Our first and last remodel job was a little one bedroom, one bathroom single story house built in the 50’s. It was in a quiet neighborhood near schools and, my mom and dad owned it. That was a big plus because my husband and I could buy with ideal terms and zero down payment. We turned that house into a three bedroom home with a daylight basement and turned ourselves grey doing it.

Phase one was the planning. My husband was an engineer and had built a couple of houses before we were married, so that was his job. After that came the fun part: demolition. I love doing that. All your frustrations with city hall, the cop that gave you a ticket because you were the only driver he could catch, misbehaved kids, etc. etc. can be relieved with the help of a hammers, pinch bar, pry, and sledge hammer.

Once the house was gutted, we discovered it needed to be completely re-plumbed and rewired. No big thing, but it added an expense we hadn’t planned on. We didn’t have a lot of money and didn’t want to borrow, so we decided to buy the materials we could afford on a paycheck to paycheck basis. I set up an account with the local lumber yard and we were off and running.

Things moved along fast in the beginning. We were full of enthusiasm and fresh energy. I would work on it from 8:00 A.M. until 4:00. I would throw something on for dinner so that as soon as my hubby came home we could eat and get back at it until 11:30 or 12:00. Oh and did I mention, we had an infant to care for and another on the way when we started the project. As soon as the house was livable, we moved in. We needed the extra space; we now had two kids in diapers. That single wide, one bedroom trailer we were living in just didn’t cut it.

That turned out to be a mistake we would regret. It gives meaning to the word stress to build around yourself; at least it did for us… There was no reprieve; no restful place where we weren’t looking at plumbing parts, 2X4’s, coils of wire, etc. We learned a lesson and vowed never again to move into a place until it was finished.

Our eight to midnight schedule went on for weeks, but at some point the project started to drag. It didn’t help that costs were going up faster than wages. It also didn’t help that every wall was a parallelogram, the studs were petrified, and nothing was level. All this slowed progress. But the biggest problem was we were burning out.

However, we noticed that on the rare occasions when we took a week-end to visit my folks, we would return on Sunday night refreshed and ready to go. So that’s what we did; every month we would go somewhere for the week-end (somewhere cheap). During the summer we went camping. During the winter we would visit with our folks. They were tickled to have us because it gave them a chance to see the kids.

Once the project was done, we decided we would never undertake a major remodel again. New paint, carpets, appliances, maybe tear out a wall or add an alcove, but not the gut and rebuild. It takes too long. Besides, your kids always have sawdust in their hair and glue on their shoes.