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April touched a finger to her lips in thought. “I’ve just been thinking. It’s going to be a lot of money if I hire people to do everything around here. We need to do some of it ourselves.”
“Some of it? How much is some of it?” Georgia didn’t look up from her phone as she watched a video on cabinetry.
April realized this was a great opportunity for her to let go of the reins for a bit. She could really show her daughter that she wasn’t here to control her or pressure her to make the ‘right’ decisions. “Why don’t you decide.”
Now Georgia looked up from her device and stared at her mom. “Me? You want me to decide what we’ll do on our own?”
April nodded. “It only makes sense since you’re interested in researching how to do things ourselves. I’ve sketched out a lot of my designs. You can look through those and find ways for us to do it on our own.”
It was a well-known fact that April had no experience in carpentry. Neither had Georgia. But they were determined to make this stuff work. They agreed that if they had to skimp on some of their design ideas, it would be okay as long as the general look was similar in style and function.
“That’s a great idea, actually. I’ll start looking through those and we can come up with a list of what we need to hire for and what we can DIY.”
April nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” Georgia ran off to begin looking through the sketches as April went through her own checklist of everything that needed to be done before they could get into the design aspect of the house. Electrician quotes, checking the foundation, permits, plumbing, water.
The list was longer than April was expecting, but it didn’t slow her down for a single second. With the help of her daughter, she knew that this was going to become easier as time went on. There would be hiccups, of course. But everything felt so right.
Adrenaline was coursing through their veins, pushed by anticipation of seeing the house slowly transform before their eyes.
From the living room, April could hear, “Hey everybody and welcome back to putting up molding in your home. This is how we’ve always done it here, but there are many…”
The voice began to drown as April turned her focus to writing emails to as many electricians and plumbers in the area as she could. Calling them was a hassle and apparently she couldn’t get the dates right after all this time on the phone. Emailing was going to be the easiest way to get a hold of them and have written proof of the date and time.
She mumbled as she typed out similar emails to each company. It took a full minute after Georgia walked into the room to realize that she had said something. “What, honey?”
“I saw this picture you drew, but I’m a little confused,” Georgia said, sprawling the drawing out on the table. “What is this?”
April took a break from looking at her screen to peek at the hurried lines on the paper she’d used to express her dream just days ago. “That is the entryway. We’re going to need to redo this gable right here in order to make it work. And then once we clean up the carvings in there, I’d like to keep those so-”
“No, no. I’m not talking about the house,” Georgia said.
April stared at her with furrowed brows. The drawing in front of her was of the house. It was exactly what she dreamed about, down to the smallest details. “It’s the house.”
“But there’s people coming in. Who even are they?”
April knew what she’d drawn before. The dream where people were entering and leaving the house, walking down to explore the beach and say hello to everyone.
But looking at it now, from a different perspective, she realized what she was looking for was right in front of her all along. “I think I just figured out what I want to do with this place.”
“What is it?” Georgia’s neck craned to look at the paper straight on. “Who are these strangers?”
“This house is too big for just me. Or for just us.” It hurt to say the word. She wasn’t thinking of Carl, but he came to mind because he used to be included in ‘us.’ A part of April hated that she thought of him.
The ‘us’ she wanted to be referring to was just her and Georgia, together. “I want to create a bed and breakfast for the town. We can make the bedrooms into individual rooms and the downstairs here into an inviting lobby. People would have access to our beach. I could share this house with others. It’s perfect.”
“So those people are guests?”
April nodded her head. “I didn’t know when I drew it, but I think so. Doesn’t it make so much sense? In my wildest dreams I saw people coming and going as they pleased. It was because they were staying here.”
“Can we do that?”
April shrugged. For the first time, she was okay with not knowing everything before she started. The details weren’t important right now, the dream was. They would need to remember that as they got to the toughest parts of the build.
“How will we know if we don’t try?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Georgia walked April through the house, bedroom by bedroom and motioned to the changes they would have to make in order to design the rooms the way she’d planned. “And this is where the bed will go. Because this room is one of the largest, I have it down as a suite. We could include a queen bed and bunk beds over here for the kids.”
