Update...(I told you I was a bad blogger...)

Y'all. I know. You can add blogger to things that I am ridiculously bad at. Walking in heels (walking in general...I'm not super coordinated), Mario Kart, dancing, using a framing gun, blogging... But, I swear that it's not out of laziness that I find posting so difficult. Yes, sometimes I get preoccupied with baking a pie for the office or working on button garland for Christmas...that's totally on me, but MOST of the time (like, a staggering amount of time), is spent working on the house. And my day job (that thing that pays the bills). For those of you who are new here, I work at a heating and air company in Atlanta. It's the summer and Georgians don't fair well without their air conditioning. That being said; I DID warn you ahead of time, but regardless I'm sorry for being a slacker.

A LOT has happened in the month that I've been neglecting my role as part time blogger (hangs head in shame). For one, we framed our house!

And then we added the roof and the...shingles... Yes, yes I know. I can hear you all "but, what happened to your metal roof??" Dear friends, my marriage is more important than a metal roof. I also knew if I battled with my husband about it one more time, the above is about how far we would have continued this build. Sometimes you just have to realize when to throw in the towel and trust me, I hammered away at my poor husband's patience for months. After one last valiant effort that left us not on speaking terms for 3 days, I finally broke like a wild horse. There was a moment where I was watching my husband turn a shade of purple where I contemplated whether he actually might murder me and cement me somewhere inside the roof line under all of the shingles. It would have been an ironic way to go. There was also a moment where I was sitting in bed spitting a colorful stream of vitriol at him, where I was certain that he might walk out the door and never return. I promised to not sugar coat any bit of this build and it's important that you see that we aren't these Pinterest perfect versions of ourselves. There are times that we straight up act like assholes to one another. There have been a few times that no matter what, we can't see eye to eye. And as much as we both regret and hate fighting with each other, we take comfort from others that have come before us, that have told us that we aren't the only ones to fight to the death over a build. Folks, when you're building a house, there will probably be that ONE thing. The thing you fought about that looking back, you wish you hadn't. You wish you hadn't let something so dumb cause you to sleep in separate spaces and cause any distance between the two of you. It might be a roof, it might be a closet or a light fixture or a wall color. It might be a whole slew of things. And at the time, you won't think it's stupid. At the time, you won't be able to think "we're building a house from the ground up, THAT is amazing!" But, you WILL get to a head space where you look at this huge accomplishment in your life and think 1. THIS IS AMAZING!!!! and 2. Our marriage is pretty SOLID.

Now that I've fallen down the rabbit hole... I'd like to also emphasize a point that brought great clarity to our build. The HOUSE is not more important than the MARRIAGE. I had a very hard couple of weeks this summer where I was going through some personal things and really needed my husband. The build was taking all of his time and attention, because contrary to popular belief--he has a full time job, where every build comes before his own. This means that Paul finishes up his job for the day, drives to our house, and spends 2-3 more hours working before he drives 45 minutes home. He also spends his weekends at our house desperately trying to finish everything he can for the next week. He works his ASS off. So, with the 2 of us working late into the night and seeing each other for an hour in the evenings and a kiss goodbye in the morning, it's hard. I miss my best friend. I miss spending time together. I miss conversations that don't revolve around work or the house. And one night, it really all just came flooding out in a stream of tears and pent up frustration. I was constantly doing everything for everyone else and Paul was constantly spending late nights at the house. We weren't connecting, weren't putting in effort to see each other, and pretty much neglecting our duties to one another. And we had so many excuses... "We work too much, we say yes to too much, the house is sucking up every bit of us and it's what we signed up for..." Guys, it's emotional to build. We've literally put our blood, sweat, and tears into every beam. But we also have had to learn a lot about ourselves and about how to juggle our time. As two people who never say no to our friends and family unless it's absolutely physically impossible (and even then, we often try to make it happen), we have had to learn that saying no is normal. Sure, I'd love to go out with my girlfriends and jet off to Vegas for birthday parties, but we just can't. We don't have the money and we don't have the abundance of free weekends. So if you've felt like you never see us, feel free to drop by the house with a 6 pack...we also appreciate tacos.

Ok, that was a massive brain dump. I have written the above a few different times, contemplating leaving it out entirely. But that's not an honest count of building this home. My husband will be the first to tell you that I often toe the line on social media; portraying (like everyone), an unattainable standard of a life that is one dimensional. In my younger days, I wasn't afraid to share any part of my life. The absolute most devastating moments of my life are there to look back on through social media. Scroll back to summer of 2012 and you will see some truly broken bits. So today, I paint a picture of perfect pies and DIY, but in this space, I think it's important to be authentically yourself. Everything is not perfect and that's ok! I guess I'm trying to say that if you are here and expect perfection, you will be disappointed (just look at my impeccable posting track record). I'm content with showing you imperfections, because that's what real life looks like. Not to say that there won't be pretty pictures...I like pretty and I like organized and I like trying (often failing) for near-perfect.

Back to the update? Yeah, back to the update...

In the end though, we decided on saving our sanity, our marriage, and pewter gray architectural shingles (which, hate it as I do, look pretty damned good). And bless his sweet heart, my husband promised to add some black metal accents for me (I think it's half to stroke my ego after warring with this for months, but I'll take it!) Compromise is the greatest skill one can have in all aspects of marriage after all.

**quick little side note...I wasn't allowed to be at the property during roofing, because the one day that I was, I mom-ed out and started panicking that the roofers needed to be wearing helmets and be using harnesses to the point that I was making myself sick. The roofers found this both endearing and annoying, so I didn't make another appearance until 4th of July, where a lone roofer chided me while standing at the tallest peak of our home as wind rippled around his tiny body. I about fainted from anxiety and fear.

The next two things to happen really and truly transformed the build into a full blown house: Windows and exterior doors. There's something about seeing the front door installed... I have a very strong urge to make some sort of construction tape wreath, but I barely have time to blog, let alone Martha Stewart MacGyver a wreath from materials found at the job site. ...I also can't see out of it, because Paul insisted on building this house to spec for a giant. 9 and 10 foot ceilings, 8 foot doors...5 foot wife.

For the record, my husband hung about 85% of these by himself. #beastmode

Somewhere between the roofing, the doors, and the windows we also hosted the real super stars at the Roney Farmhouse--Craig; our electrician, the plumbers, the gas line guys, and the HVAC installers. There are a lot of can lights, wires, boxes, pipes, and a giant metal octopus-looking monster in my attic (ductwork).

**I'm not gonna lie, I'm REALLY happy about the board and batten up top. I changed the plans that called for lap siding on the whole house---I like different textures. I think it gives the house a little more curb appeal (and no, that's not the color of our house).

That's about all the updates that I have. Probably gave you more than you were bargaining for when you decided to kick back and read this, but hopefully Paul and I have learned some valuable coping tools that will come in handy as we start getting into my design elements once dry wall goes up. Didn't you know that this blog is half home build and half marriage counseling 101?

As usual, feel free to leave comments in the comment section (tell us if you've built a home and what your biggest struggles were). I have a LOT of content planned out for the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned!