It’s been over two and a half years since the last post to this blog, and there have been several reasons why.
First, we were going to sell the house, and while we were working like crazy to get it fixed up I didn’t want to be posting about all the stupid things I discovered along the way, in case any potential buyers stumbled across this blog and were put off by all the fixer-upper issues.
Then, we decided not to sell the house and stay in it for at least another year, but I got busy with work, and Thekla was in kindergarten, and Jen and I were having problems with our marriage and we “internally separated” while we continued with counseling.
To no avail, sadly. In mid-2015, Jen decided that she wanted a divorce, and she moved out in August of that year (back to the house we rented before we bought this one). We quite amicably decided all of our issues with the assistance of an arbitrator, and quickly worked out a 50-50 custody plan for Thekla, but nevertheless it was not what I wanted, and I was quite depressed for a long time.
I knew I wanted to keep the house, though, and before the divorce was final I refinanced in my name only with a large cash-out, which I gave to Jen as part of the divorce settlement, to compensate her for spending all of her stock options trying to fix the place up.
I’ve had a roommate since Jen moved out, and although the income bump was nice we never really became friends since basically we had nothing at all in common. He’s moving out at the end of the month, and I’m going to see if I can make a go of it without a roommate/rent check. (This will un-fill one of the bedrooms, which will let me live in one while working on the other.)
I didn’t do much work on the house last summer, although I bought a pressure washer and cleaned virtually every square inch of concrete on the property. I’ve started working on the house again in earnest since the first of the year, though, and posting on Facebook about it, since this WordPress instance has had some issues that I only just got around to fixing.
I’ll be posting here again shortly as I bring this blog up to speed with what’s been going on. I’m back to being excited about the renovations, and I’ve been formulating lots of plans, as well as putting together lists on Houzz.com and the like. A measuring tape is never far from my hand.
Onwards!