Whew, another week completes our first month on this project and time has flown by. I'm happy to report that a ton of progress has been made. Before I give that update, however, let me tell you a bit about what if feels like to be a general contractor and construction worker, since this is all new to me and the biggest reason we're doing it is for the experience.
It hurts so much my beard turned blue. :)
But seriously, for 20 years I've made my living working with computers at a desk, which really meant working with people in a conference room most of the day. Those white color jobs, which really meant jeans and a tshirt most days, paid great and were very demanding... in an emotional and intellectual way. The fast pace, challenging problems, super smart people made the work addicting and fun. But had I been a brain hooked up to a speaker I could have done the work from a mason jar. The job demanded zero physical effort. Ok, I occasionally had to get up to walk to the fridge for a free soda. But does that count?
I did come home every day from work exhausted, but drained mentally and emotionally. It was highly stressful work, and the lack of physical activity made for a perfect storm. Before I left my 20s I was 30+ pounds overweight, which led my doctor, after seeing my high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type A personality to declare that I would almost certainly have a heart attack or stroke before age 50 if I didn't start taking a life long course of drugs, get some exercise and lose weight. And he threatened me more than once like that.
That led, among other things, to my cycling habit, which thankfully also serves as an outlet to relieve stress, lose weight, see the world and spend some of best moments of my life with my best friend.
This new blue collar life, spent in dirty clothes, crawling around in cobweb ridden crawl spaces, sucking in saw dust and truck fumes, has transformed me into a hammer grasping, power tool wielding, heavy material lifting fiend. It is exhausting, overwhelmingly physically work but surprisingly also mentally challenging as I constantly juggle dozens of work streams trying to prioritize the work and ensure that materials, tools, subcontractors and jobs all line up in time and in the order needed. Not to mention all the planning, measuring and math fractions I have to do constantly.
Let me give you a typical day in the life of the Staples:
Shelly and I volunteer as team-teachers in an early morning seminary and religious study class. This is her 7th year teaching, and my 4th, so we are used to getting an early start on the day as we greet about 25 young men and women - the seniors of Cedarcrest High Schools. These awesome millennials sacrifice their sleep to meet us at 6am each day to study the Bible and talk about the challenges of living a moral and spiritual life. #impressed. Teaching seminary is very rewarding work, not only spiritually but also socially as we get to know these amazing people and see them go from teenagers to adults.
We love our volunteer work but it means our day starts at 4:30/5:00AM each day. After a quick shower and dress-up in skirts/slacks and a tie we meet our students as they begin to trickle in at 5:45. Seminary ends at 6:50 and following a healthy breakfast we try to work up the motivation to climb on our bikes. We have to work pretty hard to convince ourselves to do this now days, because the weather has been cold and rainy for months which means we either turn into sand and gravel covered popsicles or we ride inside, which is boring to the extreme. Summer can not come soon enough.
Following our work out on the bike, and a third change of clothes in as many hours, we begin our labors at the house.
In this world, work only moves forward when your body is in action, which means I am constantly on the go pulling, prying, lifting, sawing, hammering, smashing or building something. My hands and feet have taken the brunt of the labor as every single day, without fail, I still forget to put my gloves on and cut my hands. I have at any point in time about 10 minor wounds in various stages of healing all over my hands and fingers. And my feet? Well, every single day, without fail, I also tend to drop something heavy on my foot and toes! And after a month of this I still haven't gotten smart and bought a pair of work boots with steel toes!
But if my hands and feet aren't hurting, my muscles and joints don't hesitate to remind me of my age, and make me feel 10 years older, with their stiff and aching disposition.
That said, the work is extremely rewarding. One of the biggest disadvantages of working in the virtual world (computers) is that it is extremely difficult to see the output of your labors. Yeah, sometimes you can see it on the screen, but really what eventually shows up on the screen is the result of dozens or even hundreds of people over weeks and months of effort and it is hard to say: I did that.
With this work I can point to something I did every single day, almost hour by hour as I take something apart or put it back together. It is the creation aspect, building something with my own hands, that I especially enjoy as things take shape right before my eyes and I can stand back and say definitively: I made that. This little slice of reality is better or wouldn't have even happened without me. That is what keeps me going back day after day.
By 4pm we are pretty well spent, so we head home, exhausted and hungry and ready to hang out with Ethan, eat some dinner and rest.
But wait, for the first time in our lives we are both working outside the home which means we come home to laundry, dirty dishes, no groceries, bills that need to be paid, not to mention a seminary lesson that needs to be prepared and all the usual things that need doing outside of work. So those things fill our evenings. We've struggled to get into a sustainable rhythm this first month as we just don't have the energy to do all the things we used to do and do all the work that needs doing so we tend to go in fits and starts on whatever is the highest priority at the moment - assuming we have the energy to tackle it. But always feeling behind.
By 8-9pm I am so exhausted I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, sometimes before, which then leads me to wake up at 1-3AM with my mind racing about all the next set of things that need doing. Like this blog post. You can take the boy out of mind work but you can't take the mind work out of the boy.
I'll close this section by saying that while the work is physically demanding, visually rewarding and fun the thing I love most is how much I'm learning. I've always been the kind of person who loves to try new things and learn new skills and I am doing that - for the first time in a while - in spades. For me there is nothing better and I'll pay a high physical, mental, emotional and economic price for wisdom and skill.
This week brought plumber and electricians into the house and sadly, saw Sarah leave the project as she needed to return home (or was darn tired of living and working with us after a month, you decide which!). We miss Sarah and are so grateful for her labors, she was an amazing ball of muscle, energy and optimism all rolled into one. We hope to have her back soon.
The plumber and electricians made quick work of our requests, and then did more work as our requirements changed (geez, you'd think I would have learned to plan better from the software world) but I'm proud to report the single biggest accomplishment this week was not our own labor but theirs: plumbing and electrical rough-in is now complete, inspected and signed off!
This represents a huge milestone as we can now begin the reconstruction process in earnest.
While the subcontractors worked downstairs we painted upstairs, one day with the help of our local Mormon missionaries, laying down a fresh coat of paint on all ceilings and walls in all the bedrooms. I love the primary wall color Shelly chose, it is perfectly neutral and light, an ideal canvas for the art, furniture and decoration that will follow.
We also spent many hours in design discussions, drawing out at-scale representations of what Shelly is dreaming of and planning the final details of materials. This part is really exciting to me as the vision gets clearer and clearer and I can't wait to make it real. Shelly has planned some amazing "wow" moments in every space. I'm not going to steal her thunder by telling you what they are, but I think she is going to start blogging about them soon.
The first space we've been working on for a while that took a bit of a turn this week is the entry. She has some amazing ideas in motion here, one of which is a new stairway. Hence, out with the old oakie!
The new railing is being built by some local craftsmen who we met with this week and will share more about in a future post but suffice it to say they are half artist and half welder...making an awesome combination of personality and character.
Another space that we have begun construction on is the back wall of the new living area. With the plumbers done we finally got the damaged subfloors back down and sealed up. We also tore open the sheet rock against this wall to check for mold and were relieved to find that it was clear, just like the floorspace beneath. Whew, we really feel like we dodged a bullet on that one.
With the subfloors back down we were able to frame in a new fireplace per Shelly's specification. It is looking cool but I'll save the photos for Shelly's blog post on that cool design.
We now have four big phases before we can move into our new home:
1. Finish walls and ceilings. We have plenty of Sheetrock to lay and repair, as well as some "alternative" materials Shelly wants to experiment with.
2. Paint everything. We are going to paint all ceilings and walls and doors and replace all the trim to make it feel fresh and new and clean.
3. Floors! Once the paint is dry we will install the new hardwood floors and the carpets are also scheduled to be laid in the coming weeks.
4. Kitchen! Perhaps the biggest barrier to moving in is a working kitchen. Right now we have studs and we are going to have to work hard to make all new cabinets, lay tile, install appliances, sinks, quartz and more.
So there are fun times ahead... and a lot of work. We wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks for following our adventure and don't hesitate to stop by and take a peek when you're in the neighborhood. We love having visitors and are surprised a few times each week by friends and neighbors who spontaneously stop in and say hello.