June 14, 2019 marks one year. Happy Birthday Big Blue!!!
The first look at the insides of this beautiful building, I had no real idea that it would come this far.
I saw the listing come up on www.Zillow.com and sent it on to my realtor to see if I could get a look at it. My Mom and I met the realtor here for the initial walk-through and truly we were “just going to look, we had always wanted to see the inside anyway.” We were pretty convinced that the place would smell strange and/or be unrecoverable and not even an option before going in.
Halfway through the initial visit, my mom and I looked at each other in almost the exact same moment and said “WOW!!! This place is amazing and the main floor is set up already for us. This just might work!”
Fast forward 4 months of day in and day out due diligence; all the things the bank wanted, the inspections, the tests, the surveys, the walk-throughs, the research, all the things and it was finally closing time.
I was nervous because of what was ahead of me but I was also pretty confident because there was so much working in my favor and so, so, so many things that easily fell into place along the way. It was just meant to be.
From June 14, we needed to wait about 30 days to get keys. This building was an assisted living location since the 1960s and they needed some time to relocate the residents. To be honest with you, I am pretty confident that any place they were relocated to would have been a better fit than this and along the past year, as I hear stories, I am confident they are all better off where they ended up.
As we progressed into the summertime last year we got keys in the middle of July and I actually moved myself in while I was waiting for my new home to be completed.
That was supposed to be until October.
9 months later I got certificate of occupancy at the new house and moved out of Big Blue.
But in all actuality it was a blessing for sure. A blessing that I had a super cool place to stay. A blessing that I got a chance to really get to know Big Blue and all of her quirks. A blessing as through the last winter, with those incredibly frigid temperatures, I was able to just walk downstairs to go to work rather than have to be outside and face the elements. I never dreamed I would get a chance to “work from home” but it was a treat.
Our master plan was to get some of the 17 bedrooms open by this spring and rented as office space.
We are past spring.
But inside of this past year you probably also know we planned an executed a wedding and I became bonus mom to triplet teenagers.
What you probably don’t know is that we also had to fire the builder back in October for unbelievable negligence and take over finishing the very complicated new house build ourselves.
To say it has been a year, is an absolute understatement. I am not even sure how we survived it. Some of my phone conversations to my Mom would have her stop me mid sentence and say “How are you even doing all of this?”
I don’t know Mom. I don’t know. I just get up everyday and, because I am excited and passionate about what I am doing and where I am heading, I just do what needs to be done and keep working on all the “to-do” list stuff I can and then rinse and repeat the next day. When we got to move the Cafe pf LIFE Chiropractic office over in September last year, my incredible office manager, Nikki and I would wander around the place on the very first day like it was our home forever. It feels like home here, it really does and has since day 1.
So today, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG BLUE!!!