A project on pause…

Over here at our Farmhouse remodel we have been focused on our garage addition for a little over a year now. Why, you might ask, is it taking so long to finish up? Well, it is a combination of fiscal responsibility, wanting to do some of the work ourselves and extreme patience with the trades we have hired. Every step of the way has faced delays. Delays due to weather-

(It snowed the first day we dug the footings)

To long wait times for back ordered and unavailable products-

(the custom garage door we wanted didn’t arrive until November)

To unforeseen equipment failure-

(our skid steer got stuck and broke down while trying to add fill to this side of house)

Back to weather delays again as a wet and rainy summer made concrete pouring and trenching for a gas line a longer drawn out process than we anticipated.

Which is why when I needed sheet rock delivered for the bonus room, requiring a boom truck to lift it up through the patio doors, I braced myself for a possible snag. A sudden warm up was melting the thin layer of frost on that side of the house, threatening to become a sink hole of mud. I was also facing impending weight limits (weight limits are the restrictions puts on roads for heavy equipment and deliveries during the time the ground starts to thaw, usually enforced between middle of March to middle of April). But in a stroke of good luck and quick action- this happened!

Our sheet rock was delivered and the boom truck didn’t even get stuck in the yard!!! I sighed a sigh of relief. I gave thanks. I started scheduling and pushing everyone towards the finish line. This has been going on long enough for us after all.

The timeline went a little something like this-

November 2018: garage is dug and poured

January 2019: Framing begins!

April 2019: Steel roofing goes on entire house and addition

May 2019: Siding/Exterior doors/Covered porch is framed

July 2019: Concrete floors are poured in garage

September 2019: Exterior concrete is poured

October 2019: interior walls of garage are framed on concrete floor

November 2019: Garage door is installed

Jan-Feb 2020: Electric and insulation continues in garage

March 2020: HVAC is installed

And now we feel like we are on pause again. Waiting to hear who can work and what is safe and how tomorrow will look and feel. We have been conditioned to wait. Even though we were finally picking up steam. It is disappointing. But all of those years we have “gone without” makes the idea of the upcoming months a bit more manageable. While I won’t say we have faced it all- or that you can ever be fully prepared for what is to come- we have seen our fair share of challenges.

We have faced a frigid cold October when we had no heat source in the house and warmed up the one room we slept in before bedtime with an electric space heater. We have faced several months when our only way to shower was to travel to my sister’s Appleton apartment everyday before work. We have faced years without a functioning kitchen, when we made and stored our food like we were on an extended camping trip inside our house. We have fretted over losing power in every blizzard that knocked out the tv, every ice storm that weighed on the tree branches.

We have been trapped all weekend long by the snow that plowed shut our driveway. We have gone without drinking water when our waterlines froze. We have gone without any running water when our jet pump went out- twice. I recall a weekend when we were snowed in that a pipe in our laundry room burst and we had to shut everything off to the entire house. We quickly filled bottles with water for hand washing until we could get a repair guy out on Monday morning.

We have faced rains that threatened flooding. Faced mosquitoes, wood ticks, bats and bees…

We have faced many years living here that were turbulent and challenging, but we endured. We trusted in one simple belief- that things would get better.

And so we are grateful to stay in a home with heat, with food and running water and electricity. A home where we can do our laundry and watch tv and take a hot shower. Seeing us now it might be tough to believe that we have lived through a time in our lives when those things weren’t all a given. We have worked hard to get to this place. Sacrificed and gone without. And so we will do it again.

The best part of making it through hard times- is having the confidence in knowing that you will make it through again.

Here’s to a healthier tomorrow!