There was the first one, which needed a few coats of paint that we did ourselves to much self-approbation. We hired someone to replace the shower, added a closet system and wainscoting to the hall bathroom. Look at us! So cute with our tiny little handyman projects. Babies.
Then came the next: an older home that had great bones and awesome details, and needed just a few coats of paint and replaced outlets and covers. We replaced some appliances, had some custom cabinets built, and again my husband replaced a few light fixtures. We only lived there a year, and it was great.
Then came the foreclosure we bought the year before the housing market crashed. The house that we didn’t plan on living in for more than a year, but ended up staying in for eight. We had a toddler and a new baby and this house needed everything, including a priest because it looked like someone sacrificed pigeons there.
So we did what any normal, sane mid-twenties parents of babies should do: we renovated that house on our own. To be fair, my husband did most of it; I was nursing and wiping butts. But still … we did EVERYthing. Tore down walls, replaced doors, ripped down wallpaper, installed all new lighting and appliances, pulled up bushes, repainted the entire exterior, jackhammered flooring, built an entire stand up shower, re-tiled a bathroom, painted every surface and on and on and on. My husband is a pro at adding recessed can lights, replacing hideous cream colored electrical outlets, re-wiring garbage disposals and repairing sheetrock. And even though we lived there for eight years, and it went from Homicide Domicile to a cute home, that house was always in the middle of being renovated. It was never done.
Not Quite a Fixer Upper
So, I cannot tell you how happy I was to buy a house this year that felt move-in ready. Sure, there were things that the last owners left that we would want to change, but we weren’t getting stuck in Murder House Part Deux. So we moved in, changed some light fixtures, updated all the knobs and hinges, got a new roof and sat back to enjoy our house.
Until we remembered: we hate our kitchen. A remnant of the mid-90s, the kitchen has grey-green tile floors, maple cabinets and white laminate countertops that have seen much better days. We made the promise to update it Joanna Gaines-style before the anniversary of our move-in date.
How is The Chipper so chipper?
When you watch two seasons of Fixer Upper, fall in love with the Gaines and get inspired to do a few cased openings and purchase shiplap for far more than some planks of wood are really worth, no one tells you that the Chipper and Jojo are able to do all that because NO ONE IS CURRENTLY LIVING IN THOSE HOMES. You cannot update your kitchen and keep a smile on your face while still habitating a space that looks like something out of a mine-shaft disaster movie.
Actual gif of my husband last night at dinner
Related: TN Fixer Upper Drinking Game
The Gaines look adorable and happy because their own home is cute and … effing FINISHED. I’ve no doubt that when The Farmhouse™ was under construction, Joanna went through a little bit of this as well.
Justifiable Homicide: My Husband is Renovating Our Kitchen
First, there was the wine
There’s that first moment of decision when the weeks and months of discussion about what you want to do to the kitchen turns into action. As a wife, you get excited. You’ve armed yourself with paint chips and maybe a measuring tape. You’re pulling out hunks of granite that the guy from Stone Warehouse let you take home (“As many as you can carry, lady!” turned out to be two because granite is heavy and sharp and you couldn’t risk a tear in your Shakespeare & Co canvas tote bag).
But your husband has immediate plans to decimate your very existence. He starts pulling the crown molding off the upper cabinet y’all have decided is coming down before you’ve taken all the wine out of it. Strike one. How dare he endanger the wine.
He has no concept of safety
So you managed to stop him long enough to salvage the important stuff and the deviled egg platter that you forgot you put in there. But then he starts just ripping sh*t up like you weren’t about to have a piece of avocado toast and some string cheese. The wine made you hungry. However, he decided the marked-for-demolition cabinets had to actually come OUT of the kitchen right away, but despite the urgency, he doesn’t even make the time to PUT HIS SHOES ON.
Our kitchen floor is covered in shards of plywood, nails and busted sheetrock, but he thinks he’s got feet like a hobbit or something. You are not indestructible.
He has to analyze every former tenant
Finally, he starts tearing down the wall between your kitchen and den. It’s been your dream since you moved in to be able to see into the backyard as you wash dishes (or more accurately, to see your brownies bake as you sip wine from the couch). You want this step to go as quickly as possible because you know it’s going to make such a huge difference in the flow of your house.
A video posted by Beth Thorne (@bethorne) on
But he keeps evaluating every newly-exposed 2×4 like the rings of a redwood for signs that the former owners were either a) actual trolls who preferred a cave-like meal preparation space and put up the wall in the first place or b) meth-smoking degenerates who let a water leak lead to a shoddy overnight renovation or c) BOTH, but above all, construction-renovation-habitation idiots who don’t know how to build, re-build or even live, apparently because did you even SEE how the crown-moulding was wrapped around the original corner?
This step took three days.
He ignore your process
Let me be frank: sanding is from Satan. I know this. He knows this. We are familiar enough with home renovation to know that sheetrock dust mixes well with nothing except the kindling that Baby Jesus will throw into the eternal Lake of Fire. It gets everywhere, it shows itself at inopportune moments, it settles on your valuables like a funk of bad breath. It is, in a phrase, le worst.
And so to stave off this unholiest of messes into the pristine space that is my home, I made a few requests. One, get some plastic tarps to put over my furniture and my bookshelves (which are right by the kitchen). Two, use the “dustless sander” which is beyond oxymoronic, but at least gives its name a fighting chance. And three, clean as you go. He picked one of those.
I am currently living in a volcanic ashcloud of sheetrock dust. Granted, the dustless sander kept it in piles only millimeters deep, instead of inches, but that is little consolation when your grilled cheese is burning and the only spatula that isn’t in the dishwasher is the one in the canister on the counter and it looks like it just took a trip to an 18th century French powder room.
And let’s not even discuss the bookshelves. Every book. EVERY SINGLE BOOK I OWN will have to be taken down and dusted, pages fanned, replaced in alphabetical order once I move the bookshelves to vacuum and mop behind them. None of which is useful to start now because of course … he’s still sanding.
The fights are legendary
We don’t fight a lot under normal circumstances. We’re pretty well adjusted to each other’s particular brand of every other day a-hole. He knows my cycle. I know what makes him tick. But if picking out granite doesn’t make you want to bash someone’s head in with the sample piece of Venetian Ice, then I’d like to know what meds you’re on.
Not that we’ve ever said that
Look, I’m sorry that he’s perfectly ok with the same granite pattern that was cool in 2007 because it’s $12 per sq/ft cheaper, but we have to live with this mess for at least another decade, and I’d rather go into the twenty-twenties not hating my choices like I did with the boot cut jeans + high heel combo I was sporting in the aughts. That’s not too much to ask.
The light at the end of the tunnel is dim
I don’t know how long this entire project will take. Our countertops are scheduled for next weekend. We are picking up the paint for our cabinets tomorrow. We are just getting into the super un-fun part. He has done a lot of work and I have supervised. To be honest, he built an endcap that looks great, he rebuilt the wall that will be our new bar, and he’s done a ton of work getting everything ready. I’m just ready for Demo Day to be over already. Demo Month is not as catchy.
At least, no one has been killed … yet.
The season finale of Fixer Upper airs tonight at 9pm on HGTV. We will be watching it together; he will have things to say and I will roll my eyes at them all.
