Home Renovation, And Other Nightmares

I’m kidding with the title of this post…a little. 😉 As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve been in the middle of a total home renovation for years. I became a homeowner very suddenly at 19 when my mom passed away. The home needed a little bit of maintenance done to it, and we also embarked on a slew of improvements to make the home “Our own” and more usable for our needs – we need to install a driveway for our cars, for example. Because hiring contractors is way outside of our budget for most of these projects, most of this has been a DIY project. Fortunately for me, Jai is extremely handy and can fix or build just about anything, so that’s been a definite point in our favor! However, anyone who has embarked on a renovation themselves realize that it goes at a snail’s pace comparatively; between work and other life commitments, blocking out a whole day to tear out a wall or install new pipes is not always feasible. Add on top of this the fact that I’ve been clearing out and dealing with my mom’s estate simultaneously, and you’ve got a monster project, which is why I gave this post such a tongue-in-cheek title. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful just to have a home, but I am sure you can imagine the stress of becoming a teenage homeowner under very difficult circumstances and starting such a massive project.

I’m 28 now, and we’ve done so much to the home, but there’s still plenty left to do. I’ve lost a lot of time over the last two years with my debilitating health issues, so it’s frustrating to have lost momentum on so many fronts. Once I am back to 100% – hopefully by the end of this summer – I am chomping at the bit to pick up where I left off. Still, I have to remind myself how many vast changes we’ve made. We’ve built an entire deck, completely renovated every part of the bathoom, converted attic areas from crawlspace to lighted, usable storage areas, painted, built furniture and cabinets, fixed doors, doorframes, and windows, and done a million other little bits of maintenance that I can’t even begin to list – like fixing the furnace, for example. 😉

We’ve taken a ton of photos of the construction over the years, but I couldn’t seem to find some of the “Before and after” shots I took of the big projects, such as the deck and bathroom. So, here’s a few smaller examples:

This is a photo of some attic storage in 2008, mid-renovation. I climbed up to have a look (While eating potato chips, apparently!) and Jai came up with a camera to get some photos of the work he had done that day, so I ended up being a construction model. 😉 This crawlspace had previously been completely dark and hard to navigate or store items in – notice the large nails sticking out of the roof? You definitely didn’t want to snag yourself on one of those!

Here’s a photo of the construction as it progressed. As I recall, Jai stuck this bottle of A-1 sauce here for scale! You can already see a big difference – and now that it’s finished, we have smooth drywall on the walls, boards on the floors, and florescent lighting. This has opened up a huge storage area for us!

Our next big renovation will be the kitchen. It needs a new paint job and some repairs to the cabinets; we also want to add more counterspace, and a dishwasher. I have never owned a dishwasher in my life, so I am beyond excited at the idea of not needing to handwash every single dish – not to mention the space it will free up in the sink while I’m baking! I have extremely cramped counter space, and considering how much time I spend in the kitchen, it makes sense to invest in countertops and other improvements so that I can have more efficiency and enjoyment in my kitchen. We’ve already gotten a bit of a headstart on a portion of the kitchen remodel, as Jai has built several new cabinets to expand the storage space.

Are you working on any home renovations? Have you had those “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream Home” moments, too?