You don't own your home, it owns you.

That's me looking into the bottomless pit into which our money is going.

My husband, Tony, has been keeping a spreadsheet on all that we've spent since we bought the building. That's my source for the data to do the "bottom line" page of this blog.

Above is the old wooden hatch that covered the roof access when we moved in. One of the first things we did was to replace that with a clear plastic bubble hatch. So now the building has three skylights - this small one and two big 4x8 skylights.

This is an 8,000 square foot building. The front is 40 feet wide and it's 100 feet long and has two levels. When we moved in there were two complete baths upstairs and three areas that had been partially remodeled and a makeshift kitchen. All that was good, because it meant we could live here while we started our renovation. There were two wood stoves for heating, but no HVAC.

Even though the upstairs was only barely livable, we decided to put most of our efforts into the downstairs for the first few months, so that we could get the business up and running and open the gallery. The gallery was my whim. Mainly because everyone we met in town said, "Oh, we are so glad there will be another business on Main Street," and we didn't have the heart to tell them that our business of cutting picture mats was not one that the town could sustain - we would still depend on our Georgia, Florida and other out-of-state customers.

We did have a tenant, Sierra Springs, in the downstairs corner shop already in place when we moved in and they have remained with us all this time.

Here is a quote from my December, 2002, Christmas letter: "I have a vision for this town, as do many of the other residents. We see Andrews becoming a center for arts and artists and a destination point for tourists."

That hasn't happened yet, but we're still working toward it.