Changing for the Better

Right off the bat, this is a shameless excuse to post pictures of what I have been working on the last two weeks! But while my hands are busy, my mind makes connections, and that is what I want to share with you today.

Thirty months ago, we found our dream house and closed less than two months later. And then realized our new house didn’t have a fireplace. We never used the fireplace where we lived before, so it wasn’t much concern until Christmas, when we didn’t have a chimney to hang stockings on and the kids wanted us to leave the door unlocked so Santa could get in.

The first Christmas in this house Santa had to deliver gifts outside, which worked out since he brought a swing set that wouldn’t have fit inside anyway! And last year he was able to get in through the unlocked door, but it wasn’t quite the same as going through stockings hung by the fire with care.

We decided two years ago we would put in a fireplace insert, but were nervous about the size of the project. We got quotes to have one put in professionally, but they were in the 5-figure range and beyond our budget. A fireplace had become an impossible goal that was fast slipping into the “maybe someday” wishful thinking category. We wanted one, but has decided it was beyond our skills and budget to either DIY or have a professional install. Our dream house was just going to have one small annoying defect for the foreseeable future.

Two weeks ago, my wife decided she was tired of talking about a solution and not acting, so she took the action she could and ordered a fireplace insert and mantel (I was today years old when I learned mantle is a cloak; mantel is an ornamental shelf above a fireplace). She figured there were a lot of things that could go wrong, but if we did nothing she knew the outcome and it wasn’t acceptable.

When she told me, I felt overwhelmed about pushing beyond my home improvement capabilities, but also inspired that she believed I was capable of more than I knew. Her belief in me and the fact that the materials were already on their way inspired me to take my scary and dramatic first step. And so an impossible dream became an improbable attempt.

You have to understand, I have never done framing work or hung drywall. But I have cut small holes in drywall to add a fixture or receptacle. This was basically the same, just a little larger. What made it scary is this is our family room, the middle of our house, and I don’t know how to hang drywall if we fail. Ripping a huge hole in the wall was the first step, and once taken could not be undone.

Dreaming about change is easy, but attempting it is hard and scary. It is much easier to think about what would be ideal and list all the reasons we can’t get there. But dreaming of something better while feeling stuck where we are, somewhere less than ideal breeds resentment. Rather than being drawn to possibility we are trapped in reality with excuses why change is impossible.

Knocking a hole in the wall was a burn the ships moment. It was a big step with a big cost and unknown outcome. But we knew the outcome if we didn’t act, and it wasn’t what we wanted, so we were propelled to take a dramatic step into the unknown. It wasn’t impulsive, it wasn’t cavalier, it wasn’t unplanned, but it was still a big risk and venture firmly beyond our known capability.

This project was expected to take as little as three days, but was fraught with unforeseen complications that we could not have planned for until we started. Our son was quarantined home from school due to covid exposure, there was more electrical and low voltage work than I anticipated, we had to reorder a different mantel due to shipping delays, and needed a LOT more materials than we had planned. I was at Home Depot so much I started alternating locations so they wouldn’t think I worked there and give me an apron!

The point is, we started five days before Thanksgiving and by the time we were ready to decorate for Christmas we had blown the three day timeline and it looked like a complete failure. I tell you about this because it was a low point for me. I regretted having started, was tired of the work and our house being a mess and not being able to decorate for Christmas. The picture below is how far we had gotten by the day before Thanksgiving.

At that point it would have been pretty easy to get the hole patched up and cut our losses. I was in over my head on some things with a steep learning curve. Framing is harder than HGTV pros make it look. Drywall is heavier and more difficult to work with than it appears. We were WAY over budget and still didn’t know if we could get from this much worse reality back to where we started, much less to the dream.

Change carries an immediate cost and almost always means things get worse before they get better. The valley of despair is a well known hardship that many have passed through before, but in the moment it feels very personal. Why did I think I could do this? Why am I so slow at and making so many mistakes doing things I’ve never tried before? Why didn’t we stay within our imaginary budget and timeline?

We didn’t stop at that low point, and kept pushing to where we could celebrate some small wins and start building momentum toward the dream rather than lamenting what was lost. Until we passed that low point, we had only seen what we knew from before. It wasn’t perfect, but it was safe. And the only thing propelling us was a belief that it could be better. 

Thanksgiving Day was a bit unpleasant. It meant pausing from the work to be Thankful and celebrate in a place far short of ideal. I had been looking forward to being thankful this project was finished and we could enjoy the fruit of our labor. But instead it was a delay in getting the work done, pausing in the midst of wishing things were closer to ideal than what was real at that moment, yet still being thankful.

And then we started seeing evidence that a dream could become reality. We had a framed out chimney. The fireplace arrived and it fit in the cutout perfectly. The wiring all worked after being relocated. The drywall held up. The TV held up. I was so relieved that we had gotten back all that we had lost, and the internet was reconnected so the kids were happy.

This was another weird and unexpected moment for me. Jeff Henderson talks about the birth of the dream, the death of the dream, the resurrection of the dream, and the ascent of the dream. My hesitation before the ascent was what I was not prepared for. We wanted a fireplace, and now we had one. The TV had been mounted to the wall and worked. We are better off than we were before.

At this point we were 10 days into a 3 day project, and about $1200 into our $800 budget. Sarah was back at work after Thanksgiving break, I had to get kids dressed, our oldest set up on digital learning, our youngest out the door, then juggle work, school, shuttle bus, childcare, and this side project. I was tired, the next step was daunting, and it would again get worse before it got better. We could just stop here right?

The last five days have been exhausting, but they make the difference between a “not failure” and a success. Ascension is an invitation that comes at a point when you again have something to risk, and when the gas tank that fueled you this far is running empty. For me, not continuing on wasn’t really an option, but it was still a temptation. We had achieved the functionality we wanted, and every risk up to this point had paid off. But the next step would trade all the potential of a dream into a reality that still might be slightly imperfect.

The last stretch of the project was perhaps the hardest. The only solution was to not slow down and keep pressing forward. A fireplace composed of exposed drywall might be an edgy modern look, but not one that would match our house. My wife had picked the faux stone finish she wanted, and I spent the better part of a week covered in plastic shavings as I cut and fit pieces of the fa?ade together with little margin for error. And yet mistakes were made, and I had to give myself grace for being less than perfect at something I had never done before, even though my flaws will be on permanent display in our home forever.

The final result isn't perfect, but it's infinitely better than what we would have now if we had given up or stopped short, or worse yet never tried to change the status quo. Change is hard, and pressing forward with persistence when we encounter resistance is what makes the difference in failure, not quite failure, and true success. Nothing worth doing doesn't come with some fear, obstacles, setbacks, and pressing forward toward a vision that at times feels impossible.

I say all of that to tell you this: one year ago I had a vision of how supply chain operations could be better. It seemed impossible, but I knew the outcome if I didn’t dare to try and change things for the better. Right now I am in over my head, standing in a hole in the wall and wondering if this dream is too big to make a reality.

Not everybody has the courage to cut a big hole in their wall, and perhaps even fewer people have the courage to operate differently. But if we stick with what is safe and comfortable, what we know how to do and don't attempt to push beyond what we are confident we are capable of, we will never get to better outcomes than what seems possible today. By attempting the impossible, we can influence the realm of possibility a bit closer to ideal, one crazy attempt at time. And I am all for influencing things to be better than they are today!

Only time will tell, but I think the outcome could be pretty great!