Aren’t renovations fun!!??

Those first few days were exceptional.  They really were!!  Not a disaster in sight! We got the Uhaul truck and trailer unpacked and returned to the local dealer.  Fallon and Darren got all their stuff in the house, while most of our bits and boxes stayed in the carport.  No sense unpacking those until the renovations were done on the little house.   Chuck and I got ourselves situated in the basement of the big house, while Fallon and Darren got to work unpacking upstairs. News on our truck was not as bad as we thought it would be either. Turns out we didn’t completely destroy the transmission in the truck – the fire was small and out quickly – so it wasn’t too bad.  Means we didn’t save a dime on the tile, but I guess you live and learn!

All good right!?  We even had a couple of the locals let us in on where some nearby swimming holes were!  I gotta tell ya, it was unbelievably hot!  Temps were in the high 30’s most days.  For most of you who know me well, you know I am just about dying in that kind of heat!  So, just down the road – about three minutes from the house – is the most amazing river with stunning crystal clear water and some nice deep spots for dunking in.  When the heat got to be too much, we would pack up some chairs and some towels and head out to the river.  This is the life!!!  Made my new little country heart beat just a tad faster.

It was a good thing that we found the river, and it was beautiful, and it cooled us off, so peaceful and serene…….. because we were brought harshly back to reality as we stood in the little house, contemplating all it would take to make it a reasonable home.  All those reassurances that we gave ourselves while we were back in the city…. you know the ones where we said it really wouldn’t be that hard to renovate that little place, all those nasty little details that we so conveniently glossed over, because we just had to have this property that was so perfect.  Well, we were standing in the middle of the oldest, ugliest, dirtiest house (was it really this bad before we bought it??) and we were desperately trying to figure out where to even start!!!  Even with the enormous binder so thoughtfully provided by the house inspector….. I couldn’t bring myself to even look at that, it was already so overwhelming.  That, and I wanted to kid myself into believing that I didn’t know about all the issues that needed to be addressed.

Where to begin – the list was endless.  I don’t think words will adequately describe it. I will post additional pictures on our Facebook page if you would like to see the enormity of what we were taking on.  Everything, and I do mean everything had to go.  Nasty old oil space heater, ancient paneling as far as the eye could see, no flooring at all in the living room, bedrooms or bathroom, kitchen cabinets that I was afraid to look in!  Where there was flooring, it was very charming (ahem!) sheet linoleum in places, and stick down tiles in another.  Which had been stapled down in places where they were curling…. really???  There was no toilet, bathtub or sink, so that bathroom was just a room with a window – and speaking of windows…… most of those needed replacing as well.  And that was just what you could see.  Down in the basement was our well.  Not sure exactly why the well is in the basement or even if that is normal, but apparently we will just have to deal with that.  Right beside the well were all these contraptions – it boggled the mind – which I found out later were connected to the pressure tank and the well pump and….. good Lord there were tubes and wires running everywhere.

Sigh….. so we are right back in the middle of that feeling of panic, when you realize that you are smack dab in the middle of a major project that you have very little skills to contribute to completing it!  And we had only been here for 3 days.  Our friend JP ( yes JP of the packing the moving truck fame!) and his son were coming that weekend to give us a hand with demo and I was pretty sure that I was going to have to hold all the guys back from just leveling the place!  I retrospect, it might have been easier!

All of the men had a good time swinging sledge hammers and ripping down walls and creating a huge mess, but once the dust settled we had a slightly clearer view of what we had to work with….. and a major list stuff we were going to need to put the place back together.  Which brought with it a new perspective on what we like to call “Kootenay time” in these parts. There is a reason why there is a feeling of a slow, unhurried pace.  They want you to believe that it is that way because they like it like that.  But I am on to them!  No No!!  The pace in a small town is not slow because they want it that way… Slowness is somewhat forced upon you!   Over the course of the next few days, it became very clear that we were not going to be able to set the pace of this reno.  If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times.  The answer to my question for the majority of the items we needed was ” Yes, we can order that for you, it will be in next week.”   WHAT???? Everywhere!!  The woodstove, the cabinets, the flooring, the windows, the pressure tank, the water pump, the everything!!!!  “We’ll order that in for you, will be in next week!”.

OMG this is going to take forever!!!!!