We finished a house this week. It all started a year ago with countless ideas and hours of planning, never-ending discussions and meetings. There were days when the thought of completing this projected seemed far away, but this week it finally all came together. The end of a project is my favorite part of building a house. I love it all, I am one of those crazy people who is excited to go to work every day and hardly can stop thinking about it when I am suppose to be off. I am lucky. I love everything about my job, but the end of a project is extra special. All those thoughts and ideas all start to come together at once, and suddenly there is this transformation that goes from “construction” to “completion”. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t easy or as fast as it sounds…it is endlessly long days and hours of work…but it is wonderful and exciting and so rewarding.

This week I stood inside the house as our clients drove up. I watched them get out and jump up and down with excitement; I saw their emotion and felt their joy when they saw the finished product for the first time. I felt my eyes burn with happiness, felt a lump in my throat when we had a group hug in the kitchen and everyone tried to talk at once. How proud I am to be part of this, how proud I am of the people I work with. We build houses, it’s what we do…but it is so much more. It is hard to find the right words to explain it, but such an awesome and rewarding feeling. Building a house, as cliché as it might sound, is making people’s dreams come to life, and what better feeling is there?

And a couple days later I am a little bit sad…sad that everything we were working for is completed. Of course, I have many more homes to work on and look forward to, but each one is special in it’s own way. Our homes are not just projects we check off a list, and our clients are much more than people we work for…they become life long friends and people we choose to spend our free time with long after we close the door.

I have an awesome job. Did I say how lucky I am?