Clean Slate Weekend-

This past weekend our church had an event called Clean Slate. They find families in our area that need a fresh start, a new beginning, a "Clean Slate." The catch phrase associated with Clean Slate is: "Transforming lives by transforming homes." The main goal in the end is to show the love of Jesus Christ to the families we are helping. It is a wonderful thing to be apart of!

Our family has a 12 year old boy who has muscular dystrophy. He is now in a wheel chair and was not able to get in the shower without a family member lifting him to put him in his shower. He was not able to get into his closet or go out into the game room because of his chair. The family thought that we were going to come and just redo some parts of their house so that he could access them. However as it ends up we redid their whole house and gave them a fresh new look! Kara Paslay designed everything in the house and she did an amazing job capturing exactly what the mom wanted! You can check Kara's website out at http://karapaslaydesigns.blogspot.com

This year I volunteered to be the house "Organizer". I had to be there Thursday evening until Sat night helping organize the closets, go through some things with the home owner and see if there was anything that we could put up in the attic or give away. I also helped give people jobs, try to keep things going so that we would meet our deadline, and make things look neat.

On Thursday my job was to go through things with the mom and see what she wanted to get rid of and keep. We also pretty much packed up her entire house so that we could start working on it!

(In the picture above Jason and I were in the kitchen of the house that was redone.)

I was so glad that Julie was there to help us! I put her on some very random jobs throughout the weekend and she was always very willing! At one point I asked her if she has ever sanded anything with a power sander, she said no but she can learn how to! Wow what a great attitude!!! We had over 100 Volunteers at this house throughout the weekend! This is 1 of 8 houses that our church is doing last weekend and this next weekend. Isn't it awesome how so many people were so willing and ready to give their time and talents to help this family in need!

My friends Julia and Taylor were there as well! Can you believe that Taylor Lautner was so willing to help out! :)

The teenage girl from this house had this cardboard cut out in her room. So... Julia and I went into teen mode and just had to take a picture with him! :)
Julia also helped me out by doing some last minute things that I needed to be done. She did not tell me at the time that she did not enjoy doing them, she just did it with a smile! :)

Here I am going through some of her kitchen items! I am so glad and grateful for all the people that helped me!! There were people organizing the pantry and they did an amazing job! It was very fun to work with a lot of people that I knew from church but maybe did not know that well. It was a great way to get to know them better!

*One things I will be putting on my Christmas list is the pull out drawers that we installed for her! Oh my goodness they were to die for! :)
Here is our project Manager talking to all of the Volunteers and basically giving us a pep talk 5 hours before the family was to arrive.

Not only did people use their talents to help with the house, Dr. Jason used his talent by stitching up Nate who cut himself pretty bad while cutting tile. It was quite the show outside! :)

I wish I would have taken some "before" pictures but unfortunately I did not. So here are some of the "after" pictures that I took. The picture above is Luke's bedroom (the boy with muscular dystrophy). He totally changed bedrooms due to the bathroom situation. So this was a brand new room to him and it looked amazing! Kara is so creative!

This is his closet/bathroom that was designed just for him. I forgot to get a picture of the shower that was totally built from scratch for him.

This is the finished product in the Kitchen! Wow I thought it looked so good and was totally something that I never would of thought of! She put chicken wire on them and backed it with material. The theme for this house was "Modern Farmhouse". I think she captured that perfectly!
This was the entryway of their house. So cool!

This little boy loved his new bedroom! We built the shelves, and put some very cool cork board in between them to display his artwork! Needless to say he was back here all night!

I had a great time being involved in this project and I can't wait to do it again next year! I have definetely learned some things that I would do differently and some things that I would do the same. I want to thank both sets of grandparents for watching the kids a lot this weekend and to Ja for all his help and support through this!