under construction

Several years of my childhood were spent helping my dad remodel our home. Among his many other talents, he has experience in contracting and construction work so he had chosen to do the work himself. This meant that I learned how to wield a paintbrush by age 8, drywall and plaster by age 10 and lay brick by age 12 (more of less). I never learned the really hard stuff--framing, plumbing, electrical, etc. but my brothers did.

This early education became very useful later in life. A year after husband and I were married, we eagerly bought our first home. It was beautiful and wonderful and we loved it. But it came with problems. Okay, honestly it was a little shack, but a great starter home. Most notably, it was built on peat moss and the back corner of the foundation had sunk several inches. Realizing we could not sell it in this condition, we tried fixing it ourselves and finally had to hire a company to do it. And then slowly, this little project began to grow. Grandma offered to buy the much-needed new carpet for our home before the baby was born. And husband decided to update some of the electrical while the rest of the work was being done. But once he tapped into the walls, he discovered they weren't insulated. So the project evolved into a seven headed monster and by the time we were done, the house had a proper foundation, new electrical wiring, insulation, new drywall, new paint, new baseboards, new corner molding, new shingles, a new tile entry, new light fixtures, new carpet and a new baby in it. The work was hard but fun, having done most of it ourselves. We hired one of husband's best friends since he was a freelance contractor to help us with some of the bigger projects and with the finish work and we learned a lot along the way. Siblings and friends pitched in when they could and it was a great learning experience. When we were done, the house looked amazing. (and then we sold it less than six months later)

Thus the joke about famous last words--"I bet I can do it in 15 minutes" or "I think I'll just do it myself".

When shopping for our second home, we intentionally avoided homes that needed significant work (we were still recovering from our first "fixer upper" ordeal). We found and bought the beautiful home we live in now. It's the kind of place that I still wander occasionally and marvel to myself that I actually get to live here. There has been a few little projects, but mostly things we chose to do for our own comfort and convenience (ceiling fans, night lights, etc.).

And then came the flood.

Really, the flood wasn't near as bad as it could have been and we have been very grateful that the damage was relatively minimal and limited to one room. So here's the update: we got the estimates back from the insurance company and decided to cash it out instead. By doing the work ourselves we could use the extra money to finish off the storage room and even tackle a few minor projects in the garage. That way, the house would only be a drywall dust/plaster infested mess once. We hired our friend again to help with the work and once we got going, it's gone really fast.

So we spent yesterday priming and painting the walls with the "help" of our two adorable but less than productive little girls. They were both eager to help and bouncing off the walls excited when we first started. But Ladybug's enthusiasm wore off quickly, mostly because she kept getting paint on her hands and was upset that they were dirty. She ended up sitting on a box watching home movies on my phone and eventually just taking a nap while Butterfly and I continued painting. Butterfly was more help than I expected and was able to put a good amount of paint on the walls (and a pathway of adorable footprints across the floor).

Now construction and finish work is almost complete (or hopefully will be by midweek) and we will have a playroom again soon.