Tears Were Shed

Tears were shed. By me. Not for the first time during our project, but for the first time because of our project. And not due to frustration or anxiety, although I’ve felt plenty of those emotions as well.

In our latest project hurdle, we took the first steps of requesting a draw from our progressive mortgage provider. Having hustled and fanangled to get our mortgage approved in the first place, all the hard work on the financing front was now done, right?

Wrong. Good luck getting access to those funds when you need them. We’ve learned that a common problem is that a project’s first draw is likely to be insufficient. Bank appraisers apply a very standard formula for determining progress and hence the amount of the loan they will release. For instance, below grade work is often assessed at 11% of the total project value. So regardless of what you’ve actually spent to reach that point, they will only release 11% of the total loan amount. They also assign zero value to demolition, hazmat and deconstruction costs. So never mind all that careful upfront work. And never mind that we have also wrapped everything below grade in 6″ of insulation. This only adds to the discrepancy between the formula and the real world.

But even that is not the real kick in the pants. The most unpleasant complication is our discovery that the bank assigned a fairly high percentage of our project value to the existing structure. Remember that lovely little box that we ended up deconstructing and whose component parts are now piled up under tarps? Those parts are worth nothing in the bank’s eyes in their disassembled state. Less than nothing in fact.

It doesn’t matter that deconstructing and rebuilding is financially better for the project. Something about a hole in the ground makes banks really nervous about their investment risk. Until we’ve at least surpassed the point of construction that the bank thinks we started with – walls, roof, floors – we don’t even want their appraiser to see the project.

What this all means is that we have to effectively get to lock-up – walls, roofs, windows, doors all installed – before we even call the bank. Yet Interactive and their sub-trades have done a ton of work until now and it’s only fair that they be paid.

Nope, no tears yet. Just that ball of anxiety settling into my gut and haunting my early morning dreams while Matt and I ran through all the possible scenarios. One thing was clear: we needed to bridge a significant shortfall of cash in the very short-term. I had known, or at least suspected,  that we’d have a shortfall (it’s surprisingly hard to pin down all the little things like architect fees, city fees, legal fees etc), but I’d hoped we could push it to the very end and squeak by on our lines of credit.

Our options to bridge this shortfall included family loans, additional lines of credit (how many of these things can one person get anyway?), and high interest private loans. The latter would surely sink us and our project with minimum 10% interest plus several more percents in fees. A low-interest family or friend loan would be ideal but neither of us has immediate family or friends with such means. We’d have to branch out further. Matt bought a lottery ticket for good measure; then we assembled a small list and started making calls.

We all have patterning we’ve learned from childhood traumas big and small. Part of growing as an adult is recognizing and breaking those patterns. My learned assumption was that I couldn’t count on others, so I’d approached many past challenges in terms of what I could accomplish entirely on my own. I’d do everything I could to avoid finding myself in that vulnerable position of needing help – especially financial help.

I am learning. While I’ve long wanted to do a project like this, I wouldn’t have started without having Matt as a partner, supporting me, challenging me with his worst case scenarios, and making all the big decisions with me. It turns out I can solve almost any problem if I can talk it through with someone I trust.

Making those phone calls was extremely difficult for me. But I couldn’t let this project fail and we would get zero help if we didn’t ask. So when my extended family responded quickly and supportively (thanking me for the opportunity to help! Am I the only one who finds this exceptional?), I had to further dismantle those old beliefs that I don’t need help and that others won’t help.

Queue the tears. They were tears of gratitude, relief and hope and I couldn’t contain them. They just poured out. Yet another unexpected gift from our project. It’s given us an incredibly generous and engaged community, built friendships, and shown us what we can accomplish with the support of others. And it’s proven that when you aim a little bigger, it gets pretty hard to do it all on your own.

So…

Thank you! Thank you all!