We have been renovating for years. Although intermittently and also in different homes, we've already tackled so much that I really had to think about it while writing this blog. It is a fact that renovating has an impact on your life, and on your relationship. Some people are good at doing odd jobs and renovating together, for others the relationship breaks down. It's the ultimate relationship test, I always say, and we usually do well. Until yesterday.
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Fortunately, Frank and I do quite well together. So until yesterday. Yesterday was the first time we had a little disagreement. And I deliberately say 'small' because it wasn't very special either. But I don't know about us and I was quite shocked, haha. But more on this later. First let's sum up our renovations together.
And when we were almost done with our old house, we moved. Not because we were necessarily looking for something else, no dude. We had just obtained our motorcycle license and bought Harleys to claim some more free time and spend it in a fun way. But by chance Frank saw the house for sale where we had been walking the dog for a number of years. How many times have we said to each other 'you could live there'…. And 1.5 years ago it suddenly came up for sale!
Then let's grow together again. Because the house is super cool in appearance and the place is really fantastic. In addition, we now have a lovely large garden and the house is completely free. A dream home for both of us. With one but… it is quite solidly built, but very old-fashioned. So the renovation had to start all over again. So we have already done quite a bit in our new house in the past 1.5 years.
We just went into the house like that, without doing anything about it. And while we live there we are renovating. The big advantage of this is that we can slowly discover how this house suits us and what exactly we want to change. The renovations we have done together so far:
We are now also working on a major renovation. The kitchen, dining room and living room are next. These spaces are very outdated. Granol on the walls, a dark wooden scrap ceiling, old-fashioned wooden panelling, sockets at eye level, a horrible fireplace, an ugly floor and so on. We are now tackling all that, including a beautiful new floor. We had doubts about painting the paneling and about a herringbone floor or concrete look variant. In the end we decided to remove the paneling and opt for the concrete look floor. By the way, I found it quite a challenge to choose a new floor!
And now for the second time in this house we are doing a major renovation indoors together. We have just completed the demolition of a number of existing walls. Fortunately, a friend of ours also helped for a day, which already makes a difference. Last week, the contractor installed two steel beams. As you can see it is currently a construction site. In the meantime we are lowering the sockets, installing extra electricity and the heating pipes have been adjusted because the heating at the front was not connected and we want to have all the pipes in the wall. And yesterday I removed all the tiles in our pantry with a hammer drill and chisel. What a job dude. So we have been renovating together for a few weeks now.
Roughing the tiles in the utility room was a fine job by the way, after the mismatch that Frank and I had when trying to figure out the attachment of our new extractor hood. A new industrial kitchen is not yet financially feasible, but a new extractor hood instead of the old fireplace will soon yield a nice result!
Installing a ceiling extractor hood is a job that we have never done together. Normally we can discuss together how we think we are going to go about it, but that was not the case this time. I just didn't understand how Frank wanted to go about it. I felt stupid and he got irritated. WTF? Quarrel while renovating together? We've never had that before and we've been together for 17 years anyway. And also growing together. Fortunately, we endured the mismatch well and continued to work with a lot of muscle pain as a result.
So for us, renovating and doing odd jobs together is not really a relationship test, but for many others this seems to be a real problem. That's what the friend who came to break our house also told us. With him and his wife, doing odd jobs together is not a success. And I know many more. How are you doing? Can you work well together, or do you also quickly get into each other's hair?
In any case, we are almost done with all the tedious and dirty work. Just a little longer and then we can start building again. The electricity is almost completely ready, now we still have to install the extractor hood (if that goes well) and make the complete plasterboard ceiling. In a few weeks I hope the plasterer will come (a job we don't do ourselves) and after that the steel doors can go in and I can start painting. We also have to level the floor and lay a new floor. I'm so excited! So to be continued!
For us it is fine to do jobs and renovations together, we are also happy when it is done and can enjoy all the beautiful things. If all goes well, we will be ready before the really nice weather and we can enjoy our garden this summer!
