Almost There...

I swore to myself that I'd do several things while we rehabbed this house. We would (1) keep track of money spent, (2) keep track of hours spent, (3) not lose sight of the things in life that really matter, (4) journal/blog regularly for historical purposes and (5) take LOTS of pictures for the album, as we'll probably never do a job this big again.

We've kept track of the money. (Ouch, have we ever kept track of the money! We try our darndest to only spend what we have... we've never paid a penny of credit card interest in our lives... but that darn Mastercard got declined a few times recently from being maxed out.) I've blogged pretty regularly throughout. But it would be impossible to track the hours at this point. And I've definitely lost track of what really matters in life. And I've not taken anywhere near enough pictures.

(To all of you who want to see pictures, I apologize. I'll try to put something together here soon, but it ain't gonna be easy. We've "misplaced" the cable that connects the camera to the 'puter, so that makes it much harder to do.)

We're almost there. Robyn has been staining and polyurethaning like crazy. (She's amazing. She sets her sights on something, then she goes and gets it. I'm continuously blown away.) A couple of our assorted sisters have helped with painting and some other miscellaneous tasks. Robyn's dad has done enough work to be given pieces of equity in the place, and he's not finished yet... the guy is a freaking workhorse. I have a mini-crew of guys heading over today after work to move radiators back into place. (These dang things have to weigh more than 500 pounds each, and they cannot be dragged across the newly-re-finished hardwood floors.)

Anticipating the arrival of carpet on Friday morning, I spent some time last night thinking "what do I need to do right now that I won't be able to do in 2 days?" I walked around the room, trying to figure it all out, when I noticed how bad the floor was squeaking as I walked across it. Once the carpet goes down, there's no fixing that, so I busted out the drill and a million screws, and got rid of the squakiness.

We're down to the nitty-gritty. We know that it's never going to be "done". Honestly, at this point, I'm so close to a mental breakdown that I'm trying to do as little as possible until we unload boxes on Saturday morning. I'm borderline insane right now, and I'm starting to hate the place with a passion. Robyn sees this and is encouraging me to stay the *%$@ away from the house so I don't contaminate her glorious mood. My hate will quickly dissipate when it becomes "home" on Saturday morning.

Feel free to stop by on Saturday. We're getting started at 9. We'd love to have you see that place. (And, ahem, carryallofourstuffintoourhouseandupflightsofstairs, ahem. Sorry, I hope this cough goes away soon.)