Rock Crest Renaissance

Last year around this time, I determined to “compress the suck” into a single year - to bring both houses into a livable/sellable condition, simultaneously. I knew that would mean huge - almost terrifying - cash outflow, tons of stress, many lost evenings and weekends on top of our already stressful work lives, and generally having to just suck it up through some miseries and persistent health problems.

It’s been as not easy as I anticipated — worse, in some cases, especially from the financial end.

There have, however, been mercies in the misery... finding Dwight and Gina Perry willing to get bids for all our needed work at both houses and find us wonderful, skilled tradesmen to help us has been AMAZING! There is no way I’d have had strength to proceed without them!

Downsides have abounded:

Due to mold that came in from wood we’d stored in the garage that was damaged by being stored in the kennel, we had to do full-scale mold remediation inside the house before we could do anything else. That meant not only clearing everything out of the first story and disposing of it or strategically positioning it to not contaminate anything else AND cleaning every surface or object we wanted to preserve in the house to ensure there was no mold on anything. This also meant meticulously cleaning every single piece of old wood we’d removed from RC before it was rebuilt. This was not easy - it took weeks. And we also had to pay for the mold to be cleaned off of all the walls, ceilings, and wood and stonework.

For me, these kinds of costs are heartbreaking because they’re so hefty, atop mountains of expense that are already hurdles for us to finish the house. Whether via loan or cash, it doesn’t matter— it’s the pile of expense that we are trapped beneath, either way.

A couple of other blows were delivered by Duke shutting off our power for a while. We had to hirean electrician to make some required changes. Our AC has also gone out. We’ve learned — only after finishing painting — that the unit inside must be replaced with a new one, and what’s available is too big for our current space. So, not only is there the cost of the new unit, but we will have to reconstruct a wall to get it in.

Both of our riding mowers are out of commission. The John Deere is a different technology than the repair guy was comfortable with. The other one caught a rod. So the grass is massive. Too many expenses to worry about grass.

Also, our spring water is sulphuric. So, until we purchase a water treatment solution, we can’t finish the installation of the bathrooms.

Additionally, our driveway is severely eroded, again, so we have to create some lateral drainage systems and re-rock.

I don’t take these massive expenses lightly. We do all we can to do all WE can. But there’s no denying that it requires tremendous mental energy to counteract the emotional blows of these kinds of obstacles to progress.

So, positively...