Where to Start?

With any endeavor getting started is the hardest part. How to get started blogging, where and how to start documenting our DIY house renovation journey are questions rolling around my head, hence the title of my first blogging entry. Since this blog is getting started 10 months after the initial desire to capture the journey, I'll start with why I feel the need to share about renovating a house from a DIY experience, then post about current projects, as well as fill in the steps and projects we have undertaken in the last 10 months.

So why a blog? Well, as a teacher I have summers off, right, well for the most part yes, but as a teacher I am a life long learner, therefore I'm starting my summer off with a three day technology conference. A break out session I attended today was titled If I Can Blog So Can You so here I am a first time blogger. Since we moved and begin renovating an older home in need of serious tender loving care, we have talked about capturing the experience and memories of renovating a home from a true and honest DIY perspective so my blogging journey begins. Another less self-serving reason for creating this blog is to show appreciation to all the other home owners whose blogs and online postings have helped Ron and I chart our way through the DIY waters and to possibly help fellow DIY who might be scratching their heads looking for some help online and stumble across this blog.

Our journey from a newer, recently updated suburban home began in December of 2006 when Bob, a close, elderly family friend we help care for planted the seed that we should buy his home of 39 years as he lay in the hospital unsure of his fate. Ron and I contemplated, debated, and argued over the major life change for several reasons. With one son in college and the other heading there soon, money was a HUGE factor. In hindsight, money was the only reason Ron might have slightly hesitated, so let me finish the list with my reasons for digging my heels in . . . Time, memories shared in our home (first days of Kindergarten, holidays, handprints in the foundation, etc.), change, fear of not living in a neighborhood, changing phone numbers (yes, I know that's crazy, but I really liked the old number,) worries about coyotes eating my animals, kids, me, and not living in a "polished" house. In the end, the decision came down to one of those times in a marriage where someone has to give for the other person. Sometime during the early spring of 2007, I realized that Ron wanted the house far more than I didn't, so we transitioned to should we to we are going to buy and renovate an older house.

Our former home was in the process of being updated (hardwood floors, opening up the stairway and redesigning the bottom landing, painting, etc.) when we made the decision to move. Being true to his DIY self, Ron spent the next several months finishing the hardwood floors, closing up the stairway wall that he had carefully opened up as it was cheaper and faster to put the wall back, while I painted and spruced up by removing clutter from the house before we listed the house "FOR SALE BY OWNER." With all this going on, Bob was in and out of the hospital and rehab with a broken hip and heart troubles leaving us with no guarantees that when our house was finished and sold, that we would have a house to buy.

Leaving the hospital after visiting Bob in July 2007, Ron and I took a leap of faith and put the house on the market, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? We walked into Draeger Land and Home at closing, a future blog in itself, and signed up for Draeger's For Sale by Owner program despite having a few days more of work to complete. The house went on the MLS the next day, thank goodness nobody called over the weekend so we could finish up the last few finishing touches, and by the fourth day we had a full price offer. The offer included a short closing (less than three weeks) so we got busy packing, finding and moving Bob into a retirement/assisted living facility, and getting our son ready to go back to college and for me to start another school.

We moved on August 17, 2007, with most of Bob's things still inside the house. The first month involved a lot of cleaning, sorting, major dump runs, multiple professional spider sprays, asbestos removal, and tears on my part. Fall and winter brought stretched budgets and patiences, tears (me again,) demolition, BEAN-e-doo and kitty litter, more tears (guess who,) timelines pushed back farther and farther, but glimmers of progress began to emerge. Spring brought major progress, new plumbing and wiring, kitchen design completed, cabinets on order, and no tears! Here it is early summer, and the last appliance is being installed in our new beautiful kitchen. Tonight ss I start my blog and cook dinner on the barbeque, which makes a great oven in a bind, the noise of the shop vac and saw dusting swirling the kitchen are hardly noticed. This old house is now our home, for better or worse, and a new blog is born.