There's light at the construction tunnel's end

I'm nearing the end of the work on the laminate flooring job in Piney Creek, signalling that I'm also getting near the end of fixing the house.

That puts me at the beginning of a new situation, which is trying to figure out what to do next.

I am like a dog chasing cars in that way, once I catch it, I have to figure out what to do with it. I really don't want to wet the tires.

I don't want to be as premature as the Iraq War victory celebration here, so let me mention that there is a ways to go. Even so, there does appear to be light at the end of this construction tunnel.

Sometimes the last part of a job is the hardest part to get motivated to finish. It's often easier to do the big job than it is to install the final trim, clean up the mess and put the finishing touches on the paint. I think the contractors usually put together a list of things to do at the end of a job, after all the work is pretty much done. That list involves getting the rest of the problems repaired that were created during construction or simply found afterwards. I hope mine is fairly short.

I started working on this house almost two months ago now and much work has passed under the bridge since then. Several people have been employed to help along the way and my family has been there to provide free labor and moral support.

This time I did take pictures of the entire thing before I got started, so perhaps I can look back through the job and see how far everything has come. The outside is the only place I didn't take pictures and it may end up being one of the most remarkable transformations.

On the flooring job that I'm finishing up, I've made it through the dining room, kitchen and most of the living room, which is the largest room in the house. Once I got going in that room, the work went fairly quickly, since a great deal of it involved straight runs with few or no cuts involved.

The main problem was removing the fireplace hearth and putting it back without damaging the floor or my back. I didn't try to lift it and move it, since it is a piece of solid what every it is about four inches think. However, I did manage to slide it off to one side and then lay the flooring most of the way over to it. Then I lifted one end and placed it on the portion of the floor I had completed atop a scrap of carpet. It was very heavy, but no more than one might expect. After finishing the flooring on the other side, I then slid it on the carpet to its final resting place. I only had to lift it once more, to remove the carpet, and then I pushed it slightly back against the fireplace. That was one of those jobs that I didn't know if I could do alone. It probably worked out better that way than it might have if I had tried to lift the mantle.

I started the flooring in the dining area of the kitchen, then traveling around the corner into the hallway before doing the rest of the kitchen and the living room. All the flooring is in one long connected chain, which should help it be more stable in the long run. The kitchen involved the most cuts around obstacles, so I was glad to have it done first. I've always tried to start with the hardest part, when possible, so that the job will be easier to finish as I start running out of steam.

It's taken two days and a half thus far, with much of my time spent cutting in under the cabinets and appliances and around corners, edges and floor vents.

That leaves one room, the master bath, in need of floor covering.

With all the floors recovered, the plumbing replaced, the lights and wiring fixed and the heating and cooling system operating as it should, I am now looking through the windows and at the lawn and 'down the road' a bit. I am actually referring to the road itself, which is in serious need of attention. And by lawn I mean that area around my house that I hope one day will be covered with a bed of smooth grass. Right now it's expanses of earth with little tufts of weeds and hardy grasses, sprinkled with tree stubs and roots poking defiantly out of the hard clay. But its day is coming.

Nearly every thing I've done thus far has cost more than I thought it would. That's sadly so common with the cost of materials these days that I've taken to adding on about 20 percent just to get closer.

That includes on getting the materials, since I've gotten close but finished just short on having enough of nearly everything. That has included laminate flooring, carpet, water pipe, pipe insulation. I'm hoping that doesn't turn out to be the case on money as well.

I always try to keep my eyes on the long-term goals that I have for myself and my family. Principal among these, as it has been ever since I moved out on my own for the first time, is to be completely debt free. It seems that I've always owed someone for something. It started off with a few appliances, then furniture, cars, houses, land and building supplies.

The idea is to be free of all encumbrance. Of course, one must deal with recurring bills like electricity and telephone, cell phone and insurance that never go away. I've come to realize that freedom is little more than an idea, or perhaps an ideal. True freedom could only exist if one could live outside the confines—real, implied and imagined—that have been set for (or even by) each of us. Most of us would call freedom the ability to do whatever we choose. But we all know there are many limitations, even in our relatively liberated society.

For now, I'll just keep following my hope of economic freedom like a guiding light. Although it isn't the same one that I can see at the end of this particular construction tunnel.
 

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