The Job You Didn't Know You Had

Have you ever stumbled upon a job in life that you didn't know you were qualified for?

Maybe you never knew you were a natural teacher until you began homeschooling your children.

Or perhaps you didn't know you were a gardener until your neighbors started coming to you for landscaping advice.

Recently, I realized that God has been equipping me with a certain skill set over the past ten years. I never thought of it as a real job until I stopped and examined it in a new way.

My job?

I make house.

No. Not homemaker. I make house. And because we've moved four times in the last ten years, I've had the opportunity to make house four times, each time getting a little better at it.

It has been the most profitable job I've had in the last decade.

It has always been our strategy. My husband and I buy houses that have been sitting on the market for a while, unloved and unwanted, and with vision and a lot of sweat equity, we turn the Fixer Upper house into the hot property.

In the process, I've learned a lot about real estate. It takes a lot of time and energy to research the best neighborhoods, the best school systems, the ideal locations. I've also had to learn about home values, future projections, and the repairs to make that will add the most value without pricing ourselves beyond the neighborhood.

On the selling end, I've learned a lot about home staging. Paint colors, decor, lighting, window treatments, curb appeal, landscaping. I am constantly keeping on top of household clutter, and closets and storage are always in shape.

In many ways, this house will be the most ambitious project we've ever undertaken. We will continue to do a lot of repairs ourselves to keep costs down, but we will also hire professionals for big jobs like window replacement and exterior house painting. It's a big gamble, but we're hoping that it will all pay off in the future.

These days, my creative energies are being poured into making house. We're starting to see results, too.

The other day, a lady from the area Welcome Wagon came by to bring all kinds of goodies and info about the community. When I met her at the door, she said "Now you did just move here, right? Because I'm looking at your front porch, and it looks so beautiful...like you've lived here a long time!"

Making house. It's what I do.