Done

You all might remember how I have long hated my attic hole.  It was a backwards, untamed land filled with monsters and pirates. (Yes.  Yes it was.) Since it was easy to access, I initially loved it.  One simply had to step through a door in the wall of Jonah's room, step down three inches and enter acres of storage space.  And it really could have worked out that way...if I didn't have boys and if those boys didn't have brothers.  

This is as close as I can find to a "Before" picture, though we have already civilized this heathen land with electricity.

Carefully organized boxes of books and fabric and winter clothes and old computer supplies and a few odds and ends of picture frames and pieces of furniture began their voyage so hopefully six years ago.  I wouldn't have to grab a ladder to access it all.  Twenty feet long and thirteen feet wide.  Uninsulated...but hey, I wasn't worried about the scorching heat and frigid chill that seeped in.  It's not like I would be living in there.  And that light that the kids left on all the time until it burned out?  No problem.  And the ROUS-es?  They don't exist.

I was truly a woman favored over others.
And then the boys happened.  And I don't know why two of them should be so problematical. ('Force multiplier' may be my famous last words.) As soon as order was established, disaster struck.  Over and over again.  I would replace the light that had burned out, sweep up the glass and the stove-in computer tower and the broken legs of an inoffensive side table that wasn't hurting anybody, sort the teeny, tiny toys that had been scattered within, press-gang the boys (and the 'Why are you looking at me?  I was busy re-framing the Constitution and sewing sheets into clothing' girl) to help me, vacuum it out and vow that this time it would be different.

Why won't you evolve?!

But hope and change had to come to Energia St. in one form or another.

Nice wall you got there...Be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

We started with my dad who speaks with a soothing vocabulary to describe alarming events.  "Bump out a wall, pop in a window, toss up a ceiling...etc., etc.  For four or five days I assisted as we (and by 'we' I mean  mostly 'he') wired the lights and the outlets, built a short wall along the slope, insulated, 'popped' in a window, and hung 97% of the drywall.  Ever hung ceiling drywall with an 11-year-old boy, a 71-year-old man and an only mostly able-bodied 34-year-old mother of four?  Yeah.  I have.

Jonah is busy working on the short wall and his efforts to mainstream the often-maligned socks/sandals fashion lifestyle.

There is nothing funny here.  Dad is cutting a hole in my house.  A. Hole. In. My. House.

The cousins are as alarmed as I am.

But having the proud blood of the Hannas coursing through their veins, the Littles felt an indefinable pull towards anything that might cause an industrial accident.

 And then Dad left.  He just walked out of my life.  What was I supposed to do now?

• Taping--Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey
• Mudding--IhatethisIhatethiswhyaretherelumpsinthemud ohmygoshIhatethissomuchI'mtotallyruiningeverything
• Sanding the mud--Two words: White snot
• Repeating mudding and sanding two more times.  My body is not meant to bend this way and I am the biggest moron I have ever met.
• Nagging Nathan to insulate the floor.  (Simpler than it sounds.)

He looks like something out of The Great Escape with Steve McQueen.  If you can't go over the wall or through the wall, go under the wall...

•  Texture--Nathan was heroic.  I was dogged.  The result was a bit of a Curate's Egg--perfect...in parts.

• Paint--Ahhhh...back in my wheelhouse.  I could probably perform paint bending with my mind should my limbs become unusable.

But hurry up!  Grandpa's coming for skiing!!

Schnell! Schnell!

 And my dad did come back, inspected the texture with a tolerant mien and proceeded to sort me out on all the molding and trim pieces that I had painted up in anticipation of his annual winter visit.

Gosh, I love him.

He and Nathan also got a chance to hook a vent up to the furnace.  And then, well, all we had to do was get the carpet in...
And if you're keeping score at home that means, aside from some very minor light inserts, that I'm done.

Done.

Still have to finish off the decorating (bulletin board to litter with impedimenta, mirror to pose in front of while flexing tweener muscles...), but otherwise, this is the end of a very long road.  Jonah loves having a space (even if it is a funny space) to himself.

Now I have to get going on Spencer's room...