My parents have been talking about remodeling their house for years. There have been many, many schemes for creating more space in that old, turn of the 19th to 20th century old home. There was talk of pouring a basement for it and then rolling the house onto the new basement. There was talk about making the current basement work and just converting them to a bedroom. There was talk about taking out the wall between the kitchen and the bedroom/office and moving the staircase to make a bigger kitchen and dining area. I heard all these plans all the time growing up. When we put in a septic tank, my parents even made sure to put it in deep enough that it would be below the basement level so they could put in a new bathroom down there. Yes, growing up, we all dreamed of more bedrooms, a bigger kitchen, and at least one more bathroom because we only had one bathroom for the eight of us, five of which are girls.
It's taken years, but my parents are finally able to make those dreams happen. They worked with someone to create custom plans to remodel the house and add on a brand new addition with a finished basement. The plans were finished in the spring, and the process started at the bank. We were all hoping to get started in April. Unfortunately, due to some property line issues that date back to the 60s, my parents weren't able to start when they wanted to. They ended up having to hire a lawyer to get the property issue resolved with their neighbor before they could start building/remodeling. This took several months, but finally, by August, the issue was resolved and the plans to move forward on the house FINALLY happened.
The timing was quite terrible though. My mom works remotely for a company located just outside of Washington, D.C. Her job is to coordinate reviews of the hundreds of Headstart Preschools around the country, which means that in August, she spends most of her time back in D.C. getting things ready for the new school year of reviews. In addition to that, she was also serving as the director of the area's high school volleyball referees, which meant that she also had to schedule all the referees for all the high school volleyball matches which start every year in August. With those two things, my mom didn't have any brain space left to figure out how to move out of her house and coordinate the demolition of the home she'd lived in for over 30 years. I told her that I would handle the moving situation.
I called around a few places and found the best deal on a storage pod and arranged to have them deliver the pod on August 9, and we went to Idaho on the 10th to start filling it up. First though, we had to pack our bags.
My parents wanted to put in as much sweat equity into the addition as they could, and their amazing neighbor, Amle, helped out by bringing his loader to dig a trench for a new water line. Amle came with his backhoe the same weekend we were there. Taryn and David and their kids, as well as Chelsea and her kids, were also up that weekend. The men worked on the waterline, and the ladies packed and packed. The kids loved being so close to a back-hoe loader.
We had plenty of supervisors for this job.
Chelsea and I were excited to start filling this huge pod. You know those big containers that come in on a container ship, and then you see them on railroad cars and semi-trucks? This was one of those. It was 40 feet long and 9 feet high and semi-truck width. We were so excited to put these first boxes in the pod.
And Chelsea introduced the kids to a new way to ride around.
See how deep this thing is?
The kids loved spending time with cousins
And playing in the dirt. There was even more dirt than usual at my parents' house!
The old water line got nicked with the backhoe when the trench was dug, so we didn't have running water all day long. You never realize just how much you wash your hands and use indoor plumbing until it is unavailable. I told myself I would never take it for granted again once they got it back on, but I think my appreciation only stayed at the front of my mind for a few days before I went back to taking it for granted.
Here's David hard at work on the new line.
And when we were all done, Amle came back to fill in the hole. My parents paid him for his help, but he came back to give them most of it back, only keeping enough to cover brake fluid and gas. This man has been there with his loader for years plowing the roads and driveways during the winter. I feel so grateful for the good people in this world like Amle Landon. Oh, and did I mention that he's in his 80s?
There were plenty of supervisors for this job as well. Also, notice that we turned my mom's house into a campground. You see the tent that my family stayed in and Taryn's camper in the background. Chelsea also stayed in a tent. All the dirt and the lack of running water made it feel like we were really camping!
Mornings at Grandma and Grandpa's (my parents') house:
We started packing books because we figured they wouldn't be missed as much as the other things, and it would be okay if they were clear in the back of the pod. I tried to keep things a little organized. Mostly, I just got the children's books in one box, which meant that box stayed open while they were all gathered from all the places that books were hanging out in the house. Rachel found that box and kept pulling the books out to read them.
This house isn't going to look like this for much longer:
Everyone except for my family went home on Sunday. We stayed until Monday. Here's what Sunday evening looked like.
My grandparents came the next morning to check on our progress, and Rachel got my Grandma to read her a book. She's really good at getting people to read her stories.
This was our progress on filling the pod after our first trip to Idaho:
We were so tired as we headed home on Monday, August 13.
Did I mention that my mom spent three of the four weeks of August in D.C.? And did I mention that we had a crew planning to demo the house over Labor Day weekend? As soon as we left, I knew that I had to do more. I looked at my schedule and figured that I could come back up on Wednesday after my hair appointment if Brian could take Michael to his back-to-school night. I made some arrangements with neighbors to help cover watching Michael so Brian could be at work for meetings, and then I loaded up the van with Rachel, Gabe, and I and headed to Idaho for more packing. This time, we slept in the house.
Rachel and Gabe played outside and I tried to pack.
But it was really hard trying to do it all by myself. My dad was at work, my mom was in D.C., and with no cousins around, Gabe kept wandering out of my parents' yard, and so did my silly dog. I didn't make much progress the first day or two there because I was stuck and feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing. There was so much to pack! And I'd already packed up the obvious stuff.
The whole thing was a little overwhelming!
When I put Rachel and Gabe to bed, they were in separate beds, but when I went up to check on them, I found them like this. It was pretty sweet.
I had to entertain my kiddos more than the weekend before, so we drew with chalk,
and then I went over to my grandparents' house to see if they could keep an eye on Rachel and Gabe so I could go pack some more. I found them washing windows, and it reminded me of that scene from Up where Ellie and Carl are washing their house windows. It made me smile.
I ended up crashing a little--not the sleep kind of crashing, but the kind where you sit down and don't get up for awhile because you're feeling tired or overwhelmed--at their house. Then, I went back for more fun.
Eventually, my mom came home and helped me figure out what things to pack up. In my mom and dad's bedroom closet, I found boxes full of supplies from my brother's chemotherapy days. It was such a sobering thing to find, all covered in dust and all expired years ago. I realized that I was about the age my parents' were when McCallan had cancer, and Rachel was just a little bit older than he was. In fact, Rachel is the same age I was when Cal was going through his treatments. Seeing all this stuff that I'd seen years before took on a deeper level of understanding. How did they do it? How did they handle watching their baby--their only son at the time--fighting for his life? How did they put aside their fears and make his treatments just a part of their everyday routine? And what fears kept these items up in the closet for so many years? What if the cancer came back? I started crying just thinking about it. My mom showed me what all the things up there were for and what she'd have to do every day to flush out his broviac (chemo port) everyday. It involved all of this stuff:
My mom said that she handled the whole thing the way she had to. She couldn't break down crying everyday; she just had to get up and do what she could do and pray that the Lord would do the rest. She said she didn't remember crying over it a lot back then, but she says that she can't talk about it now without crying.
She thought I wanted to take a picture of all the dusty boxes to poke fun at her for not cleaning out her closet for so many years, but I wanted to take the picture because I feel like it represents so much. I can't even articulate the feelings that these boxes invoked in me. I hope I never know what she went through, but I hope that if I have to, I can handle it all as well as my parents did.
The exciting thing about August is that Grandma's garden has lots of things growing in it. Rachel and Gabe got to help Grandma and Grandpa Linville pick cucumbers and zucchini.
And find lady bugs while they picked.
The next day, I was looking down the barrel of my return to Utah, and that motivated me to kick it up another notch in the packing. I kicked myself for not doing more the other days, and tried to make up for lost time. Rachel was really cute and helped me label some boxes.
Before I left, I got everything in the kitchen packed up, with the exception of their medicines and a box of things I thought they'd need until they moved out. These empty cupboards were incredibly satisfying.
Here's the picture of the progress from the second trip up to Idaho.
I'm pretty strict about limiting screen time, and even though Rachel and Michael have tablets, I rarely let them use them. Heading back to Utah with just me, Rachel, and Gabe was one of those times I thought it would be a good idea. I didn't think Gabe would mind not having one--I really didn't want him to have one yet--but he minded big time. Thankfully, his sister has one of the kindest hearts around and shared her tablet with him, helping him to learn how to play the games. We ended up breaking down and buying him a tablet for all these trips to Idaho the next time we went up.
I had a week and a half break from packing, and then on August 30, we picked up Michael from school and headed North, once again. This time, we had to finish packing everything. David and Taryn went up that same night, and Brian and David got to work on hauling out the furniture while Taryn and I worked on packing up more boxes.
We were way behind schedule for the demo. Emily and Pete arrived on Friday, and Pete had his sludge hammer out, all ready to start tearing stuff down and we still had boxes and boxes of stuff everywhere! We weren't sure what to do with some of the things, and we were waiting for my mom to get home from D.C. to help us know what else to do. I feel kind of bad that we immediately all attacked her with questions when she walked through the door. She was so exhausted from her flights and stressed about volleyball, and we didn't help much.
But being the amazing person that she is, she rallied and got to work.
There was still lots of things to be packed, and we originally said that we had to have everything out before we started demo work, but there was still a lot to pack, and we were running out of time, so we got everything out of my parents' room, and Pete and his boys got to work tearing it apart.
One of the things we were waiting on was for my mom to come home and help us know the best way to take apart her desk and office stuff and move it over to my Grandma's house. We carefully dismantled it and took it over to my grandparents' house in an open trailer. David was on the front of the trailer holding it in place, and Brian and I rode on the back to hold it in place while my Grandpa slowly drove us over to his house. Brian and I naturally pretended that we were Katniss and Peta riding the chariot through the arena in Hunger Games. Brian even got the music playing on his phone for the ride, which was pretty impressive considering we were holding onto my mom's desk and holding onto the trailer so we didn't fall off!
I really do miss these things about rural Idaho sometimes.
We finally got everything out of the main level and upstairs, and demo continued. It was like opening up a time capsule to see the old tile floors. These walls had so much to say! And we finally opened up the wall between the kitchen and that bedroom.
Brian packed up a lot of my parents' things in their bedroom, and he found this coupon book that I gave my dad for Fathers' Day one year. He thought it was hilarious.
I guess my dad finally decided to cash in on this one. I honored it, even though it had expired.
See Gabe helping?
Gabe and Elijah loved riding in "the green" with Grandpa.
Demolition of the old house really picked up on September 1. I would include the rest of the weekend here, but it really deserves its own post, so stay tuned....
