We may have taken the 'live with it awhile'...

[TBM]

...advice to an extreme, but I am kind of glad that we waited nine yrs to get the pavers and some of this other work done. Well, except having the house powerwashed and painted...that should have been done years ago. lol

We definitely wouldn't have been able to afford to get all of this done at once back then, but we both have recent inheritances that have allowed us the luxury of finally getting somewhere with this stuff.

Also, I finally have a really clear vision of how we want/need everything to function/look/feel, and if I had settled for something just to have something (DH's idea several years ago), it never would have felt right. Now, every decision we've made just feels right, and it's like the puzzle pieces are coming together.

It's been fun having people (various workers, exterminator, rain gutter guys, delivery people) come by the past couple of weeks...people who have never been here before. Everyone has been really complimentary of the house, (style, uniqueness, the courtyard...) and our vision for it. It's still a bit of a blank slate, but so many of the components are there, that it isn't hard to get an idea of how it will feel in the space. They all want to come back to see the courtyard when it is finished, and a couple of them said that they want to buy our house if we ever sell. lol


What have you been glad that you waited to change?

[simpsongal]

I have holes in my walls and floors that I have lived w/for 9 years (we bought in 2012). I have a master bathroom door that won't close b/c we knew we would gut it one day (maybe next year?). My now 4 yr older ripped a TP holder off the wall of our powder room and there's just a black masking tape 'X' over the area b/c I know we're getting rid of that bathroom eventually.

I hate the waiting, but we've played the long game on all our fixes and it is definitely WORTH IT. In short, instead of renovating our kitchen and baths in our floor plan, we've take down walls, moved plumbing/HVAC, done a side addition, and added a screened porch. It means our house is like 50% done, but it also means the finished project will be the culmination of a 15 year vision and much better than anything done in the original so-so floor plan. We've added lots of light, including 2 double french doors and 3 windows (where once there were solid walls).

Having young kids helps take the sting out of waiting....they ruin everything

ETA: Also, I remind myself when I think "we should have done this sooner" that we truly could not.  Between 2 daycares, student loans, and other life priorities....sometimes you just have to wait. 

[Susie]

It's interesting... I spent a lot of 2021 feeling exactly the opposite.  Before we listed our house for sale in April, we put in an intense effort to finish up a whole bunch of projects, and there was a big feeling of, why didn't we do this sooner?  Among them, we finally:

- painted the last room's worth of trim (kitchen) in the house so it was all matching white.
- put closet doors up in all the bedrooms.  We'd been without for most of a decade, took the old luan ones down when we put in new floors and just... never got around to replacing them.
- replaced the laminate kitchen counters with Corian.

The first two though were much more effort than $.  We should have just paid someone to finish those when we ran out of steam, or tried harder.

The Corian, we really did just to sell.  For as long as we were thinking we were going to stay, we were making the right call by living with the gapping laminate until we could do a big reno.  Since the plan changed suddenly, it was easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and say, well we should've done this sooner so we could enjoy it before we sold it.

In the new house we're doing a bunch of "live with it."  I posted the other week about our aqua hall bath that I need to paint.  A bunch of people pointed out that I could replace the sink top inexpensively to improve it in the short term.  But I am firm that we're going to live with it, and then do the whole thing, hopefully at at time when my kids are more capable of keeping bubble gum toothpaste from getting all over every damn surface.  We're also living with the kitchen layout even though we don't love it, because we want to see how we use the space, and where the pain points turn out to be.  I suspect they won't be exactly where we anticipated.

[TBM]

Jul 23, 2021 14:11:39 GMT -5 Susie said:

It's interesting... I spent a lot of 2021 feeling exactly the opposite.  Before we listed our house for sale in April, we put in an intense effort to finish up a whole bunch of projects, and there was a big feeling of, why didn't we do this sooner?

I definitely felt that way about our last house. I think I shot DH a look of death when he said,"We should have done this a long time ago.", when we were looking at the kitchen, after replacing the cabinet doors/painting the face frames to match, and getting a new counter. He always tells people never to utter those words about a renovation if they are the reason it didn't get done sooner, unless they are willing to suffer the consequences. lol

It was his fault that it didn't get finished sooner, for reasons that I won't go into (still a bone of contention, although he has accepted blame), but I did type it all out and then delete it, because it felt good to say it. lol

I do tend to enjoy the process, so just seeing that and some of the other projects to fruition was satisfying.

[steph2008]

It's funny, we just moved into our new house (our "forever" house so to speak until we downgrade to something smaller when the kids are gone) early July and I had already booked contractors for a project that I really wanted done (hardwood installed in the hall upstairs, carpet removed from steps, new railing and banister) and it's a relatively expensive project that doesn't feel "important"... now I'm kind of regretting booking this before we moved in bc what bothers me more is the upstairs hall bath, which I could have done well for the price I'm paying for this other project. In the end I know I'll be glad I did it, but the work ahead is overwhelming and I wish I had waited to live here before booking this, but, this time next week it'll be done and I'm sure I'll be glad.

[aspentosh]

Our house wasn't technically a fixer upper, but pretty close. Since we bought nine years ago, we've redone the basement, two bathrooms with the third currently being done, windows, siding, gutters/downspouts, patio, and some built in shelving in our family room. We've had to balance the pretty stuff with the functional stuff, and of course functional usually came first.

We waited 9 years to get our master bathroom and I am loving how it looks. Do I wish we had done it sooner? Yeah. But we came up with some really good ideas for functionality that we probably wouldn't have known to do back then. So that definitely applies.

Similar with our patio. I was pretty anti-patio for years because I hate step downs when coming out of sliding doors of the kitchen (plates full for the grill or al fresco eating), but H convinced me and I am soooooo glad he did. Our yard looks 2x a big, even though our patio is over 500sq ft vs the 400sq ft deck we replaced. The open sight line is huge. So another thing I am glad we waited, but ultimately wish we didn't have to

Last big thing to do is our kitchen. We're not big cooks and we don't entertain a lot, but it's a small, closed off, galley kitchen so we want to see if we can open it up. That'll be a couple years down the road since we need to save up for it.

But, on the flip side, there are so many smaller projects that I wish we hadn't waited on. And that list continues to grow, lol.

[mrsukyankee]

I know we'll wait to update two bathrooms until my MIL passes (she uses both - one is a bathroom with just a tub which she can't use and the other is a steamroom/shower but doesn't have a toilet in it). I expect this will be a while.

[libbygrl109]

We've waited 15 years to have our kitchen done, but everything else in the main area (refinish hardwood floors, gut bathroom, new doors, trim, paint) has been done and redone since we moved in. Some of it was out of necessity, some to improve the asthetics. All of it we've been very happy with. I am actually glad we waited this long for the kitchen. I think if we had done it back when we first moved in, we wouldn't have thought to do it the way we are having it done.

[Wallflower]

My "live with it a while" is my kitchen. And I get a reminder every time I walk into the room - I have a double wall oven and one of the ovens needs help. It tells me so, in a nice flashing message. Old enough and an odd brand that I can't get anyone to fix it, and replacing it would mean buying a new wall oven when I don't want one when I redo the kitchen.

For your amusement...

[magdala]

After 10 years of bad layouts and worse colors, we renovated our kitchen (gut rehab). We finished in November. It took longer than expected (COVID delayed everything) and cost more (COVID increased prices) but it has been so worth it. It is really nice when your vision finally comes together.

[ellipses84]

I’ve definitely felt “why didn’t we do this sooner?!” more often. The areas I think it’s helpful to wait and see how you live in a space are storage/ organization projects, choosing locations to hang artwork, and all outdoor projects. Most of those are easy to re-arrange later or complete gradually, though. We’ve moved a lot and when I’ve held off on those things I always think up better ideas after a couple months of living in a new place. @ also there’s no point in investing in $$$ furniture when you have young kids.

[simpsongal]

Jul 26, 2021 12:25:36 GMT -5 Wallflower said:

My "live with it a while" is my kitchen. And I get a reminder every time I walk into the room - I have a double wall oven and one of the ovens needs help. It tells me so, in a nice flashing message. Old enough and an odd brand that I can't get anyone to fix it, and replacing it would mean buying a new wall oven when I don't want one when I redo the kitchen.

For your amusement...
View Attachment

OMG I literally LOL'd

One thing I'll miss about my old cheap kitchen is the sturdiness of these appliances.  Our electric stove is a workhorse and our fridge is goin strong.  I know I could replace each w/pocket change and a trip to the Habitat for Humanity Restore

[TBM]

In my OP, I said that we should have had the house powerwashed and painted a long time ago, which is true...it really was bad. I just realized that if we hadn't waited, I might not have had the idea of having the soffits painted black to match the trim.

That is what is being painted today, and even with the overspray, I love it!

I love the way it looks (very modern and the screened parts of the soffits aren't distracting anymore), but what I really love is the way that it's changed the feel. It feels cozier and very calm...like it has had a grounding effect.

[froggy76]

I just posted about our whole house reno that just wrapped up. We were dreaming about renovating for 7 years and seriously trying to plan for the last 5 years. In the end, we spent almost 3x what I thought we'd spend and did a MUCH bigger project than I was originally thinking. I'm so glad we waited and saved and really made it a dream house. If we had renovated 5 years ago we would have done something totally different. It took me all those years of playing around with floorplans to have an epiphany about how to solve all our problems lol.

[Wallflower]

Aug 2, 2021 21:19:30 GMT -5 froggy76 said:

I just posted about our whole house reno that just wrapped up. We were dreaming about renovating for 7 years and seriously trying to plan for the last 5 years. In the end, we spent almost 3x what I thought we'd spend and did a MUCH bigger project than I was originally thinking. I'm so glad we waited and saved and really made it a dream house. If we had renovated 5 years ago we would have done something totally different. It took me all those years of playing around with floorplans to have an epiphany about how to solve all our problems lol.

That's so great to hear! I really would love to redo my kitchen (including the oven in such distress), but I don't have the $$ yet. And I have some specific problems I want to solve but I don't know the answer yet. I keep telling myself that waiting gives me time to come up with a variety of solutions, hopefully the right one, but it really helps to hear others say they've done the same thing, with success.

[froggy76]

Aug 3, 2021 6:48:38 GMT -5 Wallflower said:

Aug 2, 2021 21:19:30 GMT -5 froggy76 said:

I just posted about our whole house reno that just wrapped up. We were dreaming about renovating for 7 years and seriously trying to plan for the last 5 years. In the end, we spent almost 3x what I thought we'd spend and did a MUCH bigger project than I was originally thinking. I'm so glad we waited and saved and really made it a dream house. If we had renovated 5 years ago we would have done something totally different. It took me all those years of playing around with floorplans to have an epiphany about how to solve all our problems lol.

That's so great to hear! I really would love to redo my kitchen (including the oven in such distress), but I don't have the $$ yet. And I have some specific problems I want to solve but I don't know the answer yet. I keep telling myself that waiting gives me time to come up with a variety of solutions, hopefully the right one, but it really helps to hear others say they've done the same thing, with success.

Good luck! I must have had hundreds of different ideas and plans I drew up in the Ikea kitchen planner. Then all of a sudden about a year ago I realized we should just move the kitchen to a different room!