Working Very Hard

Making the decision to leave our old house to move to this "new" one was a tough one. To say that it's been tougher than expected is an understatement. We knew the new house was going to require a lot of work; after all, it was built in 1938, had been owned by the same family since it was built, and likely hadn't been updated since. We were convinced that we could do a lot of the work ourselves, at least the cosmetic stuff like removing wallpaper, painting and trying to unbury the yard from many decades of ivy growth. And while it's true that we did do much of that stuff ourselves, it was much more difficult than imagined.

We thought it would take us one solid week to remove the wallpaper. What we didn't know was that most of the rooms had not one, not two, but three layers of wallpaper to be removed. We also hadn't counted on the wallpaper being so old that it literally crumbled to the touch, and certainly did not come off in large, easy strips like we'd thought. Casey did much of the wallpaper removal himself, and he is truly a saint for sticking with it.

I stepped in for the painting. I had an amazing friend who likes to paint, and could be bribed to help me paint at night with the promise of wine and gossip. I figured with the two of us working, we could easily paint two or three rooms a week. What I had not realized is that before we could paint, the walls had to be cleaned (from either the wallpaper removal substances that we used or from the years of dirt that had accumulated on the walls). And after the walls had been clean, the room had to be "prepped" for painting - edges and windows taped, floors covered, etc. It turned out that we could realistically finish one room every other week. And that included many nights of staying at the new house well past 2 a.m.

Our average day for much of the year went like this: wake up, get Riley ready for school, drop Riley off at school, work a full day at the office, pick Riley up from school, prepare and eat dinner, play with Riley for about 30 minutes until his bedtime, and then leave the old house to do work at the new one. Riley, of course, was home sleeping during this, and one of us had to be at home with him, which meant that Casey and I spent a good chunk of the year apart at night. By the time the one working at the new house came home, the other was almost always asleep. It really was not a fun time, not to mention exhausting.

There were many times over the course of the year when I was convinced it wasn't worth it. But now we've been living in the new house for over a month, and we're finally able to "relax" occassionally, which really just means that we don't have to be working on the house every single second of our spare time.

And then there are days like today which make it all worthwhile. There was a patch of ivy in the back of our house that had been driving me crazy for quite awhile. Casey thought our time would be spent better in other areas, but I was absolutely convinced that I had to tackle this area. So Casey worked in the back of the yard (which clearly was a lot worse off), while Riley and I worked on my patch.

Riley, it turns out, LOVES to help, especially when the projects involve being outside and getting somewhat dirty. When we were at ACE one weekend buying more rakes and brooms and other yard work items, he insisted that we buy him a pair of work gloves. Now, every time he sees them, no matter what the circumstance, he insists on putting them on and declares that he is "working very hard." He then looks for his rake, his spray bottle (really not sure what this is about) and his broom and starts "working".

So this is how we started our work on my patch. Many hours of (me) pulling ivy later, we found that the patch was actually a hill, and that the hill was covered with a bunch of rocks. I was so irritated with the fact that someone would've dumped a bunch of ugly rocks at the back of our house until Riley uncovered the mystery. Who knew his broom would come in handy when clearing ivy, but as I uncovered the dirt and rocks, he began sweeping. And his sweeping revealed a pattern. It turns out that the "ugly" rocks had actually been what I can only imagine was a beautiful rock wall at some point before the ivy took it over. Riley and I were very excited and spent quite awhile unburying as many rocks as we could.

But the child does have his limits and clearly he reached his at some point, so I told him his new job was to take care of the dogs. I got distracted by my rock wall and suspect quite awhile passed before I started paying attention to what Riley and the dogs were up to. When I looked up, I saw Riley laying on the ground staring up into Winston's eyes. When he realized I was watching, he said, "Mommy, that's my brother. My Winnie." And sweet Winston looked like he could not have been more content.

Looking at our rock wall discovery, and my two boys loving every second of our time together outside, I realized that all this work and sacrifice was definitely worth it. I can't wait to find out what we discover next.