Survival guide to a major home remodel.
About this time last year, Tim and I began considering adding onto our house. “It’s now or never,” I said, realizing that our growing kids would make far better use of an expanded home before they start trickling off to college in a few short years.
We’d tossed around the idea for years, but had laid it aside due to our strong aversion to debt. But, having paid off our rental property last year, we felt a bit more secure in our finances. And, we wanted our kids to enjoy time with their friends at our house without us breathing down their necks (or relegating ourselves to the upstairs bedrooms).
Sure, we toyed with the idea of purchasing a larger home close by, but, wouldn’t you know it, at the time there was only one home available for sale in our neighborhood (of over 1000 homes). Plus, we LOVE our view of the foothills, our neighbors (and the fact that we don’t have any backyard ones), and our proximity to schools, church and work. We decided to shop around for general contractors and draw up plans.
Fast forward to April, we’d picked a contractor, designed a 700 square foot two-story addition and were prepared to break ground in May. With the goal of being done by mid-August. At the latest.
Well, it’s now late September and we have been walking around on sub-floors for almost two months. We lack a working kitchen sink. We need siding and a roof. And maybe a mental health evaluation.
While I am in the throes of the remodel, I figured I’d mention a few ways in which we’ve coped and things I would have done differently, had I known what I was getting into:
1. Get used to the fact that your home is no longer yours. It is a construction zone.
Strange people will walk in and out of your house whenever they darn well please. They will ask you important questions as you are walking out the door, late for an appointment. They will use your brooms, your footstools, your toilet (when your contractor forgets to order the porta-potty), your fridge. They may act polite when you are around, but they don’t really care about your living space. Repeat to yourself: this is no longer my home.
This is our backyard while we were gone on a trip. Blatant disregard for the condition of our lawn.
2. Take the projected completion date and bump it out at least double the time.
We were told it would take two months. It’s been four (and we’re still waiting). Then take your projected budget and add 25%. There are many working parts in a home remodel and any no-shows, sick days or mistakes screw up the schedule more than you can imagine. I cannot tell you how many times we have had to reschedule our hardwood installation because we did not want contractors walking around on our newly-installed (not to mention, expensive) hardwood floors.
3. Prepare for an emotional roller-coaster.
Over a week ago, the fabricator came to install our new countertops. I was over the moon excited. We soon discovered that we had not adequately communicated that we wanted to replace our wooden supports with metal ones. He could order them and finish installation the following Wednesday. My excitement was again squashed when I realized that our contractor had not scheduled our plumber to install the new faucet. And still hasn’t. Nine days and counting. Stuff like this happens over and over again.
4. Pretend you are living in a different country. Or century.
For seven weeks, we’ve been walking around on sub-floors. It almost seems pointless to sweep, but we do. Jack and I have done a few loads of dishes in the bathroom sink. We started using the bathtub this morning, for the sake of efficiency. When I find myself complaining, I remind myself that there are places in the world where dirt floors and no running water are a daily reality. And that makes me grateful and able to push through the inconvenience of life without simple pleasures we often take for granted. Like home-cooked meals.
Which leads me to another point.
5. Work some money into your budget for eating out/healthy freezer meals.
I cannot overemphasize how unmotivated I am to whip up a healthy meal for my family without a working dishwasher and kitchen sink. If it had been two days, we would have easily managed. But now that we’re going on ten days, we’re feeling the effects of cold cereal for breakfast and frozen meals for dinner. We’ve gone from 3-5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day to 1 or 2. It’s not particularly good for the psyche to fuel your body with junk. So do yourself a favor, and plan on splurging on eating out (healthy).
6. You may be tempted to leave the house (or maybe even skip town) until the horrors die down. Don’t.
We had a three-week vacation planned during some of the louder/messier stages of construction. We thought we were dodging a bullet and hoped to come home to a transformation. To the contrary, we arrived home to find that we still had no walls or insulation. We had no electricity upstairs. Our windows had been installed only days before (meaning that our entire house had been exposed to the elements for two weeks between demolition of our exterior walls/windows and installation of new ones. We half expected to find critters nesting in all corners of the house. Or better yet, squatters in our attic.
Tim remarked that it’s a good thing we don’t have anything of real value because it could easily have been stolen while we were gone. Add to that the fact that our builders had made themselves at home while we were gone, using our toilets, leaving trash on the counters, and stashing food in my recently emptied and cleaned fridge(which we had cleaned out in hopes that the hardwood would be installed while we were gone). Instead of our back doors being installed – there was a piece of plywood nailed up (with a gaping hole almost a foot wide in one corner). It really was that bad. As I said before, the contractors don’t really care about your house. If you do (and I assume you do), you would be wise to spend as much time hovering as you possibly can.
This is what our downstairs looked like when we arrived home from our trip. I about started crying.
This was the “inside” of our house. I had our neighbor take pictures daily so we could stay abreast of the changes (and have a record). I didn’t bother to show them to Tim. Would’ve ruined the trip for him.
7. Designate space in your home as a “safe haven”.
We lost use of half of our downstairs living space and half of our upstairs living space. Our garage has become a storage area for furniture building materials and tools. Our master bathroom contains everything we emptied from the upstairs bedrooms.
The toddler’s been sleeping in our master closet.
We haven’t had a door to our bedroom for four months. But, our girls do. And two of our downstairs rooms are relatively unaffected, so we moved our couches and TV into those rooms so we can still have some semblance of a gathering space. And our girls can find peace and quiet in their bedrooms. So there’s that. You are going to feel cramped, but you can mitigate that by making the remaining spaces in your home livable.
8. Procrastination will become your friend.
Every time my kids ask me when something is going to happen, I simply reply, “When the addition is done.” End of story. “Mom, when can we buy new school clothes?” (When we have space to store them…after the addition.) “When can I have friends over?” (When our home isn’t a collection of hazards…after the addition.) “When will we go for a family bike ride?” (When the builders get their stuff out of our garage so we can access our bikes again…after the addition.) “When are you going to make dinner again?” (When we don’t have to wash dishes in the bathtub…after the addition.)
The answer will always be the same. Because I did a lousy job anticipating all the ways in which this remodel would put our family out, as well as how much time it would take, I can justify answering them (in a most exasperated tone) in this manner. It would be funny, if it weren’t so frustrating.
9. The dust.
Oh, the dust. It will be everywhere. You’ll get so tired of cleaning just to have it look equally dirty the next day (sometimes the next hour) that you might throw in the towel. I pretty much have. I’m tired of spinning my wheels. So, with the exception of my food prep areas, and, for the most part, my “safe havens”, I have relegated myself to living in filth.
10. A little bit of gratitude goes a long way.
I might be sick of my sub-floors, but I can appreciate that the gaping hole left in my backyard fence allows me plenty of wildlife viewing. I might be getting weary of parking in my driveway, but at least I have one. I might not love washing dishes in my bathtub, but I’m grateful that Jack happily joins me for the occasion. Living in an industrialized country spoils us rotten. Deprivation can be the antidote to our sense of entitlement. And gratitude is what develops if we allow it.
It’s easy to see that home remodels are not for the faint of heart. If you’re prone to dust allergies, are finicky about cleanliness, have an aversion to noise, dislike interruptions, have perfectionistic tendencies, lack patience, or are super stingy when it comes to budgets, just don’t. I thought I was strong. But it turns out I’m not. Ask me in a year how I feel about it all.