Sleepless in Michigan…

My husband, God bless him, is a perfectionist. To say that he likes things done well, would be an incredibly major understatement. The man likes things done well, exactly how he would do them, done by him. The problem with that, when you are taking on a huge number of home improvement projects in a tiny amount of time, is that he realistically can’t do everything…

After a week of some rather tense moments, frustration going around and him coming down with a violent case of the stomach flu, I finally talked him into allowing me to help with paint & primer. Even after he conceded, we didn’t accomplish half of what we needed to by last night. It was with major disappointment and frustration that we put our tail between our legs and left the house for the evening, realizing due to scheduling and work stuff we will not be able to work there again until this weekend…

Every moment we’ve spent there, we’ve grown more in love with the house itself. We were hit with a huge snow storm last week and the way nature is there, and the views from our windows really inspire me. Even Gen has said the house is “growing” on her, but honestly I suspect that’s because she sees it changing and realizes maybe we aren’t crazy after all. Despite all of this though, it has certainly been one of those one step forward, three-step back-journeys…

-install new faucet, hosing is wrong. Buy new hose, another piece is missing. Return to Home Depot for that piece…

– replace kitchen light, need a mount kit. Go buy mount kit, need another piece.

– replace kitchen hardware, mid replacement there is an issue with drawer faces and the majority of the screws. Back to HD. (pretty much every story ends with HD.)

– remove curtain bracket to prepare for painting, bracket is bolted into wall, turns into huge hold. Back to you-know-where to buy more patching stuff.

– remove a built-in that turned into a multi-day project. (we had allotted a few hours.)

– hot water heater is bad. Former owners “fixed” it as per inspection, but it’s not fixed and the hot water isn’t usable.

– new fridge was delivered. Measurement for space we were given was wrong. It does not fit. We have to tear out and rebuild cabinets.

– most of the walls are curved.

– there was a bug infestation in the basement.

– we had a cabinet in the kitchen which wouldn’t open, turns out it was a “fake” cabinet with a metal back. Very weird. Had to remove that. VERY challenging.

– throw in the stomach flu, lots of paint, rollers, removing chair railing that was unnaturally attached to the wall thus taking the wall with it, (hello HD and MORE patching stuff), lots of repair/service people and the removal of lots of wall paper and this summarizes the last 11 days.

Hard, tiring and we are all so sore… BUT, it’s coming along. We’ve done little bits in every room because every room needs lots of work, so I don’t have anything too exciting to share yet (photo wise) but I’m putting up little things on instagram…

Keep us in your thoughts! It’s been a (mostly fun) journey, that’s just getting started… Chw keeps responding to every new issue with “I don’t know how to take care of that”, to which I say “then we shouldn’t have bought another house, eh?” ha ha… Wish us luck!