We took a week off.
Well, kinda. This week will be an update on the house more than the salon. I mentioned last time that both our jobs in Boston ended last week, which now leaves us 100% free to finish the renovations in Vermont and turn New Hampshire into our home. A LOT of that New Hampshire part happened this past week. But first, let’s catch everyone up if you’re just joining us.
My dad died in 2021, leaving my mostly-blind mom to fend for herself. She’s gotten by for over two years with the help of an immensely generous and reliable network of friends, not to mention a remarkably positive attitude and a resiliency that must’ve skipped right over me when these things were being handed out.
Meanwhile, Erica and I were growing restless in Boston, and realized the country had more to offer us at this point in our lives than the city. We resolved to move to New Hampshire, an undertaking that took a year and a half from conception to completion. There were many iterations of the plan, but we ultimately decided to:
build an addition onto the back of my mom’s house where Erica and I could live,
buy some commercial property nearby that could house a salon for Erica and a studio for me. We ended up buying two buildings in nearby Bellows Falls, VT.
So for the past 9 months we’ve been living half in Boston, half in New Hampshire, all while renovating two run-down buildings, building an addition, working our jobs in Boston, and moving. This past week was a long overdue break.
The house in New Hampshire
My mom’s house was really perfect for her and my dad, but really small for all three of us. We decided to build a small addition off the back of her house, basically expanding the guest room into a guest suite. We were expecting to have everything done and ready for us by Sept 1. Work was supposed to start back in April, but this spring was a particularly wet one, and our project was repeatedly pushed off. The flooding in Vermont pushed us back at least a month or two, as our excavator was called into service to help with the clean up. But work finally began in August, and they’ve gotten a lot done in a few weeks.
In preparation for the work outside, they had to tear apart the guest room so they could attach what they’re building outside to the bones of what’s already inside.
“But Tim, if that’s the guest room, where have you been sleeping?” Great question. If Plan A was to have this addition finished by September, Plan B was for Erica and I to live……in………… the barn….. (imagine spooky sound effects please)
Luckily, this isn’t our barn, but it is what people imagine when I say we live in a barn. This is our barn.
My dad built this barn and spent the last few years of his life turning the lower level into his dream woodshop. He never got a chance to address the upstairs room, and it sat idle for years, minus the mice and the ladybugs and the endless spiders. Erica and I cleaned it up and turned it into a cute little temporary home.
So while we’re still not to our final destination bedroom-wise, you won’t hear us complaining about our setup. A bathroom would be nice though….
Once the addition is complete and we’re moved in, the barn will be the new guest room. We’ve dubbed it our FriendBnB, and we’ve already booked a few weekends. Hopefully by then we’ll have found a way to address the plumbing situation.
As for the salon, we went back to work today and took the lights and ceiling fan down that our 65-year old electricians weren’t comfortable doing that high up.
I’ll be building something really big and fun to hang in front of that big window. We have so much good stuff to look forward to; it really helps when the weight of it all pushes us down. Thanks for reading friends!
Erica and Tim
