Signed and Settled

 

 I still can hardly believe that our home renovation loan is signed and settled. What a long time dream and process this has been. I'll just start at the beginning so that if you follow along with our addition/renovation project you'll know the long story. 

Jeremy and I bought our house 19.5 years ago--2 weeks before our wedding. At the time it seemed so big--3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 1.75 acres. We thought that *someday* we would renovate with at least adding central air and so we only did low cost updates over the years. 

In 2009 we had grand plans drawn for a huge addition, but during the loan process the economy crashed and we couldn't get the loan. In retrospect, we are glad that our 30 year old selves were spared from what would have been a disastrous financial decision. 

The talk of building was tabled at that point. It was tabled so long that I wasn't sure it would ever be brought up again. At the end of 2018, I started talking about it. I felt like the right time was approaching. Our children are growing up. Thinking of our children being in and out of the house as older teenagers and young adults made our bedroom and bathroom situation look quite cramped. 

Then,  in the winter of 2019, I reached out to Rob to draw us some new plans. Rob and Annie lived in our house before us. We bought it from them. They loved this house and Rob was thrilled to help us extend the life of this old farmhouse. This time I told him that we needed it as simple as possible with a specific price tag. He delivered and we had the blue prints drawn. And then Jeremy and I set up a system to test ourselves on whether we could live in a strict budget. We found out that we can and so...

...in April of 2020 Jeremy began the loan process. Oh my, what a process it has been! COVID created a lot more paperwork for Jeremy to submit monthly. I had no idea how much our contractor would have to be involved. We waited 6 weeks for the Health Dept to come out to do what they needed to for our building permit. And multiple weeks for other steps along the way. There were plenty of times that I didn't know if it would every happen. There were other times when I was praying for "the permit man at the Health Dept" or the "consultant guy in New Jersey". Other times I was strategizing the best way to get Brian (our contractor and my brother) to do the 3 things or more on the list we needed done. 

9 months later somehow it all came together for us to close on the loan this week! Our loan officer said we were in the top two of her longest loan processes.

I'm glad we are doing this in our early 40s instead of our early 30s. I'd like to think that I've learned a lot about waiting and contentment in the last ten years. I'd also like to think that I will truly appreciate central air and a dishwasher (and a lot more things) in the future.

You are being warned now that this blog will likely be my place to chronicle this adventure! If you are up for it,  I can't wait to share the journey with you.