Renovations, It’s not easy- but it’s worth it!

Renovations have officially begun! We started by fixing some of the structural issues of the house. So far, we have had the sag in the support beams under the house and sag in the roof fixed! Along with all new shingles!

Check out that super flat roof with beautiful non brown shingles! Just looking at it makes me happy. (Please ignore the rest of the mess- this roof is our beautiful thing in our otherwise messy renovation world!)

To get to this point our contractor had to go under the house and add beams next to our existing beams because they were beginning to sag. (The beams on the right is the old sagging beams- the new beams are on the left). It’s amazing- we have doors that now close in our house that haven’t closed properly since we moved in 5 years ago!

At first our contractor thought our roof would be an easy fix, but once they got started they realized the roof was much worse than they thought! We were off of center by over 5 inches! In order to get it back correctly they had to jack the ceiling up from the inside- literally a car jack was holding up the ceiling. I came home from work one day to see poles holding up our ceiling.

If you look closely at the picture below you can actually see through our roof!

(Pardon the pile of boxes in the background)

This is what it looked like from the outside at that point and we were praying it wouldn’t rain!

Because of the severe sag, they had to screw the sheetrock to the roof in order to keep the it from falling to the floor. They had to add over 2000 screws to hold it up! Our house is covered in drywall dust but we were able to put on a brand new roof and fix the sag! (of course we had to almost double the roof budget)

Already this renovation has been tough mentally. Most of our stuff is packed in boxes so things like cooking and relaxing have become virtually impossible. I kept out one pot, a few dishes and cups. We sold our sofa and our kitchen table has been packed up to go into storage. We are also trying to manage a tight budget to get everything done. In addition to the stresses of everyday life, we’ve started having to make design choices for the future. John and I have learned that we pretty much have opposite design opinions on almost everything.

When I say almost opposite, I mean we have disagreed on shingle color, kitchen layout, bathroom cabinets, windows vs. doors and even the furniture that we should keep to put in our future bedroom.

Our first disagreement was on which type of front door to go with, and went much like the ones that followed it. John wanted one with a little bit of glass, while I wanted one with mostly glass. After a few days, and a LOT of discussions, we finally compromised on one that was a little bit of both! I like how much light it lets in, and John is happy that it’s not a full glass door. We can’t wait for it to get here and be installed!

The gigantic book of doors!

I have learned a few lessons about renovations already though- as well as our relationship. We’re going have a lot more decisions to make about both the house and our wedding next year- and even though we have opposite ideas, we’ve learned to listen to the others opinions and try to find a compromise! Living through a renovation certainly isn’t going to be easy. But it’s going to be worth it! (Kai and Naeco are adjusting to the changes in our house- and loving each other more because of it!)