The title is deceiving.   I am asking for tips for surviving a home renovation – not giving them!   But hopefully those of you who lived through one or more can drop comments below the post for all of us to learn from your wisdom.

Tips for Surviving a Home Renovation

We moved to our current house in 2015.   Cam was only 2 weeks old when we moved and 2 months old when I found out my husband was addicted to heroin.    That put a little snag in our finances and our plans to put an addition on our home.

When we were house hunting I was most particular about the neighborhood.   I don’t like to drive so I wanted a house within walking distance to groceries, the library, and several restaurants.    Because this was my priority, I sacrificed some other things I wanted like 2 full bathrooms and second floor laundry.

Today they are breaking ground to dig the foundation for the addition we are doing on our house.  I’m going to be sharing the process on here the blog and even more on Instagram stories if you are considering renovating your home.

I thought it might be helpful to share what projects we are doing in case you (or a friend you might want to send this to) is diving into a similar process.

What we have done already to renovate our home?

Since we moved in we have already done quite a few projects ourselves.    If you recall I started as a DIY blog.  Now that we can afford to hire out, I prefer to see more professional looking results when possible :).

Some projects we’ve already tackled:

• We removed the wall between our kitchen and dining room to open up the space (I’ll be sharing the before and after here soon).
• We painted our existing cabinets white (which I’d never do again, painting cabinets was horrible).
• We redid our floors – staining them white to offset the honey colors that come through when you seal red oak flooring (see a before and after in this post).
• We tore out a rotting deck and had a tree taken down and replaced it with a stone patio and fire pit.
• We (with the help of my in laws) painted the entire inside of the house with the exception of the bathrooms.
• Redoing our roof since the addition will be cutting into our existing roof.
• We (hired out) to reface our fireplace.

What are we adding in our home renovation?

• Adding French doors that will exit the living room onto the patio.
• Relocating our half bath downstairs to make the kitchen more open to the living room.
• Expanding the eat-in area of our kitchen to accommodate more seating and windows.
• Relocating our refrigerator and cabinets to open up the kitchen/living space.
• Refacing our current kitchen cabinets.
• Adding a kitchen island.
• Gutting our current full bathroom to convert it to a master suite.
• Adding a full bathroom with laundry upstairs.
• Adding a 4th bedroom that will service as my office.   I love working in the kitchen but my kids don’t understand that I am working.
• Siding the house with material that doesn’t need to be painted every 5-8 years like our current cedar shingles.
• Adding central air.   Some people will be shocked that a lot of homes where I live don’t have central air.   This actually doesn’t bother me except that window units are an eye sore and central air is good for resale.
• Adding built-ins in the living area off our kitchen.

The Before

Here you can see the rotting deck we (as in my husband) ripped out.   Behind it is where we are adding steps to French doors that will brighten up the living room a lot.

The Patio

I haven’t wanted to purchase any patio furniture because I’ve known the whole yard would be torn apart and I wouldn’t get to enjoy it yet.    Hopefully you’ll follow along NEXT Spring when I take on that project ????.   You can see we also updated the landscaping (and by “we”, my hand in it was picking the flowers and mulch color).

The Plans

If you’re local, we are using  Liljedahl Home Repair (not to be confused with Liljedahl Brothers).   They do amazing work and have an eye for design as well as the construction aspect.

So if you’re into home projects (I LOVE THEM) make sure to follow along on Instagram stories where I’ll be sharing frequent updates.  I’ll probably be taking a lot of polls because there are SO MANY decisions that will need to be made.    As projects wrap up and I will have my own tips to share here on the blog!

Stay tuned because I’ll be sharing a BEFORE and AFTER of our DIY kitchen renovation and what we are doing to switch it up further in this process.   You can sign up for my newsletter if you want to stay current with what’s going on on the blog!

And finally, I’ve you’ve survived a major renovation project – do share your wisdom!!   What would you do different?   Tips for dealing with the mess?