Demo Day! The journey begins…
If you’ve watched even a fraction of the Fixer Upper episodes that I have, you know that “demo day” is when everything starts to go down. Through the magic of smartphones, I can tell you that mine happened on November 11th, 2018. With a mix of delighted enthusiasm and nervous anticipation, I picked up a pry bar and began. It was a long, dusty day of ripping out rotten plywood and sweeping up rodent droppings, but at the end of it I could already see my vision coming to life.
The biggest surprised of the demolition process came when I peeled back the first of three water-stained plywood sheets off the back wall of the shed. To my amusement and horror, I discovered that not only did the back wall not exist, but that the whole structure was built so close to the neighbor’s house that there would be no way to clad one in its place. After doing some head scratching and Reddit scouring, I decided that I would have to reverse engineer one. My construction skills were solid, but rudimentary. I was in over my head. In a moment of desperation, I called my contractor friend Chris and asked if I could hire him to help.
Thankfully, Chris had just come back from a Pan American motorcycle trip and needed some cash. For the record, he’s also just an extremely nice guy! He couldn’t start until after the end of the year, so in the meantime I focused on design, clean-up, and acquiring materials. (More on the wall retrofit later, I promise!)
After the first day of demo, I knew I was on to something. The fear that I had bet on a losing gamble began to dissipate and the dwelling that saw in my head began to take shape. The load of junk that I took to the dump that weekend was not the only thing I got rid of: I was starting to let go of the idea that the life I dreamed of was impossible.
Keep reading to see how it turned out in the end! If you want help turning your dream into a reality, schedule a free intro call with me today.