The Last Renovation (I hope)

Photo by Milivoj Kuhar on Unsplash

Back in May I wrote about our past experience with renovations and mentioned our last phase in renovating our house. (My husband’s childhood home that he was born in.)

Since May, we have (almost) finished my mother in law’s kitchen and laundry room. Upstairs we finished two rooms and added a new bathroom and corridor. We’ve renewed the exterior stairs. We are now on the second-half of the second floor. We are working on two more bedrooms, the living room, my kitchen and a bathroom! We are also fixing the stairs inside the house. The house originally was built in more than one phase so it has its quirks, like half the stairs being concrete while the other half is steel and wood. We also had two different banisters, that we have finally removed and installed a new banister. The staircase also had a window that opened into my old bedroom. My husband had boarded it up from the inside but it always looked gloomy to me because it looked as if it was dark and cloudy.

It is a big project! We’ve accomplished so much but it has been exhausting. I am so ready for all of this to be over!

My house is in complete chaos! I don’t have a kitchen, my mother in law’s kitchen is usable, but I don’t want to use it until she comes back. (hopefully soon. I’ve made a makeshift kitchenet in my new laundry room. I borrowed an electric stove top from my mother, I have a small fringe that’s big enough for breakfast and school lunch basics We do have a full-sized fridge in the storage room outside that I’m using until I have my own. The “play room” is now the living room. The “art room” is now storage for all my kitchen things and my daughter’s things. My boys are all sharing a room. My daughter has moved into our family room upstairs. She doesn’t have her own personal space and it’s been very hard on her, I can’t blame her.

The third floor which was the most organized space, has become cluttered with books my husband needs to go through and decide what he wants to keep and what he wants to donate. We also have a couple of boxes of random things that need sorting through.

All this clutter plus the never-ending layer of fine white dust from the construction has been frustrating. Having workers in the middle of the house is also difficult. It’s hard to have almost no privacy. Even though the workers are very respectful of boundaries. But we literally have a blue plastic curtain hanging in between the new side (what my kids have named the future) and the side under construction (the past)

I can’t wait to be finished. I can’t wait to have everything organized. I can’t wait for my mother in law to be back home. I can’t wait to have my home back, my privacy back.

I know it will be worth it all, but right now I guess I’ve had enough. Four months of construction while you are living in the house, overseeing the project yourself and buying all the finishing material yourself plus being a mom of five is a lot. I’m trying to balance everything and I’m trying my best to take care of myself too.

I know I haven’t posted much about the renovation on social media. Honestly, I’ve never been on social media much and I’m still getting the hang of it. I don’t have any “after” photos yet. So, bear with me, the end is near. Inshallah.