The last major thing I did myself in the Sullivan House was paint my new office. I finished it the morning of my wedding, so that we could finish moving furniture around for the family brunch I was hosting in our home the next morning. I’d also just finished several cosmetic upgrades in our half bathroom downstairs so it looked a bit less beat up.

That was a year ago November 11.

The pace had slowed considerably leading up to that, of course. I have a backlog of projects I never posted to this site because already it was catching up with me. The passion had faded and the trudging had begun.

It’s the decisions that got me. After five years of prioritizing, directing, and doing repairs on this old house, I got engaged. What followed was the endless list of decisions required to get married in nine months, which firmly drew me from “decision exhaustion” to “decision burnout”. And that’s how I found myself utterly unable to decide whether to paint or restore the trim in the halls and stairs, blocking further progress.

Maybe it was passing my one year anniversary. Maybe it’s the specter of another Detroit winter. Maybe it was the blog post about paint removal that changed the equation. Maybe it was having my window restoration specialists and general contractors in the house at the same time last week, making it feel alive with progress again. But I finally looked around, woke up, and made some decisions. I put together a 2-year plan with a budget, researched my upcoming projects, and went shopping for supplies.

2019 is the year we start wrapping up this restoration project.