The Consequences of "To Do It Right..."

We bought a fixer upper house in December and expected to finish the remodel and move in by late January. And then the deadline was the end of February. And it is now nearing the end of April. And we are still not finished with the remodel nor are we moved in. (Photo of our house as we began the remodel-Aunt Chris (who spent a day of her Christmas Vacation helping us demolish walls) and I)

As I was thinking about how the last couple months have transpired, I finally pinned down--to the sentence--the idea that got us here. Here being, living at my parents' house with paint and spackle decorating my hands. The sentence begins with, "To do it right...." and it ends differently every time.

We planned from the beginning to paint our house and tear up the flooring. The house had been just entering foreclosure and the previous owners hadn't wanted to move. So the whole house smelled like an animal restroom. And we hoped it was animal waste. Thus, we knew we'd be sealing the walls and floor.

The upstairs bedrooms and the downstairs living room were both configured weirdly. Upstairs was a whole floor of five bedrooms, the size of walk in closets, all in a line, with entrance and exits doors into each other. Very strange. (Photo-In Technicolor, you can see some of the doors two of the doors on one of the upstairs rooms)

And downstairs the living room had a bump out wall into the master bedroom that wasn't big enough or useful for anything. Just existing. So....To do it right, we decided to move a couple walls. We'd turn upstairs into two large bedrooms and a storage room, and we push a wall into the living room and make the extra space into a master walk in closet. I was excited for this. I've never had a walk in closet and I admire them. (See the photo? We're tearing down the funky wall and getting ready to build a new straight wall for the closet (my husband Theron is scraping up three layers of glued on carpet and pad))

Downstairs the master bedroom had two full master bathrooms. The first opened a door into the second, which also had a door off the hallway. And just kitty corner from the second master bathroom was a half bath, that only opened from the other side--across from the front door. Um, the first front door. The second front door opened into the living room. Obviously, the previous owners loved doors. Since one of the front doors had been kicked in by the police, I can only interpret all these doors as being bolt holes. Emergency exits for people worried about being caught with nowhere to run. Their house reveals their psyche.

To Do It Right....we decided to make the half bath into a full bath, and change the second master bathroom (I laugh every time I write that) into a nursery/guest room. The small remodel to make it livable had changed into a gutting of large portions of the house.

And that is why, on April 25th, 2007, I sit at my parents' computer and ponder how I ended up living with my parents and sister for two months (so far), with five children and a husband, and most of our stuff piled up in the great room of our unfinished house.

To Do It Right... plus While We're At It, has got me here. Good thing the house is worth it to me!

Anyone else ever had remodeling woes?
~Valerie Harmon