Looking into the future

The future is coming... but as usual it is starting off by being really, really messy and scary.

Our home renovation has started. The contractors are here everyday tearing apart walls, ceilings, and (heartbreakingly) our refinished attic. They are good guys and are trying not to disrupt our lives more than they need to, but the reality is that they are covering everything in dust and making our house a disaster area. I am probably going to spend an hour today damp-mopping dust up so that I have a clean, low-dust weekend. They actually painter's tape our bedroom door shut everyday to keep the filth from getting on our bed and clothing. They don't work Fridays (10 hour days M- Th is enough), which is a good reprieve for me.

I got home yesterday to traces of drywall plaster smeared subtly across the front porch. Some things you cannot sweep away. I walked in and there was a huge hole in the ceiling of the living room, a big beam tacked diagonally onto the wall of the living room, trim was ripped off just about everything in the living room, and I looked up the (old) stairwell to see exposed beams and insulation. Matt and I went upstairs and said, "Holy shit." They have torn off the ceiling of the attic, the walls around the windows, and a big, big piece of the wall where the dormer will go. I thought Matt might cry- a few short years ago we spent weeks making that attic livable, and now the guys are tearing it down. Deep breath.

But the beauty of it is that we want them to do this. We want them to tear things off the walls and expose the guts of our house. We actually want them to rip huge holes into our living room, and most importantly we are paying them to tear 1/4 of the roof of our entire house right smack off. They will install the massive windows that are living in my tulip bed (why, why tulips? they are doomed) and drive an actual crane into our backyard next week.

To see the carnage yesterday made it all more real. Soon we'll have a beautiful stairwell, a second (huge!) bedroom with giant windows that look up onto the mountains, and a neat little attached study/craft room. And then we'll have a baby to put into the bedroom.

Hopefully in THAT order.

Yikes.