Man I feel like this post has been a long time coming! We’ve talked a lot about projects, and what’s been happening at the Merc physically, but we haven’t really gotten into what’s been happening emotionally. (Not the Merc’s emotions, mine, in case you were wondering! 😂 I’m sure the Merc feels better than it has in 50 years!)
We’ve officially been living at the Merc for 7 weeks (!!) and I feel like I’m finally at a place with enough of the dust settled to evaluate what our life has been like for the last year. I have one word. PHEW. Also, wow. Also, I need a shower.
We’ve all seen reality renovations shows where they are over time, over budget, ready for divorce, and everything seems very precariously perched, ready to tumble at the slightest breeze. Right? Well. While we were over our initial (very aggressively and unnecessarily placed) timeline, we haven’t gone over budget, we’re not ready for a divorce, but that precarious place feels really familiar.
NO. ONE. SNEEZE.
Truth time. Guys, renovation has been hard. Not in a way that I regret even for a second, it has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. But there are just so many ups and downs! I’m all about sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly, and hard core renovation has all of them!
We knew we were taking on something huge, and man alive we’re not scared of some hard work but I didn’t really anticipate the emotions of it all. Probably because I live with eternally rose colored glasses on, I thought that the renovation would take a lot of time and work but that it would fit perfectly into the life that we already had happening, work flow, family life, everything would stay pretty much the same, we were just simply trading one type of project for another.
Ha.
Haha.
You may have noticed that blog/video updates that were going so strong slowed to a crawl riiiiight about the time I started talking about paint. That’s because while we were involved in stuff everyday in the beginning of the reno, most of the heavy lifting was being done by our awesome contractors. We did things, but they were the freaking rockstars and no one was waiting on us to get our stuff done. They were working on their stuff, and we were working on what we could work on.
We-heeee-hellll. That all changed in late January when it was time for the Gubler’s to put our money where our mouth was. Once our drywall was finished being textured it was our turn to work. And work we did.
We had to come up with the CRAZIEST life schedule, because you know, we also have children that we’re responsible for keeping alive. NBD. It involved at least three 40 minute round trips back and forth from the old house to the Merc every day. A lot of juggling kids, THE BEST SIL in the whole world, and lots of relying on our freaking awesome 14 yr. old daughter. To be totally honest, we couldn’t have done any of this without her. Ive you’re the best!
Our days have been filled with driving, shuffling kids, late nights, eating lunch in Home Depot, instagram story-ing, and really hard physical work. You guys know we’re not afraid of working hard but it was impossible to not go into some kind of survival mode. All bets are off when it comes to living normally during a renovation. It’s just not possible. Take what you’d normally have as your low standards for family interaction, hygiene, and work-life balance, and lower it by 700%. THAT is what life during a renovation becomes. There are so many exciting things that happen during a renovation, but most of it is filled with stuff that you think will take a day or 2 that actually takes weeks. (Like everything we’ve ever done!! We’re apparently REALLY bad at timeline projections.😂😂😭)
So the last little bit (since we’ve moved in) has been recovering from the renovation shock. A lot of checking to make sure that everyone still has their limbs, getting into a sort of normal routine again, and just catching our breath. The first week that we moved in, I went for a walk with the kids every night and quietly cried behind my still dusty sunglasses. How simple, right?! Watching Brem ride his bike and being able to feel our roots finally start to find footing again. I didn’t know how much I missed the feeling of having nothing more important to do but that. It has been magical!! We have dust everywhere, and TBH the thought of decorating right now makes me a little woozy, but we’re here. We survived!! We still don’t have bathroom light fixtures, shower doors, or caulked baseboards but we’ve also got pretty low standards so it’s 1000% fine.
I guess the takeaway from this post is that if you’re embarking on a big time renovation remember, you can do anything for a short period of time. Showers are over rated. McDonald’s Egg White Delights ⭐️⭐️⭐️. The days are long and the nights are short. Everyone will survive. It will be SO WORTH IT when it’s over!!
Phase 1 of the Merc reno has been the craziest most exhilarating and exhausting thing I’ve done in my entire life. If you’ve followed VR for a while you know that after a big project I like to clear the air on the blog and say, Hey! I’m so very grateful that you’re still sticking around through the sparsity. The good stuff you’ve been waiting for is coming!! You guys are THE BEST!!
(This was on our anniversary, we celebrated by taking this picture.)
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via Mandi at The Emotional Reality of Renovation
