BLOG - A Man’s Point of View   This BLOG post is going to be slightly different. This is written by my husband, Jay, AKA the one doing all the work. He is going to share a little bit of this project from his view.    Around every turn in this project is the endless question, how are we going to finance this with no money? Every time we open something up there is another bigger more expensive and extensive project. We originally were going to sell the property and then after getting it in we decided we would have to keep it because we owed what it was worth, plus it needed tons of money to rehab it to get it ready to sell. And where in the world is all this money going to come from? That also means not hiring any one to do the work I must do it all. 

 I work a full-time job remodeling houses. So, this is our ‘night and weekend job’. Getting up in the morning is near impossible any more. I was never a morning person but now…. My body aches and I have to force myself to continue on. Then whenever I start to wrap up a project or think we are nearing the final stages “we” decide to do something else and it starts all over. 

  When going through the list of things we were going to fix, upgrade etc. I had always voted NO for replacing the kitchen. It may have been outdated but it was strong and sturdy and clean. Plus, I had already done a lot of work to it in the past. But after uncovering the flooring in the other two rooms we were really starting to be concerned about what condition the kitchen floor and beams maybe in. Plus, we wanted to create a new access point to the basement. All of these items my wife will talk about in another post. But you guessed it, this room needed a major overhaul and I had to tare out this nice kitchen as well.  

 The amount of debris we have removed from this house is unreal. I thought I could burn it all but it was so much that we had to rent a dumpster. And will likely take more then one 40 yard dumpster. It would be so easy to use the tractor and bring it all out to the burn pile. But we’d be burning for months. 

  I have now thrown my back out not once, but twice. Home remodeling is not for the weak let me tell you, physically or mentally. But wait you have to hear how the latest happened then you can judge. I was working alone in the house when all of a sudden the front door blew open! I had been there for hours without the door opening but I have to say I jumped a mile! And twisted my back to the point of being able to do very limited work the following couple days. Maybe the house is just haunted and someone wanted me to know they were there?

  This well, as I’m sure you’ve read about previously, is the well pit of death. Let me tell you! This thing is always broken. And since it is a shared well we have an agreement in place the next door owners are supposed to pay all of the maintenance and all of our electric bills in return for use of our well. This hasn’t happened so now we have to pursue legal actions and in turn turning it into a ‘non’ shared well.   

Speaking of the well…. As you know while working on a well you need to shut the water off to the house and basic plumbing to not cause more work. Well the water has been turned off since about the first weekend we had the property back. Every night the kids come over they end up having to poop in the non functioning toilets! And every time the kids are over to ‘help’ me work. This basically means, all of my tools will be in random places spread out all over the house and or outside… Maybe even in the pasture where they were digging for buried treasure. 

  This project was supposed to take maybe a month, two tops. But no we’ll be lucky this is done over the next year!!! Oh, and don’t forget we still have our current house to list and sell as well.  You may think that working with family sounds like a lot of fun. But just remember that you have to life with your wife and children when you go home too. Its not like work and employees where they stay at the job.