The backyard was open trenches and piles of dirt.
Several pavers had been pulled up and stacked beside a tree. Short sections of pipe sat near the fence. The drainage work had turned the back of the Poughkeepsie house into another construction site.
It was also the work that had held up the rehabilitation.
The drainage problem had not shown up in the inspection. By the time we found it, it was the main reason the project was late. It added another job to a house that already had plenty of them.
The spring had been full of orders, keys, doors, bathroom parts, and a plan to make one bedroom sleepable. I was opening the front door remotely for contractors and trying to keep deliveries moving while working in the city.
The tub arrived. The tile arrived. More work appeared.
By early November, the list was finally getting shorter. I visited the house over the weekend and wrote the bank with a plain update. The drainage issue had been fixed. The bathroom was nearly finished. The mechanical systems were on.
I thought the house was very close to having everything the bank needed for sign-off.
Very close was not the same as done. I still needed to call the contractor and schedule the final inspection. The bank still needed to see the work and agree that the requirements had been met.
But the update was different from the ones I had been sending through the summer. I was no longer explaining only why the project was delayed. I could list finished work and ask for the last inspection.
The drainage fix mattered beyond the paperwork. Covering new walls and finishing a bathroom would not help much if water kept getting into the property. The ugly part of the project had to be dealt with before the visible rooms could count as finished.
That did not make the trenches fun. It made them necessary.
I had bought a damaged house because I believed it could become something good. Most weeks, that idea showed up as an invoice, a delivery, a contractor question, or another thing behind a wall that nobody expected.
This week it showed up as a much shorter email.
Drainage fixed. Bathroom nearly done. Mechanicals on. Call the contractor. Schedule the inspection.
I did not have the bank sign-off yet. I finally had a list that looked close to one.