Welcome to Our Home!

My name is Joleen and my husband is Jess. We are so happy to meet you and invite you into our home.

The Refining Home is not only home decor and DIY’s. It’s about family and connections, renovating and decorating, faith and laughter, refinishing and refining and looking for the silver lining.

We are elbow deep in the excitement, as well as the aches and pains of living in our home while fixing it up. Along with 4 children who keep us on our toes, the yard is a total tear out too. Undoubtedly, there are days we feel out numbered and in over our heads.

Where We Started…

A year after we were married, we had our first baby and Jess joined the Army. Our life has been one great adventure ever since. I learned quickly that home was where you hang your hat, but also where you hang your heart.

In my quest to set up our new home, I discovered that our last name means “hedge” or “enclosed area/ area of sanctuary”: meaning a place of safety and peace. Despite renting, while saving up for a home to call our own and moving around from “hedge” to “hedge” it made me realize how important refining home was to us, even if it was just a rental. Likewise, creating a space for our family where they could feel safe, at peace and loved became my top priority.

Where We Are Today…

Today we finally have our own home. We’ve lived in 3 different states and have moved 17 times in our 21 years of marriage; and feel so blessed to be sinking our roots deep into the soil of our fixer upper.

So…pull up a seat as you wander through the hedges with us in creating, renovating, decorating and refining our family, faith and home. Welcome to our home!