I will admit that as I’m writing this, I have been in the house for about a month but haven’t been diligent in documenting my journey. However, I have been taking photos, so I hope that will help to jog my memory so you can follow along as I will try to catch up over the next week or so.
When I moved in, I only brought a few pieces of furniture, knowing that everything else would be in the way, so it all went into storage. Unfortunately, I also found out when I moved in that I only brought summer clothes and shoes. Apparently, when I was packing at the end of August, I didn’t think ahead to the fact that the closing and renovation would take this long. So, it’s now November and I’m still walking around with flip flops and my summer purse.
But for my first days in early October, it wasn’t too bad. Since I didn’t have power, I didn’t have A/C, but luckily I had all of those windows! Since my closing had been delayed, I had to wait a bit for my contractors schedules to clear. While I was waiting on them, one of the projects I could do was to clean up the yard. Since the house had been empty for a few years, many of the plants in the yard were overgrown. I have a great person who helps me with yard projects, and he got busy with the chain saw & clippers and I could see a pattern emerge. However, one of the projects that will take a lot of time is my kudzu forest. If you live in the south, you know how prolific it can be. My
property is about an acre & ½, and I would say ¼ of that is wooded. At the edge of the woods the kudzu had taken hold and covered the trees. Or, I assumed they were trees; the kudzu grew in mounds and bumps so I knew something was under there. As he got further and further into the “forest,” it turned out most of the mounds & bumps were just more kudzu. Apparently, the vines would just wrap around themselves and form trees. Other than that, so far he has uncovered a huge satellite dish, a burn barrel and other yard debris. But, now that the tree leaves have changed colors, it’s easy to see where the trees are compared to the kudzu. There’s also an old tractor-trailer parked in the woods, but the former owners are going to have that removed in the next few months.
Luckily, I do have some beautiful dogwoods along the front,
and I think native cherry trees on the side where my fence was being installed.
Obviously, the most important thing to begin the renovation
with was the new electrical panel. I was very anxious because I couldn’t get a
new hot water heater until we did. I was also living without power in the front
part of the house, because that’s where the hot wire had been. I was super
excited when Chris showed up to put in the new panel. He and his partner,
Wesley, were very precise when cutting into the walls and I have to admit I
didn’t realize it was going to take as long as it did. Most of my interior
walls are 1” thick tongue & groove heart pine boards, so it wasn’t easy for
them to cut through the walls. Once they were done setting the panel, it took about
four days for the inspection, then a week or so to get the new meter set and
outside power line buried. Then the
plumber could install the new hot water tank. Luckily, I have a very generous friend who
let me come over and borrow their shower.
During this time the fence was going up in the side yard. I
have two dogs, named Toby & Jake, who had a very large yard at our old
house, but had spent the past month in my friend’s 4’ square concrete pen
during the day. However, it wasn’t really for their comfort that I made the
request to put this in first, it was for my own & because I was tired
of walking them 5x a day. And this included my coming home during lunch every
workday. My thought was that once the fence was up I could leave them at home
while the renovation was going on. For obvious reasons, this didn’t work. For
one, Jake is a great watchdog and doesn’t like anyone on the property and it
didn’t take long for him to feel at home. Two, Toby barks at everyone and I
would soon have had very annoyed subcontractors. And three, when Toby gets out, he
doesn’t come back. This happened the first day the fence was up and I was
meeting a guy from the power company. We started to go into the fenced yard,
but changed our mind, and I didn’t fully latch the gate. Toby was off like a
shot, with me yelling behind him. Admittedly, one of my many faults is that, at
times, I curse like a sailor. And that day my mother would not have been
pleased at the words coming out of my mouth. I also met a new neighbor that
day, apparently drawn by my yelling and cursing. He helped me lure Toby into
the car, since the only way to catch Toby is to make him think that he’s going
on another journey. The new neighbor soon left, Toby was back in the fence, and
power company rep still stunned by the turn of events. With an escape artist
like Toby, the dogs were safer in the pen during the renovation. But they do enjoy the new fence and their yard in the evenings, and I like the fact that I can just let them out in the morning and go enjoy my coffee. 
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