Taking in Life around Me......#Sundaystills........Going Back

This challenge is hosted by Terrie from Second Wind Leisure. I've also been loving visiting the blogs of the other participants and being inspired by their interpretations of the theme.

This weeks theme is "going back". Hmm...so many possible interpretations of this. I'm not quite sure how to share. Okay, it's now Sunday morning and I had a thought of what to do. 

A bit of history: 

We are in the middle of finishing up our house project. It's an addition, a second phase as we call it, and it's been 11 years since we started that phase. We had a vision of what we wanted. We sold our home, moved in with an older gal while we (as in, our hands, not a contractor) built the first phase. It took 2 1/2 years..life got busy, girls were in sports and it just takes longer when you do it yourself. Then we moved in, in 2008. In 2010 we began the second part but we were trying to do it as we saved money, paying mostly cash. That makes it slow going. In 2014 my husband was in need of a new job and this one did not allow for the time to work on the house. Our youngest was still in HS and busy with soccer, and that took up much of our time. Finally in 2019 a friend who is very handy but needed a place to stay because he was trying to get things figured out in life, moved in with us and has been pivotal in helping get this next part done. In late 2020, we talked and decided to bite the bullet and take out a loan to finish it. It was just hanging over our head so much, that at the advice of a trusted friend decided we'd have more peace if we just got it done. So, here we are, hopefully able to be finished by the end of the year. We are still doing it all ourselves, with a few subcontractors (cabinets, drywall, flooring, granite counters), but the rest my hubby and our buddy have done. I've been sharing progress over on Weekly Coffee Shares. You can also search home building and find more posts from the first part of building. I haven't done much since then as far as posting. 

So for this challenge I thought I'd "go back" to the beginning when we first started, and share a few pictures along the way because it's crazy what we forget. I was going through old photos the other day looking for a particular one and boy the memories of all the work. Hope you enjoy. 

Clearing our property. It had Christmas trees on it. Too bad we couldn't do this closer to Christmas, we could've sold several.

Burning branches and logs, so why not roast hot dogs. My oldest daughters and one of the young men in our youth group at the time. She is now married to his younger brother. 

One of my jobs was weed eating the property...at the time it seemed never ending. Now we pay someone to mow the field.

First we built a pumphouse that would have our water filter system and a bathroom. Originally we were going to live in a 5th wheel on our property so there's actually a hook up for a washer and dryer, but we ended living with an older gal from our church while we built. 

My hubby did most of the work. The girls and I would go up to help with little things or bring food.

Framing the house...so much work. Thankful he had the help of friends. 

We let the girls pick their room color and they painted themselves....lol. They also had bright circles painted on the walls. They loved but later said "why did we do that"...haha.

In 2010 we started framing the other half but then it would sit like this for quite a few years. In 2019 we began to aggressively get to work on getting it done. 

Here we are today...close to being finished. Still so much to do, but the end is in sight.

 It is exciting, and when I look back on all we accomplished, I think WOW. 1) It seemed to much easier the first time, and 2) Hard work pays off. Oh and 3) I don't want to do this again. Hindsight is 20/20. We didn't know how busy and crazy life would get. If we ever move, it will be to a house that's already built or we'll have someone build it for us. At least that's what I think. 

This is just a taste...I could've posted so many more photos, it was hard to know which to choose, and to be honest, I've been in a funk this last week so not completely into much of anything. Feel free to do a search or head to my personal FB page (link in the left side bar). 

With Joy Unquenchable,

Kirstin