Joy. Pain. Sunshine. Rain

Chapter 1

Ah, the joy of home ownership.
Ah, the pain of realizing your new home needs a bit of work.
Ah, the sunshine around the opportunity to build our own creation, our own kitchen.
Ah, the rain of bills and expenses to pay for that moment of sunshine...

I had little knowledge of what transformation my life would take once I stepped off the plane from Tennessee. Seriously, the trip to Tennessee was some sort of life-change portal. One day screaming at top of my lungs in one of the worst thunderstorms the Knoxville area has ever seen, a spot of Yell-O amidst a sea of Orange, watching the Ducks migrate all over the Volunteers. Next day looking at houses, looking at comps to gauge what we wanted to place an offer on.

And so as Diana and I wandered through houses with great curb appeal but little to offer inside, the contrast that this gem on Alder Street provided was palpable as time turn after turn I ran into neither walls nor doors, but open space... This house was interesting.

Diana was already quickly falling in love with it, but I could see the struggle of what the house could be with what it would take to get it there. We (I) don't have a great track record with projects, particularly those that aren't software related, but things just seemed different this time.

So we wrote up the offer and it was accepted and we were off to the races.