul grows wider from tending, pruning, and letting go, a new capacity to RECEIVE emerges! More spaciousness for the flow of love and light to enter and have its way with us!
Work Slow & Smart
Working slow has its charms. Does slowing down to work sound like an oxymoron? Because work need not always be a feverish hustle to the finish line (read THIS).
Wisdom school (yes, it really is a thing!) taught me to work from and in stillness. The work (which is already sacred) begins to resonate with your heart as sacred. If you admire interiors which radiate tranquility, calm, serenity, and heartfulness, I can think of no better approach than to adopt them in your spirit of labor.
Stay Centered While Renovating
Is classical music your passion? Let it fill your ears as your muscles address tedious tasks at home you dread. Are there home improvement projects demanding hours of physical labor but only limited concentration?
Listen to podcasts that enrich the soul and mind. (I listened to recordings of a favorite teaching pastor while I painted ceilings, and the time flew!)
Authentic Transformation
Real life renovation involves weeks of dust and chaos, sleepless nights, and check writing. Even if you aren’t renovating DIY style, headaches from contractors, subcontractors, permit pulling, and architectural review boards are REAL.
The spiritual journey can also feel like a rollercoaster ride or even like a long numbing pause.
As you do the work of excavating the soul and subconscious material are addressed, the disorder (and possibly ego-demo!) can be a bumpy ride.
In my experience, it is the daily work, the re-learning and un-learning, and the disciplined commitment to daily transformation that welcomes more peace and greater freedom.
You Never Truly “Arrive”
It isn’t a “one and done then coast” type of journey; rather, you keep at it, you keep stumbling and discovering greater humility. You continue to discover and rediscover.
Let’s be honest. The work is never truly complete. As soon as one area is done, the roof begins to leak or new needs emerge or funds run out.
By holding it all rather loosely, somehow miracles, serendipity, and blessings arrive. I don’t understand the mechanics of how it all works; I only know I want to stay within the flow.
Bedding is PIU BELLE…Options HERE.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR ENTERTAINING THESE REFLECTIONS…I’d love to hear from you.
p.s. Only rarely do we now get to see authentic renovations by regular people on television. Here’s a renovation story uncommonly rooted in reality (a charming French cottage in the South of France).
I independently selected products in this post—if you buy from one of my links, I may earn a commission.
Peace to you right where you are.
-michele
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Hi, Michele… If we think working on a building is difficult, just think how much worse it would be if the building wouldn’t let us get near it sometimes, because it thought it was fine just the way it was AND other buildings offered comforting words of agreement. Or, it thought it knew what needed to be done better than the builder did and it kept botching the jobs. Or, it didn’t even want to recognize that there was a builder until it got into trouble. Then… “Help!” Sound like dealing with a two year old? Actually, I was describing what God has to put up with, when dealing with us. Now THAT is a major exercise in patience… Another Reno Spirituality Lesson
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What a loving master renovator, and what works in progress we are! Thanks for this. 🙂
I knew where you were going right away! It takes a long time to just leave things in God’s capable hands. But then you wonder why you didn’t do it sooner! Much easier after all. If we would just remember it every day. 🙂 Thanks you!