Renovation Reflections

I was thinking again about how it was a year ago. As I look around and still see boxes that are yet to be unpacked, cracked walls, and much renovation to be done, it's easy to think about how far we have to go. And I have blogged about this before.

But we were just reflecting again this morning on what we were doing a year ago. It was a crazy move, probably one of the hardest (and we have 14 to rank).

I had a meeting in Miami finishing on the 20th. We were due to move on the 22nd. Being staff at the meetings, I always come home exhausted, so it was poor planning to move so soon after. But there was no way I could move before the meeting, and I had to schedule it asap after I got home. So the 22nd it was. B took days off before I got home, and he packed as much as he could. But when I got home, there was still much to pack. We had very little sleep, as we worked hard and worried. There were also issues with our loan, because due to some banking laws concerning farms in Iowa we had a hard time getting 20 acres financed. We also had a difficult time finding an insurance company that would insure our home because it is so remote (and far from the fire dept). So there were all of those worries also.

We hired movers, who arrived just before we headed out to our closing. The closing went very smoothly, and we had no problems. When we got home, they had loaded a great deal of the house into the truck, and I was still in the midst of packing dishes in boxes for them. About 3/4 of the way through the process, about 2:00 pm, they announced that the truck was full, and they could not get any more of our things packed inside of it. We HAD to be out that evening, since the new owner would be arriving about 6:00 to bring his things and begin moving in. I had a cleaning lady that was coming about 5:00, and I had to get the things packed up and ready for her, too. Someone had to go with the movers to the new house to instruct them where to put everything. Our new house is approx. 50 minutes from our old house, so time played a huge factor in all of this.

We decided B would go with them, and I would stay.

While I was angry, shocked, and left standing with my mouth open, there was no time for that! I left immediatly and rented a U-Haul truck. I finished packing up the kitchen, and was hoping that B would return after the movers unloaded everything so that he could help me load the truck. Time dragged on, and I decided to just move all of the things that were to be put into the truck, into the garage. That way the cleaning lady could clean, and the new owner could move his things in. Everytime I looked in a room, there was something left. A box here and there, a closet full of clothes. The laundry room's contents not packed. The entire contents of the kitchen. I had no boxes left, and was resorting to garbage bags... And on and on...

The cleaning lady did her magic, and the new owner came. He was very nice, and fortunately, very understanding. He had the DirecTV installlation the next day, so he wanted to have his TVs in the house and ready for that-- that's all. No major moves. He told me to take as long as I needed to get out. Good thing, because B didn't get back until about 9:00, and we did not leave until nearly 11:30 pm. We found a Denny's and ate supper. The kids fell asleep on their plates in the restaurant.

But the fun didn't end there, folks. The next morning, we needed to unload the U-Haul and take it the 50 minutes back to where we rented it. We were bone tired, exhausted, and got up at the crack of dawn to unload our worldly goods into our new house. We saw people drive by and wave, and wonder about these new folks. The house had been empty nearly a year.

We struggled with where to put everything. A lot of our things weren't right in the new house. We suddenly didn't need 3 couches. We have many tall, skinny windows, not a few wide ones. We do like craftsman style furniture, so all of that fit quite well, but the finishing touches were just not working. Plus, we knew we'd be tearing out carpeting and ripping off paneling. Do we just leave the things in the basement, or move them later when we began deconstructing?

And the deconstruction was such a nightmare. We couldn't sleep in the room with red carpeting and black/white wallpaper. I couldn't stand it, so within a week it was painted and transformed. Carpeting was torn out, thrown away, things were scrubbed and restured. Paneling was removed and thrown out. It took us weeks to remove all of the carpet tack strips from the living room floor. To just say "we took out the carpeting" makes it sound like it took 45 minutes! It took so long, and our knees were sore, our backs were sore for days. We would each have a claw tool and we'd sit and talk and pull staples and tacks.

So to look at the walls today doesn't make me sad, after recounting all of that.

I haven't mentioned this, but I am taking a WHOLE WEEK of vacation in May to work on my walls. I am not checking email, not working at all. I am going to pretend I'm unemployed. Well, no, I am going to pretend I am employed as a plaster wall restorer. : )

We will still have to wait on trim, but I can paint, and I can put up curtains, etc. I want to add some bookshelves and homey touches. And I want to UNPACK! I want to look at our boatload of books, and I want them to add their magical touch to the house.

I promise to take pictures.

Happy Saturday!

P.S. I forgot to mention how happy I was when our neighbor F brought us a strawberry pie the day we moved in. : ) I felt so welcome!