Welcome to The Ice Palace.

After 18 years of marriage, I would consider myself an HGTV veteran. I’ve seen them all; Love It or List It, House Hunters, Property Brothers, Holmes and Holmes, Windy City Rehab, Good Bones, Home Town, Fixer Upper and on & on. It’s a tie for Erica’s favorite between Windy City Rehab and Good Bones. They are all a lie! It’s totally a sham!! In fact, a daycare should be invented for husbands of wives who are remodeling their home. Especially since we don’t have a local tavern nearby.

With the addition of #thebean scheduled to arrive January 2020 (she actually arrived December 20, 2019 but more on this story later), Erica decided that we needed to add an additional bedroom and expand the kitchen and living room. From the beginning, my vote was for bunk beds but as you probably figured, I lost.

So, on November 6^th construction began. Not in April, not in May, not in June, not in July, not in August, not even in October but in November!! I think you’ve probably figured out why it was nicknamed the Ice Palace. Thank God I had some large hay tarps in the barn. So I had an extremely heavy bred wife, 2 kids and a bulldog named Moonpie who decided to live in a construction zone for 60 days.

Before I get to the fun part, let me just say that the construction crew was awesome. They worked fast, showed up when they said they would, did exactly what they said they were going to do and even came in right on budget. This never happens! Heck, they even worked weekends and on Thanksgiving Day. Not sure how my wife convinced them to do. It definitely wasn’t like an HGTV show though and Google Translate was a life saver!

So, to those of you looking to expand or remodel in the new 2020 year listen up, especially husbands. If your wife says she wants to remodel or expand the house just move out. Move everything out. That way you don’t have to move it to this room then this room and then back when it gets finished. Just move out. Next, get a large roll off dumpster. When it comes to packing something, having to move it back in or just throwing it away you’ll be surprised what you’ll choose. Be careful with this though and make sure you’re stealthy, especially if you have kids. They will throw you under the bus for some cookies. Pay for the painting! I hate painting and made the mistake of painting our house when it was built. Not this time. It was awesome. When you look at the numbers and see how much it cost to paint, you’ll start to question the cost and think you could do it a lot cheaper, don’t!! Let them paint. Yes, problems will come up but stick to your budget and make sure your contractor is very familiar with the budget. A problem over here, means compromise over there. Finally, don’t have a very pregnant wife while doing home construction!! I can’t stress this enough.

So were back into our beautiful home and it’s awesome but I’ll never do it again. So wives and husbands who are familiar with all the trending HGTV shows, I say again, they are all a lie! I will simply walk away and put a for sale sign out front before we ever do that again. It might not have been that bad but it was definitely an experience, that’s for sure. So good luck to all of you who are fixing to go down the home construction or remodeling road. Just glad mine is over.

Next week, I’ll give you a little insight into some running challenges and experiences. Especially since some of you have been sweating it out in 2020 and have possibly hit the runners wall already. Until then, tell someone I love you today!