Running on Empty

Nearly out of time, money, and most certainly we are out of energy! This house building is sucking us dry, financially and emotionally, and now seems like a never-ending treadmill. It’s an entirely different story building and installing every widget yourself as opposed to handing a contractor plans and saying “Go build our house.”! 

We have given notice at our apartment for the end of April and we should be able to make the move OK but it will be into a house woefully short of being completed. My fear is to how it will all play out with the loans since I am fairly certain in order to obtain the final take out loan things will need to be completely finished. As I see it, on our current schedule, that probably isn’t going to happen until very late summer and even then there will be things like the yard work that I can’t foresee being done this year at all. 

With Marc working on the house every evening until 9 p.m. the pressure is so intense I fear for his health and his “real” job keeps interfering! He is off again to N.D., effectively killing work on the house yet again this week excepting for the fact that the plumber has returned and is completing our water hookups and installation of the water heater. Marc has been working on closet shelving so we can create some space when we move boxes and boxes in shortly. The basement is chuck full of stuff, the RV is chuck full, as is the shop, and we’re starting to fill the upstairs as well and we haven’t even begun to move any of the furniture and needed items yet from the apartment. Things are always such a mess with crap in the way I don’t even bother to take photos anymore. He spent much of last week completing the mechanical room in the basement which I painted with two coats of white paint.

We are awaiting the shower enclosure, the kitchen countertops and sink, and recently ordered our siding. Marc got the main run of kitchen cabinets set but not the area around the stove and refrigerator. Since it will take him awhile to build the kitchen shelving we want, in the meantime, he is placing the melamine boards up for me to use. Those will remain the top layer of the final shelving since I wanted something easy to clean but there will need to be a surround built to cover the angle iron supports. 

I spent an entire day rummaging through thrift and antique stores trying to come up with suitable bathroom mirrors that wouldn’t be flat clip-on builder specials but rather something with some character and finally was successful. I had to paint the main bath framed mirror but figured both were scores at a total cost of less than $50. Budget is ever on the mind now that we are at less than double digits with the money left to us to finish this thing. Things like the front porch, the island and stove hood Marc hoped to build, could now be years away and will have to come out of pocket. It has really killed us that our property in Yuma has not sold, yet continues to need to be supported. In fact, we are seriously discussing selling our RV shortly since realistically it is not a need any longer but only a wish. We've got 18 years with the old girl and it's a hard parting to consider since we'll never be able to replace it.

So the race to the finish is limping along, badly, aka: running on empty. Despite it all however, as the move gets closer the excitement is definitely building to live in Marc’s labor of love! I am such a lucky woman; there aren’t very many husbands the equal of mine—so giving and working so tirelessly and committed towards a dream. He's gone over eight months without a single day off!