Control joints

Sometimes I laugh at what an odd juxtaposition of post topics we have on this blog. ;) But as odd as they seem next to each other, they'd be even more odd lumped together in the same post, which is why I've been separating them out lately.

And anyway, it's only on the surface that the topics don't seem to make sense. If we'd done last July (2012) what we *thought* we needed to do on the house, we would now have a 3-5' wider guest room than we do now. And we would be *really* short on space. We were talking a few weeks ago in our Sunday morning Bible study about how many times what *we* think we "need" is different from what God knows we need. Typical examples include things like, "I really need a new car," or, "I really need a new/better job." I laughed as I realized that we'd had the same problem, too, thinking a year and a half ago when we didn't think adoption was anywhere near in our future, that what we "needed" was to slightly enlarge our guest room to make it big enough for Matt's mom to move into and have some room to spread out instead of just room for a bed and a dresser, if that. Ha ha ha. ;)

And I still marvel at how strongly we heard God moving us to go bigger, and to trust him to provide the time and the resources to do that without incurring debt. And that all that transpired BEFORE we had any notion that God was also going to be opening up the door to adoption in the near future. We began plans to nearly double our house back when we thought it was "only" Matt's mom who might be moving in with us. We had no idea that within a month of making that decision and taking the first steps toward it that God was going to lift the wall that had slammed in front of us (in relation to international adoption) in April. And we'd told him that we would wait until the "wall" was gone, and that when he removed the wall that we would keep walking toward whoever it was he had chosen for our family. That guest room (which is still tiny and not enlarged) is now the main-level bedroom that Owen and Krassimir share. And we had NO idea that by the time Krassi's adoption was finalized in Bulgaria that we would be expecting our family to grow again through birth! Yikes! Suddenly it makes more sense why God was directing us to add space rather than just nudge out what we already had.

But that has nothing to do with control joints. ;) (Except that there wouldn't be control joints to talk about if all we had done was what we thought we needed to do. ;) )

So, as promised, here are photos.

The control joints (which are lines cut into the concrete so that if/when it cracks, it will crack where we want it to) intersect the slice of the tree we took down, divide the front portion of the living room (where I'm standing) into smaller (piano) and larger (game/meeting table) areas and then carry into the back portion of the living room (the main living space) and dies into the wall right where the fireplace will (someday) be aligned with it.

Because it's kind of hard to see lines in concrete in a photo, here's a slightly closer up view. They are more obvious when you're in the space in real life.

And, standing on the stair landing looking down into the living room (and down the hallway toward the window that will be removed and made into a doorway for access between the old and the new) you can again see how the lines in the concrete begin to define spaces and circulation patterns.