The Good, The Bad and the Really Ugly!

The good, the bad and the ugly!

It’s been a while, so here’s a short (though I don’t think that’s possible) update.

I’ve been working hard on getting Leanies Loft up to a viable business. It’s a lot of work. October, November and December are ‘craft show season’, so I was at shows almost every weekend. That’s good. . .  But I didn’t have the inventory to keep the craft show tables full, so I was working till wee hours of the morning trying to create more ‘product’, the bad  . . . I was also driving a school bus from 6 am till 8:30 am, working at church from 9 am until 1 pm, then back to the school bus from 1:30 until 4:30 or so. Getting home, dinner and crafting. .  the ugly!

On the home front, we started remodeling this house. My in-laws lived here for 35+ years and hadn’t done anything to update or improve for at least the last 30 years. There’s A LOT of remodeling to do. We were planning on tearing down the wall between the kitchen and family room, eventually.  Then we went to a store closing sale at Sofa Select and found THE sectional at 60% off.  The good!

When it was delivered, the delivery people couldn’t get it into the family room – old house, small doorways, very “UN-open concept”. The bad.  Since we were planning on taking that wall down anyway, we decided getting that sofa was worth starting the project and at least removing enough of the wall to get the sofa in. . .

The ugly!

And THAT started the kitchen reno! We had hired someone to finish the half completed basement, and moved him on to the kitchen…The good (not really). He finished taking down the wall and put up an 8” square hickory beam – the wall removed was a load bearing wall. Then he started setting up for the new lighting. Should have been a ‘good’, NOT. He put up and removed the drywall on the ceiling 3 times to attempt to get the electric right . . the bad. $3000 later, and a lot of frustration, we found out that he was going blind, had diabetes, and is in stage 4 kidney failure. Yes, we feel badly for him, however, he should have been honest with us. So he was let go and we found someone new, highly recommended, to complete the job. When Steve, the new contractor, started trying to figure what was done, he had to tear down the drywall on the ceiling for a 4^th time! This is the wiring he found

The ugly! There were hot wires just sitting in the ceiling. No junction boxes, just a mess. It took Steve over a week to figure out what was done and what was done, how it was done, and how to fix it!

Then we found out that the wood beam the previous guy had put up to support that load bearing wall wasn’t even strong enough to hold up half of the length of the wall. If we had the snow we had last year, the whole house would have collapsed. So we got an 8” steel I beam. That took 5 guys to take down the old beam and get that 450 lb I beam up.

Fortunately, Steve is a wonderful contractor and does things “so he can sleep at night”! The reno is coming together nicely, but it’s been a really long haul. For any of you that watch all those shows on HGTV that complete renovations in 6 weeks and the homeowners are complaining about living in a construction zone. . . I say ppphhhh . .  this has now been going on for 5 MONTHS!!! I was skyping with one of my daughters and she commented “Mom, it looks like you’re living in a basement”! I have a picture of what the kitchen will eventually look like hanging on the fridge and keep looking at it for encouragement. This WILL be gorgeous when it’s done. . . this WILL be gorgeous when it’s done. . .  this WILL be gorgeous when it’s done.

Well, I think that’s enough for now. Tomorrow I will let you know where the reno stands now, as well as what’s going on in other areas of my little world.  For now, let your creativity flow, it’s a lifeline to a happy life.