My mother nicknamed me "Captain Destructo" when I was a boy because I always tore things apart to see how they worked. In high school, I applied my curious mind to demolition work for my uncle, who flipped houses. Generally, the best way to take things apart is the exact reverse order of the way it was put together. So, I learned a lot about construction in a very informal way. My second job out of college was as a residential claims adjuster for Farmers. If nothing else, Farmers has an excellent training program where I learned all I ever need to know about construction standards and building codes. As soon as I bought my first house I started major renovations and I haven't stopped since.Whenever I want to start a new project, I look up 3 ways to do it online. I take the things I think will work best (easiest without looking like cr*p) from the 3, and dive in. This approach has served me well, but at some point you have to realize that any project is trial and error the first few times you do it. My tile work is now on par with your average professional, but if you ask my dad to show you my first tile job in his house (which I never finished), he'll gladly show you the Grand Canyon of grout joints and the Mount Everest of uneven tiles. But really, what did he expect, I was a teenager and he didn't pay me. But I digress...
As an ambitious person who knows what it takes to make a beautiful home, I imagined that I would enter my 30's in a chic living space. I imagined that I would be hosting parties all the time and be the epicenter of a social group. Cut to reality: I barely have a social life because my house eats up the majority of my "free time." Needless to say, the house isn't finished.
How I wasted my 20's:
It has taken us so long to renovate this house that we have lost motivation. It's the second house we've purchased together, and the first in our hometown of Portlandia. The house is in the uber-trendy neighborhood of Alberta, with loads of square footage and potential. But turning 4,200 square feet of potential into the showstopper we want has proven to be a grinding source of stress and a black hole of time. When we first moved in, both my husband and I would stay up late every night working on the house, barely sleep, go to work, then come home and start the cycle again. Don't get me wrong, this system produced a kitchen and living area on the main floor which elicits a "beautiful house" comment from almost everyone who walks in. However, I can name at least 3 things which still need to be trimmed out and painted in that space, and no one ever seems to notice that the considerable amount of subway tile in the kitchen has NO GROUT. Perhaps because we're gay, they think we're ahead of trend. In fact, we are not; though I'm starting to think of it as a positive, because it will be easier to rip out when it inevitably becomes dated before I get around to grouting it.The problem with spending our time turning the house's potential into something more tangible is that my husband and I are not living up to our potential. We'll get to the other areas of my life that I'll be improving later in this blog. As for the house, I'm hoping to correct the mistakes of my 20's by letting go of my perfectionism and paying qualified professionals to do the projects which take me too long. We've already hired out some of the basement work, creating the copper bar countertop, fencing the backyard, building the new back deck, and carpeting the basement. I must say, at first I was resistant, but I'm happy to have a little of my social life back while I just play coach on the house (not center, quarterback, running back, tight end, wide receiver, and kicker).
Where I want to be by the time I'm 30 (in 8 months):
The backyard is done, the basement is done, the back deck is done, the house is painted, and the top floor isn't just two giant rooms with a closet and bathroom. And now that you have a little background on the subject, I'm going to leave you with this accomplishment... We have been working on making the semi-finished basement a complete living area where we can move our little family to in the Summer months when it gets hot in the master suite. Today, the carpet is finally going into the bedroom and hallway down there. I am also finishing up grouting and sealing the tile tonight. If all goes as planned, we will move into the basement full time next week. I'll add some more pictures later. For now, this is the only photo of the new basement shower I have on my phone (taken at midnight after a raucous grouting session last week). Don't fall in love with the paint. I threw out the bucket before we could buy more and now my husband, John, has to repaint the whole thing a different color.
