Downtime

We've reached a point where we just don't have the strength or the energy to push through, so we've had a few days off from the house. It feels awful to not be making progress, but it also feels awful to push yourself farther than you have the means to go. It's a holiday weekend and we have a lot to celebrate, but I had to spend one full day on the couch last week from exhaustion/allergen overload and the Mr. jacked up his arm after his fight with the laundry chute and it still isn't right. So we're trying to rest up and relax so that we can make a big push next week. We also need a little time for our heads to catch up with our hands, and make a lot of decisions about what comes next and how our priorities play out.

All that being said, we actually made a lot of progress this week:

• Dining room side of the plumbing wall down
• Laundry chute gone
• All the carpet, tack strips and staples gone from the ground floor and stairs (only the landing upstairs still has carpet pad and tacks/staples)
• Mold remediation complete!
• Porch swing (HUZZAH!!!)
• Mason has delivered replacement bricks and will be hard at work this week
• Surveyors staked out property lines

We did not accomplish this by ourselves, of course, but the point is that we don't personally have to be working every single moment for progress to be made. This job is too big for that, and if we tried it that way we'd be even more busted up than we are now. Also, we have a small child and a large dog and the Mr. works full time and I'm studying for my big test (and I got a job offer this week too - hallelujah!) so it's good to step back and refocus a little bit. We have a family friend who is an amazing helper, and he has accomplished a lot of this week's progress for us while we put out other fires. We are so grateful to have his help and his free time and his good right arm. ;)

We have a few bids for the plumbing (completely replacing) and electrical (also completely replacing) and we don't feel like we have enough of the right information to pick someone and get started. Every bid is a little different, and we want to make sure that our priorities are reflected in their bids and that we're comparing apples to apples. So our estimator from way back in the day will be dropping back by in the next few days to help us write up specs for the bids. We'll take that back to our existing bidders and maybe call in a few others. It seems like it should be simple - look up Angie's List, call companies, walk them through the house, decide, move forward - and on a certain level it is. It's also a multitude of interpretations of what are probably two $10,000 jobs that will affect every other job in the house for the next thirty years... no pressure. So we're going to take our time and feel good about moving forward when we're ready to move forward. We have no offer on our existing house, so we aren't homeless and we can afford to take the time.

In the mean time, I'm going to look into renting a floor sander and working on the upstairs hardwoods. I have refinished floors once before, in a large commercial space. It isn't a very complicated job and I want to do it right, but I can also throw down a rug if it goes horribly awry. I've also been googling ideas for next year's garden, as our garden at our old house is in glorious full bloom... because we're leaving, of course. Our roses are the best they've been in the decade we've lived here. C'est la vie.