Five unexpected things that will drive you crazy when you renovate

In 2014 we happily purchased our second family home, after outgrowing our first. With some lovely features, excellent views and a sprinkling of character, we knew that this house with hospital green walls and dodgy 1990s kitchen had potential.

We also knew what was needed to make the most of it and that was a big covered back deck (to take in those leafy green views), an expanded and updated kitchen and a new family bathroom.

Our renovations started out like everyone else’s, as a Pinterest fantasy of mood boards for each separate element. I even had a clippings collection taken from an impressive back catalogue of Home Beautiful magazines.

After some false starts with our poor builder breaking his arm, the work began late last year and reached a pinnacle only after the deck was completed and the kitchen development began in January 2016.

With that came the removal of walls, floors, windows, and eventually some of my sanity. While we have since all recovered and love our new and improved home, here are the five most unexpected things we learnt from our renovation in the hope they might give you some guidance…

1. Tradesmen will see you at your best and your worst

You might start out getting up early and making an effort but after months of having tradies in every room of the home from 7am, privacy mishaps will occur.

You will be caught possibly, but not definitely: on the toilet, in your pyjamas having just woken up with a creased face and mad hair, bra-less and/or wrapped in a towel.

Your home is no longer your own so just get used to all the extra people and relax into it. If you can afford it, move out and save everyone the embarrassment.

Storm before the calm.

2. Marital stress will increase and you will lose it with each other at least once

Renovations are stressful and require great patience and tolerance for things not going to plan and vast quantities of paperwork.

Everyone has a tipping point and after a fair few weeks of chaos sharing one toilet with the tradies and having no sink, my moment came after spotting my son’s dirty shoes in with the (supposedly) clean dinner plates.

There were expletives and possibly tears but I can’t remember too much due to the red fog of crazy that came over me and then I dropped a full box of uncooked spaghetti on the floor and with that, we all went out to the pub for dinner. Again.

This brings me to the next point rather nicely…

Kitchen chaos. 

3. You will probably gain weight

Unless you are a saint with willpower of steel, living in dusty, chaotic surrounds with no sink or a place to chop stuff ensured we consumed a lot of sausages on the barbecue and ate out a lot at the local Thai restaurant.

Chocolate and wine were very comforting during this stressful period of time and with a fridge relocated to the lounge room, they were also easily accessible.

I did enjoy the “not being able to cook” excuse because we had no sink/oven/worktop, but the novelty did wear off eventually. Home cooked meals from family and friends were also much appreciated.

A “before” shot of the kitchen.

Progress shot of the kitchen.

4. Decisions will take over your life and you will stop caring

Be it grouting colour, door handles, shades of white (who knew there are so many!) or location of plug sockets, a time will come when you will stop caring about endless decisions.

This did mean that we got stuff wrong occasionally and while now I look at our annoying shiny black bathroom floor tiles chosen only because we had reached “peak tile”, I know every other person I have spoken to about their renovations feel the same about some element or other. Sometimes you just have to choose something.

Black tiles aside, the bathroom still looks way better than the pink-tinged early 1990s monstrosity it once was, so I have almost gotten over it.

My little helper.

5. You will live at Bunnings

We have spent most of our weekends cruising the aisles at DIY stores and suppliers getting all manner of items I did not know we needed or even existed until we started this project. We also enjoyed a weekly sausage sizzle, which no doubt contributed greatly to point number three.

As a legacy of our weekend ritual we now have at least 17 half-deflated green balloons floating around our son’s bedroom and some of the staff members are on first name terms. Hi Gary!

Good luck!

Starting to feel like home…