This Old House

Houses, houses, houses!!
I am declaring 2018 the year of the home renovation.

Reality has set in like a ton of bricks, I tell ya.
Our rental has been a source of nagging stress for me ever since we moved. The house itself was fine, but in the four years we had our first tenant, it seemed each month the payments came later and the issues kept escalating until we finally agreed it was time for her to move on.

She left our home a complete disaster and if I ever see her again in person, I will likely punch her in the throat.

Kidding....sort of.

So we cleaned up the home and ignored all the glaring issues with the place, assuming everyone else would as well. I was newly, yet briefly pregnant and didn't think twice about the reality of the home, just that we needed to get it cleaned up enough so someone other fool could pay us to live there.

When my pregnancy failed again, I shielded myself from any additional drama in hopes to heal my heart.

It's been a little over three months, and while the photos of the home look fabulous online, and many people walked through those front doors, they quickly found alternative places to live, even if it meant more money. Our feeble attempts to mask the major issues are slowly picking away at the wall I put up to keep my emotions safe from stress.

It's time to tackle them head on.

We took the home off the market and hired a good friend and co-worker of Mark's....we'll call him Shorty (you know...like Joanna's Fixer Upper side kick?) to tackle each floor of the home.  The list of fixes and upgrades is rather long, and includes all new windows, which, gulp...I hope we knock out without a MAJOR dent in our finances.

But if there is one thing I excel at...is finding solutions with budgeting and research.

As I said in my Insta-stories...I am ashamed of that house in it's current state.
I sure as Hell wouldn't want to live there, so why would anyone else?
It's a far cry from the state in which we built our relationship over a decade ago.

Although it won't be featured on HGTV any time soon, I feel confident that the upgrades we have on deck will give this home the fresh start it needs to keep us working towards our end goal.

Of course we could always sell. In some of our lowest points, it's definitely an alternative we have talked about. We could just break even at this point, do no renovations and walk away with zero stress.

But I'm choosing to look at this property as a stroke of luck when we couldn't sell it five years ago.
And now that we have it...there IS a very attainable dream where we pay it off, sell it, then pay off the balance of our current home and be able to live mortgage free for the majority of our years on earth.

Doesn't that sound divine?

Switching gears, I checked in on the bathroom upgrade I'm working on.
As frustrating as it is, I realized the tile paint needs another coat.

This bathroom is like a little jig-saw puzzle. I work on one section and realize another area needs way more attention than I anticipated.

The upside about a longer renovation is that there are plenty of wintery days ahead of us to wrap things up before the weather is too beautiful to be held indoors any longer.

I'll be continuing to check things off my list and report back as I go.

As always, thanks for following along!! XO