Carrie's Busy Nothings: #HouseToHome2014

On May 29th, I posted this picture to my Busy Nothings Facebook page...

On May 19th, we (and by "we" I mean the college kids we hired) started ripping out all of the walls in the front half of the house, removing the lath and plaster from 1940 with a plan to go back with insulation (what a novel idea!), and Sheetrock. When this picture was taken and shared on the 29th, we had come a long way from the mess of the previous week, so that smile is genuine. I figured that in a month's time, I'd be taking a similar photo with new walls behind me. It's like I've never lived through a 5 year house project before (that's a story for another day).

This morning, almost a month later, I took this photo. Can you see the differences? I promise, there are some if you look hard enough. And I'm not talking about all the ~~junk~~ tools on the floor. The smile is still genuine, if a little less enthusiastic (and slightly more out of focus - I was in a hurry).

Differences include newly framed doors (we moved the hall door about 8" to the left to make room for a new door in the hallway, and we moved the bathroom door about 2' to the right), and way more blue electrical boxes and yellow wire. We haven't had whole-house air conditioning in over a month, so needless to say, both Peter and I are ready for this to be done. If I were still doing my Friday thankfulness posts, I would include our free window A/C unit that allows us to sleep at night, and the fact that our basement is a place of refuge thanks to it's cool, underground location. Oh, and the fact that I am always cold, so for 98% of the day, I'm a happy camper. In a sweater. Yes, Peter thinks I'm nuts too.

While it feels like things are going slowly (Peter even has a count-UP timer on his phone to keep track of how long the project is taking us - yep, we're INTJ nerds) I have to give a huge shout out to the Hubs for his dedication to this project. After working all day, he comes home and labors on the house until it's time to go to bed. The weekends are taken up with trips to home improvement stores and coming up with new ideas and ways to fix old problems. He has single-handedly framed up a new loft over the front bedroom (including installing a window where there wasn't one before), and figured out electrical grids and structural issues like a pro.

Together, we make a good team. I offer the occasional hand at lifting 4 x 8 sheets of flooring 9' up to the loft (thanks to a pulley system he rigged - he's all about smarter, not harder), and stuffing wires into electrical boxes. But the majority of the time that he toils on the physical side of things, I man the online shopping world, finding ways to get products for the project for cheaper. I pin ideas to pull up for him later, and save our Amazon points to buy light fixtures and mail slots. I dream big, but watch the budget. Between the two of us, we make projects happen, and 99% of the time, we even have fun while we're doing it.