We interrupt your regularly scheduled and curated DIY content to give you some real talk about home renovations: it is hard and stressful and anxiety-ridden. Today I’m going to be honest about some of the harder aspects of our renovation, especially in light of the fact that we moved out of Liz and Harry’s house before Christmas and have settled into our half-finished home.

We decided to move into our house after one bedroom and the guest bathroom were fully finished and our kitchen was almost fully installed. We moved in the week of Christmas and spent two nights in our home before traveling for 5 days to visit friends and go to a wedding in other states. When we arrived back to our house after 5 days away, I immediately lost my shit and burst into tears.  You see, we have worked on our house almost every day since August 15th, but we always had Liz and Harry’s warm and welcoming home as a safe-haven to retreat to each night. I feel like we have pushed ourselves out of the nest and barely know how to fly . But we wanted to move into our home when it became livable so now was the time.

In addition to feeling scared to live in a half-finished construction zone, I’m extremely upset with a major purchase we made that is impossible to un-do. I am fully unsatisfied with our new hardwood floors. I cannot believe how easily they dent and scratch. I feel rage pumping through my body every time I notice a new dent (which is constant), yet we are stuck with the floors now that they’ve been installed and our kitchen was placed on top of them.  The hard learned lesson that I impress upon all of you is NEVER to buy Birch floors. We had told the salesman our two priorities when selecting our new flooring were price and durability. He sold us garbage and I will never forgive him! But now I need to learn to embrace the “distressed” and scratched look, because it will be that way for the rest of time.

Finally, I am realizing that my beloved blue kitchen cabinets that I hand painted are very susceptible to dings and scratches. Cue more rage flowing through my body. I thought the expensive Benjamin Moore Advance paint (which is specifically marketed for painting cabinetry) would be durable enough but it is obviously not. So now I need to remove all the doors and hardware, and cover with a polyurethane seal. I’d prefer to wait until spring when the weather is warmer but then I run the risk of many more dings and scratches that would need to be painted over. UGH UGH UGH!! All I can say it thank GOD Jeremy has such a positive attitude, because if we were both miserable about these issues, our household would not be a happy place.

Besides being scared to live in an unfinished home and feeling frustrated at the floor and cabinets, I’m proud to say that our house looks pretty incredible. It’s only half done, but we have really brought it such a long way since we purchased it in the summer. We have a ton of work to accomplish this month, including installing the baseboard trim around the first level of the house, installing the toilet, sink, walls, and paint the soon-to-be new powder room, and put up walls and a ceiling in the back bonus room. Every week there is progress, and I have to keep reminding myself to control the tears and rage and look on the positive side.