It just needs a little love: Building back up

There is so much visible progress all of a sudden! The garage is up, the trusses are up, they're working on tying in the addition to the upstairs, the basement access is re-routed to allow for a bigger kitchen, a second staircase to the second story is in...wowza. I can't remember if I talked about the staircase before. When we started thinking about the addition and where things would be, we realized that to get from the master bedroom to the garage would require walking the whole length of the house...twice. For Ben, this posed some fire escape concerns. For me...it was really more about chaotic mornings if I'm being completely honest. We thought about how we could fit another staircase into the plan. We literally spent an entire evening Googling and brainstorming options. We thought we maybe had a plan that would cut into some living space, but we could live with that because of the aforementioned benefits. We met with Greg a few days later to discuss some layout stuff and told him we wanted a second staircase. He rattled off some solution off the top of his head that was 100 times better than ours, naturally. It's like this stuff is his livelihood or something.

In order to tie in the addition, we needed to demo a built-in cabinet and a bedroom closet upstairs. This will become a hallway.

My dad and I went to work on the demo. Greg actually called us the "A Team". He really does know his stuff.

Before:

After:

Demo started slow...two layers of drywall and a layer of plaster & lath will cause that I guess. It picked up though, and we pretty much had the space opened up in a few hours. Unfortunately my dad had to take off unexpectedly to help my grandma, so I somehow had to get all of the debris out to the dumpster by myself. Enter: the Skytrak! AJ, who works for Countryside, ran the lift up to the little balcony on the second floor, I loaded it with crap and he dropped everything in the dumpster for me. I'm not sure how I would have done it otherwise. He certainly didn't have to do that but I sure appreciated it. A few hours and a few loads later I was ready to go home and take a nap. And thank Ben for all of his hard demo work. I asked him how much money he thought we saved thanks to me...and it wasn't much. Apparently professionals would have done it much quicker or more efficient or something. I stopped listening.

We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving, but then Ben had to work the whole weekend after for the first time in our marriage I think! He never works that weekend. He didn't even help set up the Christmas tree. I would have waited for him, but Colter woke up Friday morning all ready to go and I couldn't say no. The only progress we made that weekend on the Farmhouse was purchasing bathroom tile at Menards. And a bow for the tree, per Colter's request. He could not believe we didn't have a star for the top. And he wouldn't accept my logical explanation that we didn't have space for one because the tree was too tall. A bow was the compromise, if you can call it that. We apparently do not have the same taste in Yuletide decor. But it put the star issue to bed so what do you do.

I digress. We've officially started building back up. As Ben said before, we sure pray we reached our low point already. It's so fun to see it come back together a little bit, and maybe even have some meaningful talks about paint color. That's been so far off the radar but we're going to have to make some decisions soon. I found some flooring I think will work great for the mudroom and kitchen. Yes. The kitchen. I am being overruled and really don't want to talk about it. They don't even ask me anymore. I have lost all control. I'm not even being sarcastic. Well maybe just a little.

Ben has been having fun helping Greg and the team. We love that he lets us take some ownership of the project. It will be great to look back at the pieces we contributed to.

We also completed the first draw on our bank loan. This was shockingly painless. We requested funds, they sent an inspector, they wrote up some paperwork, we signed and emailed back, they sent a check that arrived the next morning. What was Ben so worried about, honestly? Oh wait. That was me.