Renovations

We closed on the house two weeks ago tomorrow. It feels great to have a home even if we don't live there yet. Since my job is more flexible than Jack's and allows me more opportunity to slip away and meet plumbers, contractors, etc for estimates, I've been calling people and meeting them for the past several days.

Some things have been difficult about this part of the process that I didn't expect. For example, do you know that there are multiple ways to take down a wall in a home? We met with 7 different contractors/carpenters who were qualified to take down a wall between two living rooms and each of them described a completely different way that they planned to take down our wall. Some of them seemed viable, others seemed a little scary. All of it was a little overwhelming. The fun part for me was listening to all of them talk about what they would do and how they would do it so now I can ask some questions and talk about taking down a wall and sound half-way intelligent about it. "So are you going to put a header up there or are you going to use an LVL beam in the ceiling?"

That's right...just call me Francie Vila. Or better yet...name me after one of those people on HGTV who never actually does any of the work but stands back and watches other people while smiling and talking about it like she knows what's going on. Yeah, that's who I want to be.

We have pretty much settled on who is going to do most of the work now, so it's a matter of making some of the detailed decisions and waiting for when they can work us in. So far-- so good.

Summer has begun as far as my school year goes. I am teaching a class that begins shortly so I haven't really gotten to take a break yet, but I look forward to taking one soon...maybe.