con - de - struction

It all started June 2009.  Oh yes, the excitement of seeing my dream coming to life on paper.  The joy of discussing possibilities, further developing the dream, seeing what could be and deciding what will be.  Interviewing contractors and the nerve wracking decision of who should I hire.  Will they drive me insane?  Can I handle the stress?  I made a decision and the destruction began.  The destruction of the back half of my home so the construction can begin.  The things we discovered: the back half of my home was little more than a lean to against the front half, most of the electric wiring was not up to code, there was no foundation under the back half of the house, it was just some loose pavers sitting on top of cap rock.  Let me count the horrors.  But I slowly began to recognize the exceptional skill, workmanship and ethics of my contractor.  Nothing threw him, everything was simply an opportunity to use his creativity to find an appropriate solution. 

But, it would be too easy to complete the process here.  Water had been leaking out from under the sink cabinets for the last year.  I spent hundreds of dollars on 3 different plumbers to fix the problem.  And now, once again, water leaks out from under the cabinet.  I mentioned it to the contractor and in less than half a day they figured out that the water was coming from the air handler 20 feet away.  Apparently, it had been leaking all this time and just sitting under the cabinets, slowly destroying them and every once in a while the water would sneak out into view.  UGH.  The water also destroyed my one year old bamboo floor in my living room.  Of course!  What next?  The kitchen cabinets needed replaced but if I'm going to do that then I should upgrade the whole kitchen the way I want once and for all.  But ... that can't be done until the air handler is moved to the attic.  oops  ... no attic!  Oh yea, that was in the plans for phase 2, you know, the phase that was to be started in 5 years.  pondering .... pondering .... pondering

The contractor is on the roof one day working on the roof over the new room and says, "There are swimming pools up here, Pam."  Let's see, it rained 3 days ago ... oh, yea here we go.  I called my architect, um, could you draw up the plans for phase 2?  It's amazing how fast he accomplished this.  The contractor gave me a quote and away we go.

Ok, now we're rebuilding the back half of the house with an extention and porch added, gutting the kitchen and rebuilding, pulling up the flooring of the kichen and living room and putting tile in both as well as the new den, pulling up the carpet in my bedroom and putting new capeting in.  For a short period I joked about how the entire house was being redone except for the bathroom until I realized in order to put the hip-joint roof on and strap it down ALL the drywall in the house would be torn down to get to the cement and the ceiling over my bedroom and bathroom was soooo bad that they decided it was easiest to just tear the ceiling out along with the walls and use the trusses of the new roof for the ceiling.  This house is going to be incredible when it is done.   DONE!!

Oh yes, that's the question.  When?  Done?  My standard response to this question these days is: "After my funeral."  (said with a smile)  Yes, these days we have 3 guys working on the roof and another one tearing up my floors in the living room and kitchen.  Oh, did I forget to mention that when they took the dry wall down in my bedroom they discovered that there were NO headers over my windows.  This would be two full walls of solid windows.  No wall in between, just windows and nothing else.  Yep, that was my home.  Safe and secure from all alarms ...  well, not really.  They ripped out my one and only closet, hung a rod for my clothes in the new walk in closet under construction.  The rod was hung by a 6 foot tall guy.  I have a hard time reaching my clothes or seeing them (in the new rooms with no electricity yet) but at least they are hanging up. 

So I have the entire back of my home under roof but no electricity, walls or floors or ceilings.  The living room has no floor or walls, the light is gone but I plugged in a lamp.  The kitchen has half the floor removed.  My bedroom has no floor, walls, ceiling or window dressings.  The dressing room is completely gone.  The bathroom has blueprints and battery power packs plugged in.  Did I mention the lovely film of dust over EVERYTHING.  All my books (including my cookbooks) are in 25 boxes in my office seven miles down the road. My plates, glasses, etc. are slowly moving into boxes.  I now am at the point where I clean only the tiny spot where I need to do something, knowing that in minutes it will be filthy again.

When will it be done?  After my funeral.  How can there be any other answer?  But my dream, yes, my dream is coming true.  Excited? OH YEA!  The anticipation is worth every bit of the struggle to get there.  And I don't have to do it alone.  Just think of the joy to come.

Did I mention that the entire house leaks when it rains ....