Have you noticed that it has been some time since a reno update has appeared here?

Yeah……that’s because this summer took us down a rabbit hole of sorts and even though we STILL have a room left to finish in the basement before we can put in carpet and finally put all the things away in their proper place, we’ve been dealing with Outside Issues (and yes, they get a proper name with capital letters).

As you may remember, we discovered this spring that before we could finish the basement in good faith, we needed to replace our busted, busted driveway to keep water from leaking into the “new” underground spaces. Thankfully we found a crew that could take on the job and they attacked it, taking out our entire sidewalk, Hastings Classic Driveway (i.e. super long and therefore super expensive to replace), and back patio and replacing it in a two-ish week time span.

During that time we  my husband also expressed interest in replacing gutters which turned into a roof inspection which turned into an adjuster and a claim and yep – plans for a whole new roof thanks to good ole’ NE weather damage.

All of that took place in July. Then we started the Waiting Game, thanks to good ole’ NE weather.

August was bizarrely wet this year and we could not get a stretch of days long enough with a good enough forecast to do all that needed to be done to our would-be-exposed structures.

Finally, last week – the last week of the month – the weather turned and the project got started. I won’t even go in to all the ups and downs of roofing. Nope. It will get cranky and whiney and angsty way too quick. What I will do is document the fact that once again, this renovation has taken us down a path we could have never anticipated.

In the process of replacing dented metal sheeting around the windows, the discovery of rotten wood along the base of of our sunporch windows was made. Because, sure. Why wouldn’t we want another surprise project that makes everything take twice as long and costs more money? See – cranky, whiney, angsty. It’s just where I am right now.

But seriously. Sept. 1 marked the started of 10 months, which if I’m not mistaken means our reno has now taken just as long as it would have to grow a human. But we’re not even done yet (with the reno; we’re done growing humans)! With this new extended take-the-windows-out-replace-the-wood-put-the-windows-back business now added to the roster, our outdoor chaos continues , much less allows us to get that last room finished and put back together as soon as we’d like (which was like yesterday, or better yet – six months ago).

If this all feels eye-roll-worthy, trust me; I get it. We are privileged to have been able to poke the bear in the first place. At the same time, we never anticipated the major additions to the initial plan and now each and every little extra that pops up feels like a big kick in the pants. And it also feels like this wild ride is never going to end and projects are never going to stop adding themselves to the list.

My advice to people now when they start talking to me about house projects they are thinking of doing? Don’t. Don’t do it. Because if you start, you might just end up growing a house baby that is going to take way more liberty (and space in the budget) than diapers.

Or, at the very least, you’ll lose your marbles a bit and start making house/baby analogies in a desperate attempt to explain your crazy because dang – renos and crazy just go together it seems.