It’s taken longer than expected. It always does. It’s drained me of energy and sometimes my willingness to get out of bed. Living in ONE room for months has been VERY difficult and extreme. I always tried to view it as the means to a goal and I often thought of how many people on this planet live in one room ALL the time without a bathroom, running water or power. IT made me feel lucky because my situation wasn’t going to be for ever. I have often wondered how those people in other parts of the world survive under such terrible conditions, because I did have water, a bathroom a bed and a washer/dryer. It certainly made me truly appreciate my life (sometimes) and other times I wanted to rip off the contractors head.

The house is 99% completed. ALL the final inspections have passed and are completed. I have an incredible home now. I will post a few photos here, not of the finished project but of various stages of the build. If I didn’t have to do this I would never have begun a project of such a large scope. When we get thunderstorms now I barely hear the thunder and I don’t hear the rain unless its downright torrential and it seems that everyone in the area is coming here (including the contractor and his family)  if a bad hurricane is approaching!! This is extremely stressful and draining and I also have an appreciation for all the people I have watched on HGTV and the DIY network who do many of the rebuilding and remodeling jobs themselves. I could NEVER have tackled such a project nor would I even try! My pup Rene has stood by me and dealt with my mood swings, my craziness when things got postponed or weren’t done right and my grumpiness. Just call me grumpy cat because there were days I made that cat look like a clown. Hes taught me to be gentler with myself and not get so bent out of shape for every little thing that went wrong over these past 5 months. I need to learn to have that quality because I didn’t like how I felt OR behaved when I would fly off the chain because I got so easily annoyed and pissed off when things went wrong. The contractor called them “Hiccups” and I call them HIS screw ups! The worst was the electrician. The list of all the mistakes he made 1. He put the wrong gauge wire for the heater on the AC, 2. He put cheap phone wires in the wall and daisy chained them without leaving an end wire to be connected to the panel box. 3. He did the same thing with the cable TV line. 4. He nicked one of the GFI wires and when I plugged in a small lamp, the wire exploded and broke the GFI socket. 5. He didnt put in the wires for the AC unit so we were without AC for 3 days because “he” had to be given 4 days notice to come back (even though it was HIS mess up!) 6. VERY little communication between him and the general contractor which made everything to do with the wiring twice as bad. The name of this company here in South Florida? Power Point Electrical. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY! Now on a lighter note…photos. Notice the concrete columns. Those are filled with Rebar. There are only supposed to be 6. There are 19!!!  The trusses on the roof are termite resistant. The studs in the wall and ceiling are metal. All windows are hurricane resistant impact. More photos will follow shortly.