Whoa.
Four years ago today we arrived to begin the adventure of a lifetime. I don’t think I will ever forget the emotions I felt as we pulled into the parking lot of our massive home at 1:30am. The excitement, the “holy crap this is really happening”, the delirium and exhaustion from driving for the past 36 hours nonstop. And then there was the whole pipes exploding in the boiler room an hour later (if you missed that post, you can read about it here) which was our welcome present and a glimpse into what renovating a nearly 100 year old 20,000 sq ft building would be like.
Now here we are, four years later and are having the absolute time of our lives. Things aren’t always easy but we have really settled into a groove of renovating and life here in Indiana in general. If you asked me what life would be like in four years on day one I would have told you something polar opposite to where we are now. And we are totally okay with that! We have shifted away form grinding nonstop renovating to get to that finish line with a completely restored building to taking our time and enjoying the ride.
We are still working on the future Airbnb suite up on the third floor and we *finally* made it over the hump and are really making progress now. This has hands down been our most difficult & time intensive project yet. Who would have thought a bathroom would take us so long?! We have pulled and replaced well over a mile of wiring so far in the building which is wild to think about. Atom built the open doorless shower frame this past week and we will start laying the marble tile hopefully next week! I’ll write a separate post with more photos of the bathroom progress as I just realized the last blog post I wrote about the bathroom was July of last year!
Spring has officially sprung here and the colors from the earth waking up from its winter slumber makes me ridiculously happy. Our tulips are all up and have been in full bloom for the past two weeks! This is the third year we have had tulips and the first year for the orange ones that we planted last fall. The orange ones really give a nice pop of color out front.
Our peach and plum trees are blooming and even if we don’t get fruit yet this year (we planted them last year) it’s really pretty to see the blossoms.
Atom & I were at Costco last week and I spotted potted cedar trees. I have wanted these darn trees for the past 3 years and every year I see them and come back another day to get them, they were gone. I told Atom NOT THIS YEAR! We laid down the back seats in my rubicon and crammed those suckers in. We both had our ears tickled by branches the entire way home but it was so worth it! We potted & placed them exactly where I had envisioned them for three years & we couldn’t be happier with the look! It really brings everything together. (We will keep them trimmed so they don’t block the lights above them.)
Now that it is *sort of* warming up and it is no longer well below zero at night, I’ve been getting out and taking more photographs of the moon. Back on March 28th was the Worm/Paschal full moon and we got up on the dome of the roof to take photos. It was a spectacular night and this was the final shot I got.
Our little town has been so good to us. So, so good to us. The friendships and connections we have all made here have been amazing and we couldn’t ask for a better life for our family here in Indiana. We are also so thankful to all of our followers both here and our various social media sites. Without all of your love and support I think this would have been a much different experience fo us and we are so grateful for each and every one of you!
Four years down, a lifetime to go!
Cheers!