Bungalow, Here We Come!

Way back in early December Eric and I made a decision that made our usual crazy existence look like a life of the quietest tranquility. We decided that the Bungalow would be done and moved into in time to have my Mom’s family Christmas party on December 28^th. Now, I know that many of the choices we make are considered eccentric (at best) by many people, but this one took the cake. When you consider that we still had to keep the business open, I had multiple doctors’ appointments and a bunch of tests scheduled, and the Christmas holiday was in there, even I wasn’t sure we could do it. But, after a long conversation and sleeping on it for a night, Eric was still convinced it could be done and I wanted to try. And so the insanity began.

Eric began working on the house and I called and the movers and set them up to come on the 26^th. Since we don’t have children and my immediate family does our get together on Christmas Eve this looked like the best day. And since we weren’t planning on having them move anything but the heavy stuff, like books and furniture, it was only supposed to take a few hours. Then we would transport the rest of it ourselves that afternoon and the next day.

 This photo was taken on the evening of the 24th. This is looking from the dining room into the back porch (utility room) after we had painted.

Just over a week before the movers were scheduled I met our insurance agent to do a final walk through on the house. We did fine until I missed the bottom stair and did a belly flop onto the hardwood in the foyer. I was laying there with both knees screaming, reassuring him that I was fine, all the while thinking, “Please don’t cancel me!” It wasn’t all that funny at the time, and my agent would have been even more bothered if he realized just how close I can to taking him down with me, but in retrospect it was kind of amusing. About the only things worse to do in front of your agent would be setting the house on fire or hitting his car…

So a couple of days later I limped through the house and tried to be realistic about our progress. While Eric had been working incredibly hard, the answer was pretty grim. The electrical in the kitchen was incomplete and I had no cabinets, countertops, sink, dishwasher, paint or floors. The downstairs bathroom needs gutted, but at least had/has a working toilet. The enclosed back porch, which we will now call the utility room, needed the carpeting ripped up, lines run for the washer and dryer, and completely cleaned and painted. None of the painting had been done anywhere else in the house and the upstairs bathroom was gutted but that’s where we stopped. The rest of the upstairs needed plasterwork, a complete cleaning and painting, and there was still tar paper on all the floors.

 This picture was also taken on the 24th, looking from the dining room into the living room. It has since been completely cleaned and painted.

Knowing there was no way that we could complete all of this in a week, even if we didn’t have work and Christmas (including all of the shopping) to deal with, Eric and I sat down to reevaluate. And we decided on what many will call our most insane decision by far. We could go ahead and move into the ground floor of the house and then we’d be more available to work in the evenings. This means having to go over to the office to shower and do laundry, working in an incomplete kitchen for a few weeks, and only moving part of our things. But this is what we have done. Since there is not enough room in the living and dining rooms for everything Eric is sleeping on the twin bed and I’m on the couch and there are a number of other issues too. The dogs have to go out on leashes, I can’t find things like my boots (during a snowstorm), and we’re using three baby gates to keep the dogs in the safe parts of the house.

 The foyer looks surprisingly good considering that it's been primed but not painted, the ceiling fan needs installed, and the chairs will have to be moved so that they no longer block the stairs. :)

The upside to all of this is we are almost ready to turn the Beech Grove house over to Greg and JR at Jacoby to get the hail damage repaired and make it market ready! I am hoping that we can get it listed by the first of March. And even through the best part of having the Bungalow was that we would never have to live out any scenes from the Money Pit, and we might be in danger of it yet, at least we are finally getting moved and almost done with the Bungalow phase of our project.