About Us
A rapid fire round of “our favorite _____” to get to know us!
What do we do?
During the work week (Sunday-Thursday for us!), Paul is the Teaching Pastor at our church. I am a stay at home mom and my days are full of homeschooling our two boys, babysitting for our sweet friends, caring for our home, making lots of home cooked meals, and I am currently working toward starting a creative business that I’ve dreamed of doing since I was in college.
On Fridays, we work on renovating our old farm house and on Saturdays, we Sabbath!
We’ve been renovating since 2017 and have had to face the reality that we really need to slow down our pace. Early on, we thought it was just a season that we needed to push through. Now that we’re working on this property, we know we’re in it for the long haul.
Renovation projects can easily take over everything, but we have so many other things that we’re really passionate about! We LOVE that we get to do this, but we don’t want to get to the end of this project and realize we invested all of our time and energy into a house, instead of the people who fill it and make it a home. We believe it’s possible to build and create a home that you really love — that serves you and your family well — without becoming a slave to it.
That means we’re working slowly and intentionally within the boundaries we’ve established to protect what matters most to us — time for connection, creativity, collaboration and curiosity.
If you want to get into the nitty gritty of how we got here, keep scrolling…
Our story
Paul and I (Maddie) met in college in 2013 and knew pretty quickly this was it. I studied abroad in the fall of 2015 and began a really personal faith journey. We then got engaged after I got home at the end of 2015. In the spring of 2016, we started going to a local church. By the fall of 2016, we started following Jesus and from then on, our life has been a wild adventure.
2016
We started attending a church and got connected into our community there.
We were all set to get married on Sept 2nd of 2017! But, by the fall, we started following Jesus and felt convicted that we needed to make changes in a lot of areas…
2017
We started the year off by getting married!
By summer, we both felt a pull for Paul to start taking steps toward working in ministry. In preparation for a potential career shift, we decided to move back into my parent’s garage so we could really get ourselves set up financially to say yes to whatever might be coming in the future. We also got our first hint at my potential infertility issue, but by the grace of God, the morning after we moved back in, on Sept 2nd, we found out Maddie was pregnant!
That news kicked off our first little renovation project to turn the upstairs garage into a proper apartment with a kitchen and also adding a wall to have one bedroom. Believe it or not, Paul did not enjoy it and claimed that we would never buy a fixer upper… spoiler alert, we definitely did. Twice.
2018-19
We welcomed home our son Theo and the day after we got home from the hospital, Paul lost his job in the corporate world. At that point, we were really thankful we had moved into my parents garage. The Lord prepared us for this season and provided for us in so many amazing ways.
Paul started working for our church in Students and Young Adult ministry while working some part time jobs to help support our family! During this time, we also got some major clarity to plant a church — Something we both felt scared to do and also in the one place I didn’t want to go. Another spoiler alert, we did it anyway.
2020
As everyone knows, the world shut down! We welcomed our second son in the peak of the Covid chaos in May. In the summer, we bought our first house in the town we were planning to move to in the fall.
That house ended up being much more work than we thought it would be. It was a classic situation of one thing leading to another. We realized that the second story floor was actually collapsing into the living room because at some point a critical load bearing wall had been removed and no support was put in its place. That led to us finding a whole lot of electrical wiring that needed totally replaced, and by the end of the year, we were gutting the entire house.
Thankfully, we had a ton of help from my Dad!
2021
This was such a fun and exciting year because we finally got to start putting the house back together!
It’s also important to note that this is the year I grew my first “garden” in containers and that began her obsession with flowers. I watched the Floret documentary on Magnolia and I was hooked.
By the end of July, the house was done enough to move in! For the rest of the year, I spent a lot of nap times really focusing on getting the kitchen more functional and closer to “finished”. And on the weekends, we worked together on fencing in the backyard, prepped for our future garden and patio, and Paul built our back steps! There will be many blog posts to come with photos of our Girard Ave home and how it turned out.
2022
2022 was wild.
We kicked off the new year with a ton of work in our dining room. We added bookshelves and drawers at one end, a built in bench along another wall, and then we added a board and batten wall treatment to the whole room and painted it my favorite color!
In March, we turned our focus to the back yard. So much paver base for the patio, we built our little potoger garden just outside the back door, and I created some in-ground beds along the fence for our apple trees and some grape vines.
In April, our church plant officially started meeting on Sunday mornings in a temporary space, we started our back patio. We also read the picture book Building Our House by Jonathan Bean which made us both tear up and planted a crazy idea in our heads — to get land with my parents and work toward a multi-generational property. We actually toured a 10 acre lot with them in April and almost went for it, but we decided it wasn’t the right one.
Over the summer, we finished our backyard and patio! I also started baking sourdough bread and my garden obsession really took off.
In July, we toured the Farmhouse property for the first time. We really loved the land, and we were going to buy it! Unfortunately, the inspection revealed even more issues than what we were already aware of and we couldn't get it at the price that we felt like we could afford and still be able to do everything that needed to be done. So, we walked away from it.
In November, the seller of the Farmhouse reached back out to us and asked if we would consider purchasing again. So, offered a lower price and they accepted and we bought the farmhouse!
By the end of the year, Paul was in the thick of renovating the future church space, and I got very unwell. The first day our church met in person, I woke up with a horrible migraine and then things just kept coming from there. Weird rashes, really strong allergic reactions, rapid weight gain (like literally in one month I gained 20 pounds), mental health struggles, physically so exhausted, and my cycles were non-existent.
2023
This was probably the hardest year I’ve walked through so far. We started off with a big flood at the Farmhouse because the rookies forgot to keep an eye on the propane tank and it ran out so the pipes froze and we had quite the mess to clean up.
I finally got into the doctor and after a number of visits, referrals, and blood draws, I got diagnosed with POI - Premature Ovarian Insufficiency in March. POI is an autoimmune disease where basically the ovaries shut down and it causes low estrogen, high FSH, infertility, and menopause symptoms. I was not thrilled with the options moving forward which was basically to just go on birth control to minimize symptoms. So, I spent way too long trying to figure out what could cause it and natural ways of healing through diet, etc. I was pretty unsuccessful.
During this time, Paul was working crazy hours on our churches future space. We felt like ships in the night. It was not a great time with either of us. He was stressed and completely exhausted.. barely sleeping. I was crushed and grieving, but I had very little space to actually process because he couldn't be there with me much, so I was trying to hold down the fort and be present for our kids and not be an absolute wreck when they were awake.
I turned our entire front yard at Girard Ave into garden beds which was 1000% my coping mechanism in that season. It was completely irrational since we would need to sell our house eventually to move out to the farm. But, it gave me something to focus on and be excited about - and honestly, the Lord met me there in the garden so many times.
In April, our church got to move into our permanent space! It was so exciting!!!
We then spent the month of May turning one section of the Farmhouse into an apartment along with doing a little facelift to the upstairs so that our friends could live there for the next year! It was a whirlwind but we managed to get it done enough for them!
Over the summer, we set up a stock tank pool, I baked everything sourdough, made a some quilts, painted, and thoroughly enjoyed all of the flowers in the garden. At the Farmhouse, we demoed the kitchen and front room along with a pretty sketchy addition that was off the kitchen. We also cut a pathway from the driveway to the Apartment door. At our house in town we made slow progress on some inside projects, and we painted the whole exterior of the house!
Unfortunately, a lot of my symptoms I was experiencing the year before just kept ramping up. So, I stopped eating gluten to see if it would help with my symptoms (which it did improve a number of symptoms!) and I also found a functional doctor and nutritionist and started working with them to try to figure out what in the world was going on with me. We did some testing and found out that I have one of the genes needed to have celiac disease so I spent the holiday season forcing myself to eat gluten again (which was rough) so I could get the celiac bloodwork done.
2024
In January, I got the official Celiac diagnosis! I was pretty bummed, but also had felt so bad when eating gluten that I had no desire to eat it anyway. It’s been challenging in many ways that I didn’t expect. But, I was very thankful to at least have an answer for some of my symptoms.
Over the winter and early spring we focused on our house in town. We worked on the downstairs bathroom and the mudroom and really took some time to plan out the farmhouse addition and overall future layout. I also I got to teach some pottery classes at my friends studio which was so fun! It had been so long since I had gotten to make anything with clay.
Spring brought garden season on and I decided to take on a few building projects with the boys.
First, we built a little playhouse type structure with the boys that resembled a lean-to greenhouse. We called in the big guns to help us with the roof. We put a big with a sandbox inside and covered the whole thing with cattle panel. Of course, I built garden beds around the perimeter and we grew cucumbers and cherry tomatoes on it which gave them some shade in the heat of summer!
April-May, we prepped for the foundation work to start at the Farmhouse for the new addition. We had a lot to get cleared and we also made a gigantic driveway so that there would be plenty of space for everyone that needed to park there. The Foundation did get finished up which was so exciting and then our Bunnies had their first litter!
We got to celebrate all of that progress with a road trip to visit our best friends down in SC who are also renovating their farmhouse. It was so fun. The husbands knocked out some siding, the kids played SO much, we had a beach day, and I got to teach my friend how to sew! Just what we needed before started in on a super crazy summer.
I taught a sewing class at a local University summer camp for middle schoolers for a few weeks and then right as that was wrapping up, we started framing the addition! That totally ruled our lives until basically the end of the year.
Over the summer/ fall, my parents moved into the farmhouse apartment which their house was built next door. We managed to get the addition all framed and Paul finished the roof before winter really hit. It definitely took everything out of us. We basically worked on it most afternoons/evenings after Paul got off work and all weekends. It was really fun and exciting for a while but the tail end of it was such a struggle.
2025
My parents moved into their new house! This year we mostly turned our attention back on our house in town and getting ready to sell and move out to the farmhouse.
We had tons of finish work that needed to be done at Girard Ave — trim, painting, finally installing our downstairs shower, etc. The last finishing details take up (in my opinion) at least 50% of the total project time. We always underestimate how much time it’s going to take us. We also had to move all of my garden beds from the front yard out to the farm and get grass growing again.
In addition to that, I took three online courses. One was to learn a different technique for hand-building ceramics and making my own stamps for the pottery. The other two were to learn more on Surface Pattern Design. This is something I’ve been so interested in since I was in college, but I I have so much to learn in the digital art realm. I got to set up a little studio in a spare room of our house (the boys first room) and I spent the spring really focusing on that. I had to lay it down again to be able to finish up our house to sell and move, but am getting ready to pick it back up again and can’t wait to start sharing that process!
We DID (thank the Lord!) sell our house and move out to the farm in the fall. I can’t wait to dive into all of the before and afters of our Girard Ave with you guys!
We did number of projects to upgrade the farmhouse apartment and help it be a little more functional for us. You can check out more details about our house projects here!
We have walked through plenty of challenges and trials in the past 9 years of marriage. There are so many things that we have wanted and have prayed for that just haven’t turned out how we wanted. I have had to surrender plenty of dreams and plans — the ones that I want the most. And even so, we feel incredibly grateful for this life that we get to live. I can confidently say that most of my favorite things about our life are also things I never dreamed of doing. Actually, a number of them are things I once said I would never want to do. It’s amazing what God can do when we surrender our plans and trust Him to lead the way.
