2004 in Review

We've made seven trips to Pennsylvania this year, and managed to take three giant steps backwards. Our general contractor had done nothing all year, and when we were ready to start in October, he told us the roofer was busy until March. Then he asked for a $50,000 deposit. So now we have to find a new contractor.

The house sat vacant for twenty years without major incident - until this summer, when they had record rainfall, the roof failed, two rooms were covered in mold, and the furniture warped and buckled. So now we have even more work to do.

We danced around with the township and county as they threw every permit and requirement they could think of at us, none of which was related to restoring the actual house, which is all we're trying to do. So now we think we've addressed all of them, but we've said that at least three times so far.

Finally, we spent a lot of time and money trying to take advantage of the historic tax credits, which we thought was a slam dunk. Someday, I'll put together a chart of what our expectations were, compared with the reality of it. That should be scary.

I think the only thing we actually accomplished this year was this web site...