Sweet sentiment: Paula and Mike Haas restored a historic home in downtown Cape Girardeau and filled it with their favorite treasures

As Paula Haas sorts through her collection of paint swatches, some show more age than others.

There are different brands from different stores, with a multitude of tack-holes punched into most of them.

The Haas home in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

Haas is an antique-store owner, genealogist, fine china collector and an amateur seamstress, but it's obvious that her passion lies in decorating.

Paula and her husband, Mike, bought their Themis Street house in 2000, in a historic district in downtown Cape Girardeau. The home has been in various stages of restoration for the past five years.

Haas says she remembers exactly how she felt the first day she walked through the house.

The Haas home in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"My husband had a friend who was a Realtor, and my husband loves old houses, and I didn't. But he said, 'I just want you to come and see the woodwork,'" she says now. "So I drove over there, went in, and honestly -- went in the front door, up the stairs, down the hallway, came back and said, 'This is my house.' I couldn't see everything that was wrong with it; I could just see it finished."

Since beginning the work on their house, Haas and her husband have done their best to restore it to its original state.

The Haas home in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

The house was built with four bedrooms, six different entrances, a foyer, parlor, dining room and complete setup for a maid's quarter. Things have changed throughout the restoration: one bedroom became a "project room," as Haas calls it, one bedroom was divided into two bathrooms, the kitchen was expanded and two of the doors were removed.

But looking at the nearly 130-year-old house from the outside, you could never tell it's been altered.

"When we moved in, I was like, 'Finally, I'm home,'" Haas says of her first day in their new home, Oct. 20, 2014. She and her family underwent many obstacles to begin construction on their dream home, but hearing her talk about it now, it's hard to imagine there was a time when she considered selling it. For the first 10 years of owning the house, the couple weren't sure they would be able to restore it between keeping up with their family, running the antique shop and facing medical issues.

The Haas home in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

As Haas walks through the house now, everything's associated with a memory, from the sliding pocket doors to the coal grate in the floor of the front hallway. Every few feet, she stops to tell a story about this or that. Climbing the curved staircase, she points to an old light that looks like it belongs in a church -- because that's exactly where it's from.

The Haas home in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"This is special to me," she says, motioning to similar-looking lights hanging along the hallway. "I grew up in the Wyatt, Missouri, Methodist church. And when they closed, I was given some of the light fixtures. So there is a lot of sentimental in my house."

In the dining room is an antique dining room set that belonged to her sister-in-law. Above the set hangs an intricate glass chandelier, comprised of hundreds of tiny glass pieces. Haas says the light was hand-washed by her husband, then restrung by a friend of theirs.

While Paula gives the grand tour, Mike sits quietly in the kitchen, looking at his tablet and listening to his wife's stories. He's heard them dozens of times, but is still a good sport about it -- and even adds a fun fact every now and again. Mike claims the entire house is Paula's idea -- that he just did what she asked -- but Paula is quick to correct him.

The Haas home in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"He picked out the copper back splash and a couple different accents," she says, smiling at him and switching to her next favorite piece in the house.

The Haas home in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"It's just been determination, and a labor of expensive love," Haas says. "[The hardest part has been the] waiting, absolutely. The wait to begin and the wait to get it finished. That's the hardest part."