House renovations not only feel like a bomb went off in your home but a bomb went off in your head too. It’s like the Hunger Games in a relationship. Good luck, may the strongest couple win…Â
long time no talk (unless you’ve been following along on the ol’insta stories).
Even then, I haven’t been keeping up as often as I used to (Sorry bout it?). So let me bring you up to date on everything and all that is Veronica & her shenanigans…
We moved into our home last April which is now, 7 months ago! We’re still knee deep in renovations. Surprised? I’m not! Who am I kidding…yes I am… I mean I was hoping we would’ve been done by now (epic wishful thinking on my part). Things have moved slowly since April.
It’s to be expected I suppose, I hadn’t really spent any consecutive time at home before June. Once I got back, I was exhausted and didn’t feel like taking on any huge projects. I’d worked full time on set for over 10 months followed by months on end of travelling. I was craving some stand-still time. I wanted to enjoy my summer and not be a slave to home renovations. In lieu of my laziness we chipped away at projects only on weekends. At first, my boyfriend was the one trying to kick me in the ass to buckle down and get the work done. Fast forward 4 months later – here I am, getting impatient so I’m doing the kicking of the ass…
Going into this, I kept saying that I’d be fine gutting a place to its bones – that I’d done this kind of thing before and the mess didn’t scare me. Which is fact, but what I’d ignored was my need to have a home – a sanctuary – a safe haven. I didn’t realize a gutted house meant a gutted sanctuary. Going into this, I also kept saying ; I need a place to call home. So I’m not sure what I was expecting… maybe I expected things to magically get done on their own, or somehow still have a livable space in the midst of dust and chaos?! How could I’ve missed this? I am not sure…
Everything happened so fast, we’d been casually house hunting for a few months when we discovered what would be our future home. We didn’t think too much of it until the idea of owning it slowly crept in. In fact, at first the house gave me a weird vibe. Something didn’t flow but I was determined to find out what… We agreed to go for a second viewing, at this point we were already talking about our demolition plans. Next thing you know; we put in an offer, we negotiated and closed — It’s ours!
We knew right away we wanted to update the two upstairs bathrooms (they haven’t been touched since the 70′s). Painting was a non-negotiable. We also played with the idea of blowing out the entrance wall to open the space up. Also, the mudroom slash laundry room could use a face-lift. The master bedroom lacked closet space and bathroom space. Needless to say, we had to get creative with the designs to maximize every inch of this place and I’d be lying if I said we had it all figured out. You get the point; the list of projects is never ending.
We tackled the main living areas first. While I was away my boyfriend started by removing the popcorn ceiling in the main living room. This was our first setback. It took weeks to properly remove it all, then, weeks to properly sand & paint. Soon after we decided to demolish the entrance wall (best decision ever). Later we painted the whole main floor… Never underestimate how much painting can do to a space – also, never underestimate how long painting with a roller can take…
Now that we were knee deep in our reno’s, we decided to make our lives even harder by redoing the floors in all main living spaces; main living room, kitchen and TV room.Â
The current floor is acacia hardwood flooring. A color that is now outdated, with plank sizes that are also outdated. The lower TV room is covered in a light beige carpet but also has a backyard access. Oh & the hardwood? Scratched to shit. There isn’t one ounce of flooring that isn’t damaged. So here were my thoughts; Why have carpet in a room where you’d be accessing the outside from? If our floors are already damaged & outdated how would that affect us in the long run, for resale value? So first, I tried to match the TV room floor to the acacia wood… Once we started digging to find a matching floor we quickly realized we were most likely never going to be able to match it. Like a salesman once told me “you’re chasing a leprechaun”. Cool cool cool cool…So cool. It would never be a perfect match, in other words — it would be noticeably different. Uh, No. I’m not okay with that. There’s nothing more frustrating and disorienting than walking into a home that lacks cohesiveness. We toyed with the idea of sanding and restaining, until we found out it would cost more than replacing the whole floor.
Thanks to my Design firm, I’ve got access to flooring I otherwise wouldn’t have found on my own. I was suggested an alternative type of flooring that is in theory a Vinyl plank, but in reality, is its own type called SPC flooring (stone plastic composite). It looks and feels like wood. It has no expansion or contraction since its made of stone & plastic. It’s waterproof and highly scratch resistant. This sounds like the perfect floor for a home that would resell to a young family with tons of kids and dogs that may ruin a beautiful hardwood. Want proof? come over and look at ours.
The tricky thing about this flooring is that the planks are quite thin. It offers little to no flexibility, so your subfloor needs to be leveled near perfect to prevent any cracking… In a high-rise or newer house this is easier to accomplish. In a 70′s home where the foundation can and most probably is uneven, not so much. Our challenge was to find the right installer who knew this floor, who’s worked with it before and who understands the leveling specs. We interviewed 3 or 4 installers, one of which was convinced he could not only match our existing floor (ya! right!) but could also sand and restain it a different color. Which fyi, I’d been repeatedly told would be close to impossible to do with acacia…?!… A risk I wasn’t necessarily willing to take. Especially if it’d cost more than installing a brand new – scratch resistant – waterproof flooring! The other installers came in really confident about having worked with the floor before until I started asking questions… Slowly they started hesitating & pulled back from wanting to level our floor. I lost interest in hiring them 1- I couldn’t understand the words that were coming out of their mouths and 2- if there was any chance that they were talking themselves up only to make a quick buck, when in reality they know jack squat about this floor & risk damaging it – That’s gonna be a hard no from me… At this point I was losing interest in the whole ordeal. Let’s keep our damaged floors and move on! Losing hope over here! Just let me buy a couch already!
Let’s back up for a second… All the while this is happening, keep in mind, our house is not furnished. Decorations (the ones we have) are put away. Walls are bare, clothes aren’t put away. It’s a total dissaray. Well maybe dissaray isn’t the right word, but it’s a tiny shit show & it’s getting old.
We couldn’t do anything else until the floor situation was dealt with. Finishing the second coat of paint is now on hold, since installing the floors might damage the walls, we might have to repaint everything anyway. You wouldn’t catch me repainting 1200 sq ft with rollers A THIRD TIME! No way Jose.
Since everything else was on hold. I wanted to start the master bedroom project right away instead of waiting until spring like we’d originally planned. Let’s at least get one room over with, my gosh! So we decided to take the closet project head on and not look back. Our plan was to finish it the weekend we started. Wrong! say hello to our second setback. We are now 3 weeks later and we’re still working on the bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, we got 75% done on that weekend, but we encountered technical difficulties that have lingered since then, including the purge of my closet and organizing it all… this is a project in itself. One that may or may not take just as long as painting a whole house by hand…
The room is essentially done, I’m hoping we can officially wipe our hands clean from the renovations of this bedroom by this weekend and get started on the decorations!Â
They say you find what you’re looking for when you stop looking — once we stopped looking for floor installers, we finally got a hold of the supplier who’d recommended someone they’d worked with before. Hallelujah! He was easy to communicate with & he agreed to come over that weekend to give us an estimate. I tried not to get my hopes up, for all I knew we may have invited an overrated installer into our house just to tease ourselves…
Once we met, it was clear we all got along great. He’s clearly worked with the floor before and I knew this because he answered questions I didn’t even get a chance to ask. He knew the specs and explained the process without being dodgy. That’s our guy, I don’t care how much he costs hire the guy! We all know my boyfriend put a stop to that real quick — we stick to the budget, he said. So here I was, crossing my fingers to death. He sent us his estimate the next day and it was within our budget!
YUUSSSSS!!! We finally found our guy, This is so exciting!
We have a bit of prep work to do before they come to install, but for the first time in months it feels like the work we’re doing is going somewhere! Floors will be installed by the first week of December!
The best news of all; phase 1 is almost complete! That’s right, we decided to do our renovations in phases. Because we need a break y’all! We will hibernate through winter and get back to it in spring…We will focus on the fun stuff over the winter, like beautifying our home. The rest of the renovations like the mudroom and bathrooms can thankfully be quarantined so we don’t have to look or live in a hot mess for months on end!
Home stretch folks! One more month and we can relax for a while.
We have a few fun trips planned over the holidays. We booked a mini getaway in a cabin on Galiano Island, at Bodega Cove, at the end of December (board games for days!). Saying we’re excited is an understatement. We will be hosting a House warming holiday cocktail party right before new years, then, we will head to Victoria to ring in the new year in style! We’ve got a good few months ahead & I’m damn well looking forward to it!
We shed blood, sweat & tears over the last 7 months. I’m not lying when I say it’s been a process, (now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel) I can finally start to appreciate the journey!Â
I’ll keep you posted on all the progress, dontcha worry!
Notes to remember from a fellow renovator to you:
* If you’re doing major renovations or are thinking of renovating - try to do it before you move in. Renovations are stressful enough as it is, there’s no need to add stress by living in the mess. So if you can avoid it, I recommend it.
* Renovating can and most probably will stress you out – healthy lifestyle habits like eating properly, exercising and proper sleep patterns will do wonders. Don’t give up on yourself.
* Try to remember that it’s temporary and keep in mind things will get worse before they get better (yes you read that right... It’s something I somehow didn’t realize). It’s only part of the process. Keep your eye on the prize! If you’re having trouble visualizing it with the walls gutted, create a vision board and put it up in a space where you can see it clearly and daily.
* If things get too intense, walk away from it and go do something that will reward you emotionally. Self-Care is knowing when to walk away.Â
* When taking on a renovation project as a couple, it’s an added pressure to the relationship. Relationships are already a lot of work as it is; worrying about work - day to day responsibilities - and having to take care of your family life (if you have kids). Adding renovations to the mix can make you feel overwhelmed. Your schedules will be overflowing with To Do lists – but remember that romance also needs to be a priority. Date nights & relationship time needs to be allocated. Set aside some time to focus on watering the relationship. You’ll need it. Don’t let the To Do lists come between you two. The lists will always be there, time together is precious.
* most of all – try and have fun! (taking my own advice on this one!)
Until then
Ctrl+Shift+ ESCAPE but Stay tuned for a closet reveal :)