John and I have been together for about the last 3 years. His background includes lots of construction, both home, and commercial. My Mom owns a house that was once used as a house for the hired man on the farm, located in the farm yard. She and my brother want to now rent it. It needed some basic updating that John agreed to do for her when he was here with me. Many know the far to common scenario of renters who trash the place, this is the epitome of that. It was completed in September 2017, the renters (freeloaders) were finally removed in May 2018. I think the only wall they didn’t punch a hole in was the ceiling under the staircase that ended up having to be removed to repair the staircase they destroyed. The result of this remodel has been the months of days that John and I got to spend together, though more entertaining activities could have been found, no doubt.
First off, I am not a patient person. This is never more evident than when I am waiting for someone to do something for me. One positive in my marriage was that he taught me how to fix things for myself. There were two advantages to this, 1. was that I didn’t have to ask him to do it, 2. was that there was no waiting. This included me being able to do anything with PVC, if I can imagine it, I can construct it. I also learned about cars, I can do basic maintenance, and things like brakes, and u-joints, though these days, I shouldn’t. We rebuilt a motor for our truck once, and I learned a bunch of now relevant information.
This house has allowed me to get a close up of new things like drywall and pex for plumbing. I know how to retrofit windows, set sub-floor, and I’m not afraid of things like epoxy flooring. Wiring isn’t terrifying either. That doesn’t even include the unlimited practice I get painting, repainting, and repainting again, not to mention the taping that goes with it. I learned how to do snap flooring, and my kids can lay down sub-flooring , and snap floors like old pros. I find projects like these endlessly gratifying, both for my mind, and personal satisfaction.
I fight a constant state of anxiety to some degree, though some days are definitely worse than others. There have been days that I didn’t feel well enough to go along, and some that I had too much schoolwork to do. The evolution of that is really clear when I remember the days that I went along because I wasn’t really ok to be home alone all day, and the kids were in school, I went along, at John’s request, to prevent him needing to worry. Those were days I would not have been able to remember his number to call him from my landline phone at home. Those were the days that I was truly a fall risk when trying to take care of myself. I have come so far since then. When I stay home now, it is most likely to get schoolwork done, because I am often tempted to get too involved in the house to get much done on my computer. My brain keeps me easily distracted, and by nature, I am a procrastinator. We are in the final stages of this house (we hope). This repair is down to baseboard heater, and molding installation, calking, and epoxy floor in the basement. The final final will be touch-ups, and I can’t wait. The kids and I painted everything together over the weekend to surprise John when he came back from his weekend with his kids. The hope was to be done by today, but that isn’t really possible since we haven’t started painting the floor.
I look forward to the completion of this project, but it is with a degree of sadness too as we finish it. Life is a pandora’s box. You think one part needs repair, simple tweak here and there, often turns into something much larger a piece at a time we get where we are going. I look back and thing of all the places I thought I would ever be, things I thought I would ever do, I never thought I would be here, The journey is the point, not every day is good, but if you allow yourself to enjoy it, the journey is awesome.