They Say to Live in it

Since purchasing our home, everyone we have come in contact with from homeowners to contractors has shared the same message- really live in it before making any decisions to renovate. This couldn’t have proved to be more true. Living in the home exposes all the cracks and lets you really get an understanding of all the annoyances and the overall flow of the rooms. Additionally, it may have you realize what you initially thought would bother you, no longer does. We have moved our couch 3 times since moving in. If we had kept our couch in the original spot we had planned, the reno to make it work would have entailed far more labor and cost than the idea we have come up with since. It is also important to really understand the short and long term goals for any renovations being considered, as many times decisions are made only to have to walk them back. For example, having the house painted and then deciding you are going to remove a wall or a door in our case(see above picture), hence paying for work to be done only to undo it and pay again. Now that our floors are complete, we have learned that our kitchen floors cannot be sanded and stained. This has changed the course for our family room floors. Thankfully, we had not worked on those floors or we would have had to walk back that job being they connect to the kitchen. We are taking everything one step at a time and this is proving to slow things down significantly, but it’s also easing the financial stress. I was hopeful to have the first floor renovations complete by Thanksgiving. I have now come to terms with the fact that this will not be the case and instead I have convinced myself to look on the bright side… everyone will see the before and after, and the after will be that much more remarkable, having seen what it was from the onset.