So, the holidays don’t just signal the most wonderful time of the year. This year, they also signify what I hope will be the end of the end of interior renovations. Truth be told, there are enough dribs and drabs that need to be completed and enough projects that will run consecutively that I’m not sure we will get them all done. But my hubby has 12 days off over the holidays and we are foregoing the five golden rings and partridge in a pear tree for baseboards, door trim and the last of the floorboards to go down.
This weekend, along with a big wrapping session with my sisters – we adopt 2-3 families each year for the holidays – we will also work on repairing drywall that got damaged in the floor installation, installing our new bedroom door and fixing the door in my office closet. Next weekend? Well, we’re off to the renovation races.
Honestly, I think we will make pretty decent progress here. Yes, it will be slow going and not nearly the instant gratification that comes with laying 100 sq. ft. of flooring in a day, but this is a little bit of a glory lap. When we get those remaining floorboards in, we can literally scratch “lay floors” off the list. Since the trim is all painted, it is a matter of cutting, nailing and touching up the paint. That means the project should fly and we can soon enough scratch “baseboards and trim” off the list.
And here’s the big thing this time: each time we finish a piece of the project, we are “done done.” We will likely never redo that part of the house again. I’ve even been super particular about paint colors so that we should not have to paint for at least a decade. Staying classic and timeless, the goal here is to finish and then simply enjoy both the house and the myriad of other activities one can enjoy when they’re not renovating.
As much as I am excited for the holidays this year, I’m excited about finishing these renovations, too. It really will be the closing of an entire chapter of work for us. We have done what I’d never advise anyone to do: gut-job renovate a house. From installing a new roof, siding, doors, insulation, geothermal, solar and landscaping outside to renovating a kitchen, two bathrooms, and tearing down two load-bearing walls inside. We have painted every wall, changed every single interior door in the house, added in a recycling closet, reconfigured our TV room and laundry/room pantry to make it more functional and installed a tongue-and-groove ceiling on our cathedral ceilings. We had locally harvested hardwood milled to install hardwood flooring throughout the house and we are systematically changing out all of the trim to create classic stacked crown moldings. Along the way, we had to fix structural issues with new posts in the basement, extending the fireplace brick surround and installing not one but two new staircases. These dregs will finish the project. (And yes, we still have our main bath to do but I just can’t face it right now.)
As much as the end of the holidays will signal the end of my favorite season and a return to work, I’m really looking forward to seeing just how far we get and what the finished project looks like on January 2nd. And if we really do get to a point where we can call the house done, I’m excited to see what weekends look like when we are not slaves to our house.
In all, it’s been a long slog. The renovations started the year we got married – a full decade ago. We obviously took breaks along the way and we committed to doing everything in cash, so we sometimes had to save for awhile for the big portions of the project. But we got here. As we’ve lived with a completed downstairs for a few years, it’s been everything I dreamed of. Getting a completed upstairs has the potential to be just as transformative. But mostly, the end of the renovations signals a change in lifestyle. Gone will be the jobsite table saw on the front deck, replaced by the deck furniture I got two years ago. Instead of the cedar chest in my office being full of tools, it can be refilled with seasonal linens. Each of our office closets can be returned to storage rather than a glorified tool shed. And finally, the piece de resistance, the coat closet on the first floor will actually hold coats – and not the rolling tool chest.
Today starts in earnest that final push. We created a list of things to do to get ready for the big push when we’re both off and can work everyday (except Christmas Eve and Christmas) on the house. It’s time to finish this blog post, make my Home Depot list and get crackin’. But watch this space on January 2nd… and let’s hope it’s a celebration!
The Yuppie Homesteader 