Teaching and Coaching and Coping - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 5

My Contractor/Family Man Standoff - Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 4 (January 30, 2026)

People have been really great about listening to my simple explanation: that this blog was the catalyst leading to my time on TV. However, I realize some have found this hard to swallow, as if I’m not telling them the whole story, which is accurate. I don’t think most people really want to hear all that much, recognizing that they’re being polite to ask, but appreciate being spared on the nuts-and-bolts play-by-play. However, some really want to know more, so they can chart their own course or maybe simply feel more satisfied with what they know of my story. So, for those after added background, I am laying out some of my history as I sort through it.

Into my new role as husband, father, and stepfather, I realized my schedule was less forgiving. I made adjustments, hitting pause on new clients. Instead, I focused on projects where I was owner and GC, so I could work and step away as my wife and I tag teamed childcare duties. In the five years after getting married, I designed and built a home to sell and renovated three rundown houses and an outbuilding. The economy was neck deep in the recession when I closed out my last two properties in Charleston, and I felt thankful to break even on both.

More than life being a little different, my career of renovating houses was on life support. During this time transitioning from full-time contractor and renovator to family man, I started this blog. People had steadily asked me how I approached my renovations, and I discovered that as much as I enjoyed answering questions, giving advice, I also really liked writing about it. Sharing my written thoughts was way outside my comfort zone and ended up being a nice rush. I wasn’t strategizing or thinking too hard about what I was doing or where the blog might lead, nor did I have an editor or co-hort. My wife was my proofreader and cheerleader, but that was the extent of my blog team. And when I hit the button on that first post, I was in full-fledged denial; the writing was in the first person, present tense as if I was still living within my rehabber lifestyle.

Although this blog has been a way to inspire and educate others, I suppose in a sense I was using it to relive some of those glory days getting smaller in my rearview mirror. I loved my family, and the new life that it created for me, but at the same time I really missed the one I’d had. On top of this, I was disappointed with myself for not being more ready to navigate through the stumps of this husband/fatherhood season. My optimism had bitten me badly and I held fear of losing that too.   

More than being intentionally disingenuous with readers, or potential house sellers I wanted to sit down with, I was being dishonest with myself. My renovating mojo had not disappeared in the blink of an eye, but had lifted up, faded away like an early morning fog; there for a long while before being suddenly gone.

I can speculate that this delivery of my thoughts, feelings, and experiences, though inadvertent and unintended, misled people. And as this was happening, I was simultaneously fooling myself with thoughts of getting back to a substantial part of that way of earning a living after my daughter started school. I was ignorant to think so definitively that it would work out that way. I suppose it could have. It just wasn't meant to be.

Blogging helped me cope, doing a work around on my own ego and identity while struggling to learn how to adequately be there for my family. Simply, yet candidly stated, I failed to confront and adjust to my new reality as quickly as I should have, leading to a writing perspective that was off the mark.

(Response to TV Show Viewers: Post 6 - Coming Soon)