Maybe a person appreciates things a little more if they have to wait awhile to get them. I don't believe I've ever had instant gratification with anything that has been done to our house. Every step of the way to making improvements was a waiting game. I think we are pretty much done with the remodeling chapters in the story of our home. I'm grateful for that, because remodeling is such a gosh awful process! It's so wonderful when it's all done, but so horrible getting through it all. Of course, there will always be maintenance; every home owner deals with that – Or certainly should be! I suppose every neighborhood has at least one neighbor that seems to think their home is self healing. Things falling apart, paint peeling, lawn burning up, but someday the house will magically put things to right, all by itself……. :-/
I have a mile long honey-do list at our house, and thankfully my hubs is very capable of keeping things up and running around here. Thank goodness! It is nearly impossible to hire folks of different trades to repair, replace, or remodel these days. At least in our neck of the woods. Time seems to be what we battle the most. Getting stuff done seems to take us an eternity. There are still a handful of projects around the house that have been waiting 10 to 15 years to get completely finished.
Then, just for good measure, throw in a dilapidated cabin that needs everything from stem to stern done on it. I guess to be completely honest, we're probably more than halfway there, but it seems this last half is the bear we are wrestling.
I went through some old photos and found a few taken during the remodeling of our basement. Yikes! What a process that was! But it was comforting to see some before and afters, because it gives me hope that we will indeed get the cabin done at some point in the near future, fingers crossed.
We had to fire a crooked contractor after 2/3 of the demolition was done. Then, try as we might, could not find another contractor to finish the project. So there we were, with the whole dang project thrown right in our laps. No turning back after it had been ripped to shreds and basically gutted, short of the stairs and the load bearing wall. But, after some blood, sweat, tears, a lot of arguing, and many months, we finally got it put back together.
A nice, extra tv/family room, so nobody has to fight over what shows to watch π
And a dream come true for me, a nice, big, clean place to do laundry.
It is a bright and cheery place that is just chock-full of storage space.
The laundry space before was a nightmare! Really gross and scary! But I had to do laundry in the kitchen at my little house before I moved here, and that was really inconvenient. So, it was still super nice to have a room dedicated strictly to laundry, even though the room was so yucky. Now, it is so bright and nice, it's darn near a pleasure to do laundry!
And I'm happy to say it now has base trim around the whole room! One of those projects that Mr. Bruce finally found the time to get done.
The utility part of the room before you get to the laundry spot is pretty skinny. I knew it would be a wreck to have doors to try to open in that section. Before barn style doors were even all the rage, I told Bruce that is what I wanted to put in the room to make access to everything easier. The only place you could easily find barn door hardware then was at the farm and ranch supply store, so we have the real deal in that room, just like you'd find in farmer John's barn! The make really fancy, beautiful hardware for them now days. We were just a smidge too early. But I am plenty happy with what I've got!
We've been plugging away at the cabin. Bruce is up there this weekend, working away.
Here is a mini picture story of what we've gone thru in the 6 long years since we got the cabin –
Winter will be staring us in the eye in nothing flat. We both put in for vacation in September to try to make a solid dent in the to-do list before the snow flies. Cross fingers!
TTFN,
Teresa π