The day the laundry room ceiling came crashing down

We’ve always had big plans for our house.  From the moment I saw it I envisioned all it could be.  A new kitchen, more open concept layout, french doors and built in benches… But I also saw the life Nick and I would live here.  The family we would have.  The children we would have…  maybe a few animals in the barn…

For the most part our renovations have gone according to schedule.  I have been told by many that I have extreme patience, since our remodel includes a 5-year stint with a make shift kitchen and other periods of time when we scraped by with what we had to save the money for what we really wanted.  But something happened a summer or so ago.  The roof over the laundry room started to leak.

This was frustrating for two reasons: One, we had already refinished that room, in fact, it was one of our first projects when we bought the house.  And Two, the whole roof of that room was going to be tore off anyway when we rebuilt the garage, our NEXT project.  So having to do any kind of major roof repair now felt redundant.

So we patched it.  When it started to get worse we stretched a tarp over it.  When it rained really hard we put buckets on top of the washer and dryer to catch the water that dripped from the can lights.  We told ourselves it was fine.  It was fine.  It would all get taken care of when we rebuilt the garage.  Only problem was- that project kept getting delayed.

The day the laundry room ceiling came crashing down I remember standing in the doorway looking at the wet sheet rock and insulation on the floor…  and thinking about the past couple of years and how patches and just getting by and telling yourself it will all be fine had finally caught up to us.

(This is no longer just about a laundry room ceiling, if you couldn’t tell…)

I think it was in that moment that I knew.  I knew.  I was going to have to make a drastic change to really have the life I always saw us living in this house.  No more just getting by, no more “when we have more time,” no more patches…  We had run out of time.  It was a summer when it hadn’t stopped raining.  And all that rain, all that water, it was just too heavy.  And the ceiling finally gave.  It finally broke.  I finally broke.

Sometimes you have to break to properly heal.

Sometimes you have to tear something all the way down to the ground to rebuild.

Sometimes you have to let go of one dream…in order to chase another.

And so it was the day that the laundry room ceiling came crashing down that I knew in my heart I was going to leave MDH, after 10.5 years, after building over 60 custom homes and meeting some of the most amazing people!

I am proud of the career I established.  I know it takes hard work to be successful.  I worked late into the evenings.  I worked every weekend.  At first I didn’t mind.  But at some point, as I faced the challenges of infertility, I was using the long hours and the job to hide from moving forward with my life.  From accepting that it wasn’t going to look the way I pictured it when I first walked through our house and imagined it all those years ago.

It was time…

And so we cleaned up the laundry room.

We finished tearing down the garage.

And we rebuilt.

We rebuilt our garage better than it was before.  And I took an opportunity to work for a remodel company that promoted family friendly hours.

It took a little destruction to get there.  It took a fight against the elements.  First the rain, then the bitter cold and finally the snow…But I wouldn’t have expected any less.  Nothing in construction ever goes according to plan.  But I’ve come to learn life is just as unpredictable.  So I have to have faith.  And a whole lot of patience.  And to remind myself that even after the toughest of winters-spring always comes, the rain eventually stops.  The sun will shine again.  And it’s up to me to put myself in the right place to feel it’s amazing warmth.

As I write this I can see the sun begging to come out…and I know that this year it is going to shine bright.