To our home’s successors,

Riding high on 2019, we went into 2020 with some big visions. Unfortunately in the spring of 2020, the world was put into shutdown with the Covid19 pandemic. We were both equipped to work from home which could have provided us with significantly more time to work on projects, however, I don’t think either of us adjusted to the shutdown particularly fast, and often found ourselves working MORE rather than less. About a month in, we lost my sweet niece a little unexpectedly to Leukemia, and I quickly shutdown and had a hard time finding motivation for several months. 

We started up again in August doing a few small projects including finally ripping up the old shag carpet in the living room. Thankfully we knew there was solid hardwood floor underneath, as the realestate agent had cut a patch open to show potential. This room’s carpet removal was much smoother as they did not glue down the underlayment. It really was as simple as cutting strips and rolling up, then removing the staple strips along the edges. 

The floors were not in perfect shape, but they had been protected by the carpeting for at least 40 years, we decided to leave them as they were until we were ready to tackle that room.

We contacted a structural engineer to evaluate the state of the porches and help us develop a plan to secure them. He came out, kicked one of the posts on the side porch and the wood exploded into several pieces- it survived only by hanging from nails at the roof. The engineer didn’t think we’d make it through a heavy snowstorm if we didn’t do something about it. We contacted several historical preservation contractors and many of them were backlogged for 2 years out. We decided to put in some temporary supports until we could get a qualified contractor to re-build. This was not exactly smooth, and definitely not a pretty bandaid, but we only needed it to hold for a “short” time.

In November of 2020, after struggling at my job for more than a year and never really recovering from the loss in my family, I attempted to give my boss a long-term notice. It unfortunately back-fired and I was told it would be my last day. With what felt like a huge year of loss, it did finally hit home just how difficult our project was going to be, especially with the loss in wages.