The 10 Phases of Home Renovation: A Memoir
Photo Credit: Tomira Wilcox
We bought this house because we were tired of looking, and we loved the neighborhood. It had a lot going for it, and a lot not. We lived in it for four years and used that time to learn how we live, and what our needs were. Then we decided to rip the band-aid off and do a large scale gut renovation to right all the wrongs at once. The home was too small, lacked open-ness and light, and needed updating. The upstairs was tiny and only half the size of the first floor (half the house had no second-story). And nothing was in line with our personal aesthetic.
My design mantra throughout this project – and frankly my design advice in general – is: Details Matter. With this project, we lived in fear of walking away with a generic, clinical, modern home, so we balanced that with design choices that injected soul. The key to this was details that are unique to our home and no other. For example: the old farmhouse beams we salvaged from the demo’d parts of the house and repurposed in the upstairs hallway, the hand made transom window I sketched and had a lady on Etsy make to bring light into an upstairs bathroom from the hallway, and the holler window we had our builder make.
What the hell is a holler window? Glad you asked: it’s what we call an opening in a wall upstairs that we asked our builder to create very, very late in the renovation. The Holler Window™ allows me to bellow at my children in their bedrooms all the way down the main hallway, for any reason (late for the bus, etc). It also creates a nice open airiness that brings in tons of light. So if we ever sell the house we’ll market it the latter way, and not as a device for shrill mothers.
Anyway I digress. Following is a little wink I wrote about the emotional journey of home renovation and its highs and lows. Contrary to how it appears, no actual spouses or builders were harmed by me in the renovation process. Our builder Frank Giacobbe was absolutely the bomb and a total miracle worker, and everybody should call him.
Jenny’s new master bathroom
Phase 1: “We’re so excited about our reno project! It feels like we have a really good handle on costs and timeline.”
Phase 2: “I love how open communication is with our builder, and with my loved one/spouse. We all make such a great team.”
Phase 3: “Had our first little construction hiccup today. It seems like there might be a few hidden surprises. But everybody tells me that’s common, so I feel really comforted by that.”
Phase 4: “Lately, I wake up with a sweat-soaked t-shirt at night, and it seems like alcohol has subtly taken on a more important role in my life.”
Phase 5: “I should speak to my therapist about some anger management strategies for emotions I have begun to experience around the word ‘grout.’”
Phase 6: “I will not outwardly mock my loved one/spouse’s design choices, or when he/she struggles to see that mine are superior.”
Phase 7: “Oh hey person I married, we might divorce over the scale of window molding selections, but I’ll learn to love you again one day."
Phase 8: “Oopsies, I’m having unexplained daydreams about harming my loved one or my builder w/ construction materials again.”
Phase 9: “As it turns out, hurling personal insults about your builder, or his mother/sister, does not solve supply chain issues.”
Phase 10: “Yay our house is done and so pretty! I’d totally do it all over again in a heartbeat!”
