Before renovating our house, I heard from several people that a house renovation was one of the most stressful things a marriage can go through.. and they were absolutely right. You have to deal with money, time management and PEOPLE. So, if you survive a house renovation together, you can pretty much survive anything. We dove into our home renovation project shortly after celebrating our first wedding anniversary. Even though we had been together as a couple for 7 years at that time, we were still figuring out budgeting and living completely on our own and together, so we knew it was going to be huge step for us as a married couple. And surely, as expected, it was a huge step for us. We had to make a number of important decisions together and overcome challenges that even though we knew would come with the house, were still daunting. In all honesty, it made us grow stronger and helped us feel like real adults (#adulting!). Most importantly, we enjoyed every single part of the renovation. The demolition, the designing, the shopping for light fixtures, everything. Now, obviously that won’t be the case for everyone going into a renovation, so I wanted to write this blog post to share advice we found helpful during this super stressful time.
Set a budget and talk about it
Before setting foot in the house you are going to renovate, there are certain things you should discuss with your partner. Budgeting. In the beginning we started with a pretty good budget. We talked about the priorities we had and the fact that this house was not our forever home, so spending a ton of money to customize it was not very smart. We would likely rent or sell it later, so we wanted to find a balance between making the house feel personalized, but suitable for future owners/tenants. With that in mind we made a list of things we needed to get done based on how the house looked (read more about our initial hassles here) and how much we wanted to spend on each of those things. We knew from the beginning we would likely take down a few walls, change the flooring and redo the entire kitchen. Furthermore, the kitchen was at the top of our priorities list. We knew it needed a lot of work and on top of that, we had a vision for how we wanted it to look, and making that happen was very important to us. Talking about your priorities in the beginning is crucial and will likely save you from many arguments with your other half. If having marble back splash is important to you, communicate that right away! But, also understand that you might not get what you want, if you’re being fair, your spouse will probably disagree on some things, or have different opinions (which is totally normal, we are human after all!). The trick is talking about anything budget related early on and before you start the process. This will for sure make the rest of the renovation run smoothly.
Respect each other
Have you ever spent an evening watching HGTV? You probably have a ton of ideas for what you want your house to look like, but does your partner feel the same? Maybe, maybe not. There were a lot of discussions about this when we started the process. I would have an idea that I thought was amazing, and then he would tell me why it wouldn’t work, we would discuss it, then move on. However, we always respected each other’s opinion. We made sure every decision was made unanimously. As I mentioned before, a house reno means having to deal with people and in our case, it was family, our contractor and everyone else that stepped foot in our house. Much like planning a wedding, the more you share with people, the more you realize everyone has an opinion and for the most part, they’re not afraid to share it. I wouldn’t say we had issues with this, but we did have a lot of suggestions thrown at us, which were discussed and handled appropriately. It helped to know that before anything we were always on each other’s side and were able to get through all the hiccups together.
Establish clear goals
Our goal in the beginning was pretty simple, let’s renovate this house and have it move-in ready by the time our apartment contract ends. We had about 5 months. What we didn’t factor in, though, was everything that would delay the process and have us living in our house without a kitchen for a month. True story. Another important goal we had was staying in our budget. Even though we had a pretty decent budget with room for emergency expenses, we didn’t realize how many of those there would be. Try getting rid of every single asbestos-filled wall in the house. That alone took 3x what we had in mind for hiccups. Once we went through with the abatement process (having a team of professionals remove every wall with a trace of asbestos), our house was all studs, which was the perfect opportunity to go ahead and get new plumbing, new electrical wiring and any other drastic change we wanted to make. On top of that we had foundation issues we needed to take care before doing anything else. Basically within weeks, we spent most of what we had budgeted for the entire project on what we originally thought would be hiccups. This meant revisiting our original budget and goals. We knew the house wouldn’t be completely done by the time we had to move in, but we knew we could at the very least make it livable (new goal) and continue working on it after moving in, like adding light fixtures, installing closets, and installing some of the doors. What I refused to wrap my head around, however, was the fact that the kitchen would not be ready in time for move in. We didn’t have enough resources to make it happen (aka money for more workers), and if we still wanted the nice counter top and marble back splash, it would have to wait. This hit me hard. I remember maybe a month before move-in day realizing my husband said something about changing the appointment day to 2 months from then for the delivery of our counter top slab, and thinking, he must be insane. I cried when he told me “Cynthia, the kitchen is not going to be done when we move in. I’m sorry but there is just no way”. I know I was being dramatic. So, the takeaway message from this is, create a budget and set your goals, but know what you will more than likely have to revisit them. Do it together and always respect one another, no matter how crazy you think they sound (you probably sound crazy too).
Assign tasks
I know I said we made every decision together, but dicing up the work has crucial for getting it all done in a somewhat timely manner. We didn’t necessarily sit down and assign tasks, it actually sort of came naturally. I was drawn to online shopping, so I did the browsing online for pretty much everything, light fixtures, cabinets, you name it. My husband was great at researching as well, but he would research the logistics of each little project. For example, we didn’t realize we had to tell our plumber to install the pipes under the bathroom sink a certain way so they fit the IKEA cabinets with drawers. I also loved drawing out my visions, so I was the one in charge of drawing out the floor plans (roughly). My husband would take care of measuring everything and making sure that what we wanted actually fit. He was also the one that communicated with everyone working on the house and made sure everything was running smoothly. I would suggest letting each other work on individual tasks without butting in. It avoids confusion and keeps everybody happy.
Honestly, I could go on and on about this house renovation. It took so much of our energy for most of 2017, but we were so happy we went through it. It brought us closer together and made us mature in a way I don’t think we would have experienced living in an apartment. If you have any questions or want any more advice, please drop a comment below! I hope this post was helpful!
Thank you so much for stopping by (and getting through this monster of a blog post)!
Love,
Cynthia Rojas
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