Bringing My BelAir Back to Life: Let the games begin!

Welcome to my newest project...and my oldest. Let me explain.
I say newest, because I recently finished restoring a 1966 Mustang with my son, Daniel, as his first car. You can check it out over at 1966mustangresto.blogspot.com.
I say oldest, because I've had my 1955 Chevrolet BelAir since 1988. We were living in Atlanta at the time when I purchased it, with the blessings of my wife of (then) three years, from the second owner, who had owned the car for the previous 25 years. It wasn't running, and had it's share of rust, but it was absolutely original and complete down to the last nut and bolt. After paying the asking price of $1500.00, I had it towed home.
The car arrived at our house on a Saturday afternoon. It was dumped in our driveway, and from there I rolled it down into the back yard. In my excitement and eagerness, I immediately began to disassemble it. That was my first--and biggest--mistake. Since I had no garage, or even a secure place to store parts, everything I removed went into buckets and then inside the car. It was quickly up on blocks, the wheels and other parts stashed underneath. The motor, which wasn't original, was pulled out along with the original cast iron Powerglide. Not having a place for it, and not mature or experienced enough to know better, I dug a hole and buried it in the back yard. Simple enough to get another motor and transmission, I thought.
After a month or two of this misguided frenzy, my excitement naturally waned. I was beginning a career, we were renovating our house, and then the ultimate deterrent came along. We had our first child.
We lived in that house for nine years, and for eight and a half of those years, the BelAir sat in the back yard, deteriorating. Trees blanketed it with leaves. The dogs tunneled underneath to escape the summer heat. Rats and roaches took up residence in the mildewy interior. Another child arrived, work became more demanding, other interests distracted me from my dream. The old Chevy became a fixture that was hardly noticed--at least by me. My wife, I'm sure, chafed silently at the rusting hulk in the back yard. A local guy stopped by once or twice a year asking to buy it. I always politely declined.
Just writing all of this down, with the wisdom of thirty years under my belt, makes me cringe with embarrassment and shame.
In 1996, we moved to a larger house with a two car garage. In spite of the pleadings of my wife, "Old Yeller" was dragged up onto a flatbed and transported to her new home. Finally, she was safe and dry, if nothing else.
During that time, I also bought and refurbished a '57 BelAir. With all of the persuasion I could muster, I presented the idea to my wife that this was such a good deal, and would afford me the opportunity to finally drive one of these classic icons of Americana. I still can't believe she gave in, and suddenly we were a two-clasic-Chevy family. The old '55 got pushed even further to the back burner.

On the dolly around 1999. The '57 is in the foreground

Two years later, with the arrival of our third child (Daniel), we made the decision that I would stay at home and care for the new baby, instead of another round of daycare. Since a newborn baby sleeps so much, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands, so I started pecking away at Old Yeller. Fenders came off. Interior came out. Parts were acid dipped, primed and painted. Finally, I realized that the car needed to come off of the frame, so I devised a homemade dolly to support the body while allowing me to detach and roll the frame out from beneath. I was finally making some serious headway!
I bought a larger compressor and a sandblasting pot. Each day, after Daniel was down for his morning nap, I would roll the frame out into the driveway and blast away. I applied etching primer and a good coat of chassis black the the bare metal. New suspension parts that had sat in boxes for years finally saw the light of day and were installed.
After many months, the chassis was rolling again on all four wheels, so I pushed it into the garage and off to the side, to turn my attention to the body. Finally, the rusted rockers and floorpans were cut away to be replaced with new metal. Again the sandblaster peeled the years of rust and paint away to reveal bare metal. More primer, and eventually even a coating of original color yellow on all of the areas that were repaired.
In 2000, we moved again, this time back to our home state of Florida. Of course, there was no way Old Yeller would be left behind, and in fact my criteria for our new home was that it have a three car garage so she could have her own bay. In the last month before our move, I worked like the devil to get the car to a point where I could reinstall it on the frame for transport. All of her parts and pieces were again stuffed inside for the trailer ride to the Sunshine state. As I rolled her off the trailer and into her new home, I just knew I would soon be back on the project again.
Life has a funny way of getting in the way of dreams. Another job, actually a career change, along with the Florida lifestyle of boating and beaches meant that the dream again faded to the background. The car sat in that third bay for four years, with the only contact being bicycles and building materials that were propped against her.
We made another move in 2004. This time to another house without a garage. With a little more wisdom under my belt, this time I rented a storage garage and stuffed Old Yeller in with all of our other stuff that normally resided in the garage. Out of sight, out of mind.
During this time, I purchased a small warehouse facility that I used to house our businesses along with a couple of tenants. When the end unit became vacant around 2007, I saw another opportunity to get my dream back on track, as well as saving the monthly storage charges. Another trip on the trailer for Old Yeller, and she was again stuffed back into the dark recesses of a garage.

Old Yeller trades places with a future project.

So we come to the present. Actually, 2013. My youngest son, Daniel, shared his dream of owning a classic Mustang as his first car. At first I was opposed to the idea, but upon discussion with his mom, who is also known as The Most Patient Woman On Earth, I agreed to go along with his dream, provided we find and restore a car from the ground up. The ulterior motive was to spark within me the desire to resume work on my own dream. We cleared out all of the extraneous junk out of the warehouse bay, set ourselves up with all the equipment needed to rebuild a car, and went to work. (See above) After two years, we actually finished his car and suddenly the space was open and ready for the next project. Which brings this story to the present.

All the old parts come out into the light

What I have on my hands right now is twenty eight years of dust, buckets and boxes of parts, some labelled but most not, and a very fuzzy memory of where everything goes. I'm confident all of the parts are still there, and I have my restoration guides and assembly manuals to refresh my memory, so I have hope. I also hope that this chronicle will inspire someone else to get to work on their own dream.
So it's time to get to work!