Lowering my expectations
This is going to be a very text-heavy post. Sorry...wait, no I'm not. I did warn you, after all.
Today, Young House Love (my absolute favorite DIY blog) did a post on DIYing vs. Living In Your Home & Enjoying It and I gotta say, this is exactly what I needed to read today.
Lately, I've been getting discouraged about the progress of the house. I know we've done a lot, but we still have SO much to do. It literally makes me tired just thinking about it. Like just now, I nodded off typing that sentence.
When James first got the keys to his house back on 9/9/11, we immediately started ripping things off the walls. I kid you not, as soon as I got off work that Friday, I distinctly remember ripping out most of the trim that evening. The carpet came out the next morning, as did the wood paneling in the living room. My parents came and spent the next week with us, drywalling the living room and helping to get James started on major projects like the master bathroom (which had a sagging subfloor and we were terrified someone would fall through). During that first week or two, we saw so much progress. I took so many pictures along the way during those first few weeks, too.
We had planned to re-do the kitchen before James moved in (he was still living in his downtown apartment). We knew that living with a ripped-up kitchen would not be pleasant, so that was one of our priorities. We made great progress right off the bat by ripping out the pantry to open up the space, laying ceramic tiles, and painting the walls. But then all the other projects started taking so much more time (and $$) than we expected (i.e. mudding and sanding the living room drywall took FOREVER. Word to the wise: if you can afford it, pay someone else to do any major drywall projects).
I was gung-ho about getting all the rooms painted before the hardwood floors were laid. I knew it would be much easier to paint if I didn't have to worry about protecting any surfaces. I did pretty well getting all the ceilings painted, but I only got about 40% of the walls painted before the floors arrived and needed to be installed. I started feeling the early signs of carpal tunnel in my wrists, so I had to basically cease all painting projects for a couple months.
James ended up moving into the house the first weekend in December. I had to scramble to clean out the kitchen cabinets (which we had planned on ripping out), scrub the paint out of the kitchen sink (which we had planned to replace so we weren't careful with it), and scrub/sanitize the kitchen counter (which still grosses us out to this day). He needed a place to unpack his boxes! So of course now that the cabinets were full, there was no way we were going to rip them all out and start a major kitchen reno...especially when we still hadn't finished the master bathroom.
To make a long story short, we seriously slowed down on the home improvement projects. Some of it had to do with the cold weather, because it was difficult to cut tiles on a wet saw when it was only 35 degrees outside. It was also difficult to properly ventilate for painting when it was so cold. Not to mention, we both have full-time jobs! We were TIRED after working all week, the last thing we wanted to do was work all evening and all weekend too. Also, I was spending too much in gas driving back and forth to James' house every day after work, and when he wasn't there to help me with projects (he works evenings), I started to lose my motivation to go all the way out to the house just to work by myself.
But I have to remember, John and Sherry Petersik (Young House Love) do this for a living!! Literally, they blog about fixing up their house and get paid to do it. They have enough sponsors, etc that they were able to quit their day jobs and do DIY full-time. And even their projects take quite a bit of time--I followed their kitchen reno (in real time) for months!! This statement from their post today struck me the most: In our first house we found that in the first few months after moving in (about a year before we started this blog) we felt rushed and put all of this unrealistic pressure on ourselves. And it sucked! We wanted our house to be completely made over in a matter of months and anytime someone was visiting we freaked out and tried to do ten things before they arrived, which left us feeling burned out at best and frustrated and deflated at worst (when we didn’t get everything done in time). The freeing thing was realizing that it takes years.
Wow...totally describes me and James. Or I guess I can only speak for myself...that's totally how I've been feeling! So thank you, John and Sherry, for sharing this today! James hasn't even had the house for a year yet, and look how far we've come (if you're still with me at this point, check out the House Tour page for progress pictures).
So bear with me. I might not post every day, simply because I might not work on a project every day, or even every other day. But we're working through it at our own pace and getting the house just how we like it. And hopefully someday I'll actually get to live in the house! ;-)
Today, Young House Love (my absolute favorite DIY blog) did a post on DIYing vs. Living In Your Home & Enjoying It and I gotta say, this is exactly what I needed to read today.
Lately, I've been getting discouraged about the progress of the house. I know we've done a lot, but we still have SO much to do. It literally makes me tired just thinking about it. Like just now, I nodded off typing that sentence.
When James first got the keys to his house back on 9/9/11, we immediately started ripping things off the walls. I kid you not, as soon as I got off work that Friday, I distinctly remember ripping out most of the trim that evening. The carpet came out the next morning, as did the wood paneling in the living room. My parents came and spent the next week with us, drywalling the living room and helping to get James started on major projects like the master bathroom (which had a sagging subfloor and we were terrified someone would fall through). During that first week or two, we saw so much progress. I took so many pictures along the way during those first few weeks, too.
We had planned to re-do the kitchen before James moved in (he was still living in his downtown apartment). We knew that living with a ripped-up kitchen would not be pleasant, so that was one of our priorities. We made great progress right off the bat by ripping out the pantry to open up the space, laying ceramic tiles, and painting the walls. But then all the other projects started taking so much more time (and $$) than we expected (i.e. mudding and sanding the living room drywall took FOREVER. Word to the wise: if you can afford it, pay someone else to do any major drywall projects).
I was gung-ho about getting all the rooms painted before the hardwood floors were laid. I knew it would be much easier to paint if I didn't have to worry about protecting any surfaces. I did pretty well getting all the ceilings painted, but I only got about 40% of the walls painted before the floors arrived and needed to be installed. I started feeling the early signs of carpal tunnel in my wrists, so I had to basically cease all painting projects for a couple months.
James ended up moving into the house the first weekend in December. I had to scramble to clean out the kitchen cabinets (which we had planned on ripping out), scrub the paint out of the kitchen sink (which we had planned to replace so we weren't careful with it), and scrub/sanitize the kitchen counter (which still grosses us out to this day). He needed a place to unpack his boxes! So of course now that the cabinets were full, there was no way we were going to rip them all out and start a major kitchen reno...especially when we still hadn't finished the master bathroom.
To make a long story short, we seriously slowed down on the home improvement projects. Some of it had to do with the cold weather, because it was difficult to cut tiles on a wet saw when it was only 35 degrees outside. It was also difficult to properly ventilate for painting when it was so cold. Not to mention, we both have full-time jobs! We were TIRED after working all week, the last thing we wanted to do was work all evening and all weekend too. Also, I was spending too much in gas driving back and forth to James' house every day after work, and when he wasn't there to help me with projects (he works evenings), I started to lose my motivation to go all the way out to the house just to work by myself.
But I have to remember, John and Sherry Petersik (Young House Love) do this for a living!! Literally, they blog about fixing up their house and get paid to do it. They have enough sponsors, etc that they were able to quit their day jobs and do DIY full-time. And even their projects take quite a bit of time--I followed their kitchen reno (in real time) for months!! This statement from their post today struck me the most: In our first house we found that in the first few months after moving in (about a year before we started this blog) we felt rushed and put all of this unrealistic pressure on ourselves. And it sucked! We wanted our house to be completely made over in a matter of months and anytime someone was visiting we freaked out and tried to do ten things before they arrived, which left us feeling burned out at best and frustrated and deflated at worst (when we didn’t get everything done in time). The freeing thing was realizing that it takes years.
Wow...totally describes me and James. Or I guess I can only speak for myself...that's totally how I've been feeling! So thank you, John and Sherry, for sharing this today! James hasn't even had the house for a year yet, and look how far we've come (if you're still with me at this point, check out the House Tour page for progress pictures).
So bear with me. I might not post every day, simply because I might not work on a project every day, or even every other day. But we're working through it at our own pace and getting the house just how we like it. And hopefully someday I'll actually get to live in the house! ;-)
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