Another month, and there’s still not a lot that feels “big” enough to report on, but things are moving along.
The HVAC is installed, so the heat is on and keeping the place nicely toasty—spray foam really is amazing stuff when used/applied correctly. The bathroom is still waiting on final electrical and plumbing. The delay has mostly been me finishing drywall and flooring and purchasing the sink, but all of that is finally wrapped up and ready for the guys after the holidays. Gutters (and gutter guards) went up on Christmas Eve, and we’re just waiting on the snow guards/rails for the roof, which should be the last of the construction outside.
We did manage to wrangle all our stuff home, though there’s still quite a bit of organizing to do. We’ve built several shelves and have a few more to go before I’d call us “settled.” At this point, it feels like the choice is more shelves or a dumpster—I could go either way.
There was also a great meeting with the engineers on the house. They mostly confirmed what we already knew and were not particularly kind to the previous homeowners’ renovation efforts—no surprises there. It is hard to know other people’s motivations, so I’m avoiding going too far down that path. We knew what we were buying, but it’s still hard to believe sometimes. We chased off a couple of other buyers while we consider buying this place; I’m sure they had no idea what they would have been getting into. The only real surprise for us has been just how extensive, costly, and difficult the work is. Finding good people who will do the work for a fair, rather than the I don’t want to messs with this price, in a small town isn’t easy. We’ve been lucky to find several, but getting on their schedule is an understandable challenge, and really stretches the timeline.
We’re still very much weighing our options. We know what we want to do, but the reality of such a major and expensive effort has us rethinking priorities. At this point, there are still a lot of unknowns, and there’s a real worry that anything short of going all in might just exacerbate some of the challenges that come with this old house
