Before
After
These two pictures don’t adequately depict the transformation our house has gone through over the years, but you get a little idea. For the past two weeks, construction workers have been tearing off our old roof (leaving an unbelievable amount of nails behind,) putting a new roof on, and we are replacing our front door, but that still has to be finished. A stucco guy is coming on Monday to repair what had to be chiseled away to get the old door out, and later in the week the painter will take the door to his shop to be stained walnut and top coated. I don’t have a good picture of either doors at the moment, but when its all done, I’ll try to find some comparison shots.
All of this work has put me in a serious cleaning mood. I have to watch it, because I’m beginning to upset my right shoulder. I’m so impatient when my body tells me to stop doing something. Not only am I impatient to heal, but I’m stubborn. I don’t listen, and I keep doing what I want, which in yesterday’s case was wash every window in the house and then spread ten bags of mulch around the yard. Today I’m only going to clean out my gardening tools shed. Doh!
All of this work is certainly keeping me from my writing, but it’s also laying the groundwork for getting started again. While I was writing Pearls My Mother Wore and then trying to sell it, much of my garden and house were neglected, and that has bothered me more and more as things have gotten further out of hand. At this point, it is hard for me to spend hours at the computer when I know so many other chores need tending to. Right now I’m taking care of those tasks so that if and when I do settle down to write, I wont have a bunch of home upkeep stuff nagging at me. Or so that is my thinking. We’ll see.
Have a great week, and I’ll post aging next Friday.
Yes, sweat equity can’t hurt the value of the house, although we’re not planning on selling any time soon.
So I got the shed cleaned up, but then the door fell off. Isn’t that just the way; two steps forward, one step back. ; (
Fall is definitely in the air. All of this home maintenance will give me peace of mind once the long nights of winter arrive. In the meantime, I’m loving the cool mornings and evenings, and the changing light.
Wow. What a transformation. I believe it is on a par with socking it away in an IRA to improve your real estate.
I do the same thing with my time. I batch it. It does help to get ahead on maintenance so it doesn’t distract you. I tend to write a lot more in the winter when I am indoors more. It feels good to me to have a rhythm like that, of focusing on the writing, then focusing on the rest of the world. Not EVERYTHING is resistance.