Onwards and…Backwards?

Here we are in June—three months after the initial purchase—and we're just now getting to see actual signs of work. Interestingly enough, you sometimes have to go backwards in order to go forwards. You see, some homes simply need new flooring, fixtures and a fresh coat of paint, and boom, you’re in business. Then there’s homes where all you can do is burn ‘em down, perform and exorcism over the ashes and start over from the ground up.

Guess which home we got… Okay, so we didn’t have to burn it down, but we did have to completely strip it down to its bones (and even replace a lot of those too!) before we could start building it back up. So while it looks like it’s in worse shape than when we bought it, it's actually decent progress. Just like life, the outward appearance can be deceptive; you have the option to just whitewash over it, but if the insides are full of dead bones, you’ll eventually crumble. The only remedy is to gut out all the deadness and put in something new, something that will last.

It can definitely be a painful process, but our old pal Batman once said that the night is darkest just before the dawn; and although he’s a psychotic bat-freak, we tend to agree with him. So as much as the neighbors hate the giant overflowing dumpster gracing the front lawn (along with the porta potty), it’s a beautiful sight to behold for us—out with the old in with the new!