Oh mercy, you guys.

Wait until you see what we have been up to in the Schraufnagel life lately!

But you’re just gonna have to keep on waiting, because you have to see the list and the before pictures first. Then, piece by piece, I will post the reveal for you!

So here’s the scoop.

A couple of years ago, Ty had his American Family Insurance agency housed in a stand-alone building in a town about 10 minutes from our house. It was just what we needed for the time the agency was there. It was close to home, in a small town where he could get super connected and involved.

Then a few years later (about a year ago), we made a big leap of faith and moved the agency to another town the same distance away, but in the other direction. It was a huge move for us that took a lot of prayer and consideration. It seemed pretty clear that God was telling us that it was what we needed to do, so we did it. For the last year we have been so happy with the way things were going and the life the new space was affording us by giving us more time together and breathing room for our sanity.

So imagine our surprise when God made it pretty clear, through a series of events, it was time for us to move into a bigger space. It wasn’t a fun time in our lives at all. We were sad, confused, a little bit angry, and a lot bit surprised. Why would God ask us to upend our great situation from where we were before to move to a new place and finally let us right the ship from the craziness of moving just to rip it all apart again?

Despite our total shock and sadness, we decided to trust that God had something much better in store for us than what we had now. We started looking for a space with the faith that the space where we’d end up would be just the best there was.

And you know what’s funny? We found it. Right down the row from the space where we have been for the last year.

Ha!

God is funny, isn’t He?

It’s 13 suites down from the suite of his current office. We can walk our stuff from the old office to the new office.

But there were some things about this new office that weren’t quite up to par for operating an insurance agency.

Some walls needed to get knocked down, other walls needed to be built, the carpets needed to be cleaned, and the bathroom needed to be redone.

So without further ado…here is the Operation Escalones list of major projects for Ty’s new office!

So as you can see…there was a lot of work to be done. There is another list coming of finishing touches, but that’s another post all together.

Here was the catch. We technically only had two weeks before we needed to be out of one office, and into the new office.

Knowing that, did you just curl up in the fetal position looking at the list again? No? Yeah no, I didn’t either…..

Of course, God had another blessing in mind for us. We had some of our closest friends come to help us.

I’ll show you all of their handiwork as we unveil all the projects!

For now…here are all of the before pictures.

This is the view you got right when you walked in the door. Can you see that there is a doorbell by the door? I don’t get it either. Here’s what’s on the other side of the door…

Just a big, long, dark hallway. There are two offices and a conference room to the right of the hallway.

This is an office. And actually, the conference room is just a longer version of the offices.

This looks toward the back door. Around the corner of this little wall is the bathroom and where all the IT wires are.

But here’s the worst part of the office….the bugs. The office has been vacant for quite a while, and the bugs piled up!

If you look closely, you can see the bugs in this picture. All those little lumps on the floor…crickets and mouse poop. It’s like this and worse all over the office. It is so gross!

Can you see that we have our work cut out for us? Holy smokes!

Wait until you see what two weeks of HARD HARD work can do in an office!!

Stay tuned….