By: Revanche

On the home(buying) front: getting the work done

August 28, 2017

Interrupting this regularly scheduled post to say a few words about Hurricane Harvey. This weekend has been physically critically bad for me and it’s even worse for the people in Houston who were hit by the storm. If you want to help, please consider giving to some of the organizations below that I’ve found while reading the updates on the storm and rescue efforts. I know the Red Cross is an easy choice and if that’s what you can do, great. But local and smaller orgs also do important work and don’t have the same funding opportunities so I’m highlighting those.

Texas Diaper Fund. I’m hearing that disaster relief agencies don’t provide diapers. Babies always need diapers and can you imagine the added stress of losing your home and needing to find basics like diapers and formula? Using cut up materials like shower curtains after Hugo gave the poor babies horrible skin infections – let’s make sure they get the supplies they need.

Portlight focuses on disaster relief for disabled people. It’s hard enough being rescued or helped when you’re able bodied. Even worse when you’ve lost your mobility aids or badly needed medication or other critical to survival aids. I know that one day without my pain meds would be excruciating and I’m not even among the worst off.

Team Rubicon is a team of veterans who help on the ground and have a special fund for those affected by Harvey.

Humanity First is a disaster relief NGO that’s partnering with Muslim Youth USA to help in Houston.

And of course animals are always displaced by these natural disasters so thank goodness we have people helping here as well:

SPCA of Texas, Houston Humane Society, Austin Pets Alive!, San Antonio Humane Society

Notes – the best thing to do if you’re not local is give money so that the people on site can easily get the supplies they know are needed. Donations of actual things being shipped in creates more work for the volunteers who have to figure out what to do with them.

***** Back to our regularly scheduled post *****

[Part 8] I can’t even tell you how tired I am.

I could try, but words haven’t been invented for the exhaustion created by taking on a massive home renovation, selling the home you’re living in, working full time, while raising a toddler and tending to our senior dog, as a chronic pain and fatigue person.

If such a word exists, it’s probably in Japanese or German. With JB’s language skills burgeoning, who knows, maybe we’ll discover that word soon!

I’ve spent several days literally shaking, like my glucose levels just can’t perk up, gritting my teeth to get through the day, and hoping that it’s just stress and fatigue that’s affecting me. They definitely are affecting me, I’m just hoping that’s the only cause of this marrow-deep, three tons of pressure crushing my bones feeling.

The work itself

Our biggest drain is all the decisions we have had to make every single day. For example:

• where to place every electrical receptable,
• where to place every single light fixture,
• picking every light fixture,
• figuring out what our style is we stand amidst the dust and the bare walls,
• buying all the cabinetry, hoping the colors match what we’ll have to pick later for our walls, tiles, wood, or carpeting that we can barely conceive of right now,
• picking said wall paints, tile styles and colors, wood, and carpeting,
• deciding what appliances we’ll take or leave in the old place, so that we buy the right things for the new place.

Each decision by itself isn’t a big deal but it’s a relentless march of several decisions a day. Day after day, it’s been decision after decision, big and seemingly small.

Even the smallest decisions can have huge impacts, like when we decided to place our receptacle on that part of the bath wall. What we didn’t realize was that it would impact the height of the side splash, which affects the placement of the mirror, and so the mirror had to be smaller.

Or like the walls in one room aren’t straight because this is an old house but we didn’t realize it until we had already purchased our flooring and so the wider floorboards look terrible. It’s going to be fine in the end but each hiccup takes away precious brain processing space.

The money

We’ve burned through all our cash savings now and have blown through the personal loan fund from a very dear friend. We’re incredibly lucky to have this resource, and incredibly grateful, and you bet your buttons that my checkbook is ready to repay them as soon as we have the funds back.

My stash is keeping me sane, but it’s still frustrating to spin our wheels financially. We can’t do anything but keep trying to get the work done here, the work done at work, and not spend beyond reason. We are spending, though. We’re spending on the house, we’re spending on selling the old place, we’re spending to keep ourselves fed day to day.

We’re not buying any more than is strictly necessary for a functional house. It’s going to be prettier than I was looking for, but these were all careful selections of things that were needed to consider the place finished. We couldn’t very well run around on a house with no floor!

Seeking serenity

I’ve been working hard at maintaining my Zen. Really really hard. Lots of deep breathing, lots of biting back grouchy words when I’m about to lose my temper.

I’ve inherited two legendary tempers, it’s taken decades of practice reining it in. If it should get loose, watch OUT. Thus, legendary control, my friends.  Fraying a bit around the edges, but still holding on.

The occasional craving is now being entertained. We bought the fancy cheese and it’s a minor miracle we still have some Brie in the fridge. PiC was shocked to come home and find half a wedge left.

It feels like this slog is endless and that’s what’s kept me going. As long as it felt like I had time to get it all done, the stress was about keeping a lid on my impatience to be done. Once we hit the halfway point, though, it meant that the pressure was really on to see it through to the end.

I’m amazing at getting through things, but I’m not great at being finished with them. In this case, it’s because being finished with the reno means a whole new world looms in front of us: moving, leaving our home, making a new home, and CHANGE.

I hate change. My oh my do I hate change. Isn’t that rich, coming from someone who works on change every day?

:: Do you love or hate change?

Before: Background, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

Next on our Home Buying Adventure: Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

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