Home Renovations: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

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Here we are.....day two of DIY demolition {aka "Sawdust Hell"}.It's funny how in the midst of joyfully picking out paint swatches and floor samples one can forget how taxing & inconvenient the demo part of a renovation can be.
As in, I can't stand my house being turned upside down right now!
The toilets in the garage.
The office chair is blocking the fridge.
Our bed is in pieces in the basement.
And does anyone know where my dog is at?
Seriously, wake me up when this is done.We're less than 24 hours away from the contractor & his crew showing up to put in our new wood floors {EEK!}.  After much contemplation, the hubz had decided in order to save some dough on this remodel that him and some of our handy pal neighbors {beer, cigars, free lunch.... you can pay them off to do anything!} would do the demo part themselves. That way all we had to pay for labor-wise was the laying of the floors.Let's just say I'm sure there have been many times this weekend in between pulling up tile and ripping up hundreds of staples from the floor {no joke who ever put in the original fireplace and the floor tile was staple gun happy!}that Mr. Frugal has second guess this decision.  But like they say "no pain, no gain".

Here it is! That infamous green fireplace that I have despised since the day I laid eyes on it.
And in the words of some 90's boy band.......say "bye, bye, bye".
There may have been tears of joy when this monstrosity came down.
Or maybe that was just sawdust in my eye.


As luck would have it Unfortunately,
my doctor has me on some restrictions right now.........
no lifting and no hard labor.
Hoooowwww convenient*evil laughter, twiddling fingers*.
I promise no bribes were involved just good ol' medical advice and genius timing.
 I think my dog may be some where in there........
I hope their tetanus shots are up to date.{PS. Sorry for the bad pics. You guessed it. My camera is MIA along with that darn dog.} My office has moved from here........ ...................to here. Phew.....the dogs are still alive.  And yes, we have about three other rooms that look worse then this one right now {example....when I step out of the shower in our master bathroom I have to leap over a night stand. Fun times.} and yes, somehow I am trying to find joy in processing Christmas shop orders down here in this hot mess of a basement. Dear bedroom, I miss you.  Believe it or not, I did manage to discover some benefits to this renovation madness {other than the beautiful end results we're hoping for!} 1. Since we had to clear out rooms and closets it forces us to make a clean sweep of the house and get rid of things we no longer use or want.A matter fact I already made one trip to Goodwill today!Then I circled the building, parked, ran in and found more junk to buy for future DIY projects.I know really counterintuitive, eh? 2. What comes out, must go back in....or something like that.I'm hoping once we have the green light to put the rooms back together this will force me to organize all those spaces I've been avoiding. Kind of like moving into a house for the first time. 3. Discovering secret messages. After we ripped up the carpet in the front living room we discovered a large message scrawled on the floor board in pencil.The guys deciphered it as saying "Pete, I will finish up when you get back".The Italian in me is convinced the message looks like it says "Pete, I will finish u when you get back."Clearly, a warning from the mob. If there is one thing we all agreed on it is that Pete should have invested in post-it notes or something. Ugh....renovations the good, the bad, and the ulgy.Well, now I'm off to go vaccuum up nails or something.  So have you taken on any home renovations lately? Have any advice to survive the chaos?Ever find a message written in your house? Perhaps behind old wallpaper or chipped up bathroom tile?