The Life of a Remodeler

I never thought I'd be this person. I never thought I'd pick an old fixer-upper to be my first house. When I dreamed of buying our first home, it was a vision full of clean, white walls, wonderfully neutral carpet, and a new kitchen with a dishwasher. A blank slate, ready and willing to offer me my first chance to truly design a space entirely my own.

So what am I doing holed up in a wood-paneled basement room of a house that looks like a tornado ripped through the entire upstairs, leaving tack-strip and wallpaper scraps in its wake?

I'd be lying if I said I hated every minute of this process so far. And truthfully, we've made a LOT of progress in the short week we've held the house keys in our hand. The ceilings are now beautifully white and popcorn-free. The walls are all painted the exact colors I wanted, with very little of the said paint actually covering wallpaper (I swore I wouldn't paint over wallpaper, but in the bedrooms, where there were three layers to peel off, the first one had BECOME part of the drywall. So we primed it and painted it and you'd never know).

And the floors...Ahhh the floors. The once famed shag-fest that was our entire first floor is no more. And I, always the pessimist, thought that we'd DEFINITELY have to sand and re-stain what we found underneath. But I couldn't be happier with what was unveiled. The narrow-planked original hardwood floors are in BEAUTIFUL condition. When we pulled the carpet back and saw what was underneath, I felt like I was on an old episode of Trading Spaces, and Jacob was my proverbial Vern Yip telling me we didn't have to do any more work on the floors. (It makes you wonder why people were always living with their nasty old carpets, when that was just waiting underneath). The stain is a little more orange than I would've picked, but when all they need is a once-over with the pliers to pull out the carpet staples and a little sprinkling of orange-glo, I am not going to complain about the color. Not when everything else in this house needs to be re-done.

But not everything has been so easy. The windows are all painted shut. Which we knew going in, but we didn't count on them being painted shut with literally 10 layers of paint from the past 50 years. We had to physically pry the entire bottom casing off of one window, just to access it to push up. And even then it took two people to push the thing so that a mere 3 inches worth of fresh air could come in and break up the paint fumes that were permeating the space. The furnace...don't get me started on the furnace. It didn't work the night we moved in. Someone, between the inspection and closing and cut the power to it. We had an electrician come out and fix it, yet here we are a week later, and it's not working again. That's the short story. I will not go further into detail. And I still can't decide if I want to gut my kitchen and completely re-do it (therefore completely using up the $8,000 tax credit we get for buying this "project" of a house), or if I want to live with it and spend the money on real grown-up furniture for once in my life.

The list is a mile and a half long; new carpet for the basement, new windows, a new toilet, new tile for the kitchen and bathroom (which by the way had mint green PLASTIC TILE on every wall AND in the shower surround. I've never even HEARD of plastic tiles.) etc. etc. etc.

But at the end of the day, there is a certain sense of pride that it all belongs to us. That we're allowed to paint the walls, replace the carpet and rip up whatever we want. I can put nail holes in the wall wherever I want and nobody can punish me for it. So, yes, I'm grateful. And I know I'll look back in a few months, or a year, or whenever we get everything done (does that ever happen? Anyone?) and be happy we did it. But right now, it's a little more than overwhelming. And I'm a lot more of a true remodeler than I ever dreamt I'd be.

I'll post pictures soon. Like when I actually get my desktop computer unpacked. :)